9 Comments
Why is "pomidor" used here instead of "pomidorem", which is the instrumental case?
You only use instrumental with jest when associating two nouns with each other, e.g. 'To warzywo jest pomidorem' - 'This vegetable is a tomato'.
Here you're just pointing and saying 'This is a tomato' and the construction in Polish is 'To jest [noun in nominative case]'.
Thanks! So instrumental is only used with identifying one noun as another noun?
Yes. Pronouns work too - I could say e.g. '(Ja) jestem pomidorem' - 'I'm a tomato' when I feel that I need to ketchup
I prefer understanding over lerning rules, but in case I haven't found the logic yet. So, the noun following 'to' is in nominative case (regardless of a form of byc in between)? Is a way to remember this?
- to jest noun (nom)
- to noun (nom) jest noun (instr)
- noun (nom) to noun (nom)
- noun (nom) jest noun (instr)
- jest noun (instr)
ya! i got it right! my mama is from poland and it is hard! how is that possible?
