"He is looking for my plate."

Translation: On szuka mojego talerza.

[koroleva_indiana]

Why "mojego" ? Isn't talerza a feminim?

[luless]

talerz (Nominative) is masculine - szukać requires Genitive case and talerz(Gen) -> talerza

[henry2500]

Are there any rules for when you don't need a preposition? I know instrumental doesn't require it often. For example: I ride by bicycle is translated without a preposition in Polish.

[immery]

1) phrasal verbs translate to regular verbs (we often use prefixes instead)

2) with=using a tool - instrumental without a pronoun

3) doing something for someone - may translate to Dative

[immerweiter]

can is use here swojego?

[Jellei]

No, because the subject and the person that has the plate are different.

"On szuka swojego talerza" is a perfectly fine sentence, but it means "He is looking for his (own) plate".

[Hereandthere715]

I could be extremely mixed up, but I thought -ego, -a was for masculine animate adjective-noun combinations, with a few food items also included into the mix. Are all eating-related terms also supposed to take -ego, -a? Or am I just completely getting this all wrong?

[alik1989]

What you describe is singular masculine animate accusative, whereas in this sentence it's singular masculine inanimate genitive (the two of which look exactly the same). It's just that szukać is one of those verbs that always require genitive.

[Hereandthere715]

Dlaczego języka polskiego musi być tak trudna???

I dzięki. To ma sens.

[alik1989]

*Dlaczego język polski musi być tak trudny?

I know it's confusing in the beginning, but I personally can say that as soon as I take a good look at the conjugation tables, everything starts making sense again.