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- "A decade is not a second."
"A decade is not a second."
Translation:Dekada to nie sekunda.
19 Comments
It can be:
-
Dekada to nie sekunda. ("to" + "nie" + nominative)
-
Dekada to nie jest sekunda. ("to" + "nie" + to be + nominative). Here "to" is not necessary but it's not an error to put it.
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Dekada nie jest sekundą. ("nie" + to be + instrumental)
In relation to 3 - does być's requirement of instrumental case always override negation's requirement of genitive case?
Only direct objects of transitive verbs change from Accusative to Genitive in negations.
Are you really sure about 2.? I'm pretty sure that's wrong- it's like immery says, either 'to nie sekunda' or '[to] nie jest sekundą'. If you use być, you must decline to instrumental.
Yes, it is correct but maybe less common. You can see that there is "jest" in parentheses in immery's comment.
Ah, true. I think what confused me about your original comment was 'Here "to" is not necessary but it's not an error to put it.' - really that's not the case, it's "jest" that's optional in this case. Basically if you use "to", you don't have to worry about declining even if you also use być, but if you don't have a "to", you need to use the full być + instr. construction.
"normal sentences" :
dakada to nie sekunda
dekada to nie jest sekunda
dekada nie jest sekundą
rare: dekada nie jest to sekunda.
dekada to nie jest sekundą
Here "to" is used in a different meaning- it is an expressive particle. In this sentence I cannot think of context where it fits. but "A maj to nie jest miesiącem"?" ("And May is not a month?") or "A kobieta to nie jest człowiekiem?" (and a woman is not a human?)
immery did not write "dakada" in the comment you're replying to... and that would be a spelling mistake.
I thought negations take the genitive case. So, " Dekada nie jest sekundy. " did not work?
'To' is special, basically, and avoids you having to decline. It's useful for a learner, it's easier to quickly throw two nouns in nominative together with 'to [nie]' in between than to use jest and have to decline one of them.
you are right, but also only accusative changes to genitive.
"Dekada nie jest sekundą"- sekundą in instrumental
I agree that sekundą is instrumental. But now with "nie", doesn't sekunda become genitive -sekundy?
No, it is still instrumental. Hard to explain why, but basically you only use the genitive in the negation if the positive was accusative/genitive.
Apologies in advance for being so dense on this one. I've read through the comments but still not clear - Why is my answer of "Dekada to nie jest sekunda" rejected? I understand that dropping "jest" would be better, but does adding "jest" completely rubbish the sentence?
I was right but it commented 'pay attention to the accents'...what accents?
