"We do not know that girl."
Translation:Nie znamy tamtej dziewczynki.
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So if I wanted to say, "We dont know those girls" instead of "this girl", how would I say it?
When you negotiate a sentence, accusative turns into genitive.
E/3 (F) in genitive is jej so other pronouns also add the same suffix, so it turns out to be tamtej the correct one.
Yes, it is genitive. Feminine nouns in genitive end in either -y or -i.
'Dziewczynką' is instrumental.
Both "dziewczynki" and "dziewczyny" are correct here (as Genitive singular), they are both also Nominative and Accusative plural. As it happens for almost all feminine nouns.
It's a very common rule in Polish. If a positive sentence needs Accusative (My znamy tę dziewczynkę), then when negated, it switches to Genitive (My nie znamy tej dziewczynki).
Dziewczyna is a correct translation , but you need genitve after "nie znamy"
Nie znamy tamtej dziewczyny.
you need genitive after "nie znamy"
Nominative- tamta dziewczynka
Genitive-(nie znamy) tamtej dziewczynki
Accusative-(znamy) tamtą dziewczynkę
I wrote "Nie my znamy tamtej dziewczynki", and it was marked incorrect.If I was going to use the pronoun,could someone tell me where would I put it for the sentence to be correct?
At the beginning. Right now your sentence is like trying to write "It is not us that know that girl", but making a grammar mistake (as the verb is not negated in your sentence, the object should take Accusative, as always - "Nie my znamy tamtą dziewczynkę").
So"My nie znamy tamtej dziewczynki"? Also,the verb is only negated if the negation is placed immediately before the verb and not otherwise?
again the wrong pronounciation of tamtej... the tej sounds wrong. it should sound just like tej (this)
I struggled with "tego/tamtego vs tej/tamtej" and found this explanation helpfull. (https://hinative.com/en-US/questions/14001337)
tego - this (masculine nouns) tamtego - that (masculine nouns)
▫Widzisz tego mężczyznę? Can you see this man?
▫Widzisz tamtego mężczyznę? Can you see that man?
tej - this (feminine nouns) tamtej - that (feminine nouns)
▫Piszesz do tej czy do tamtej (drugiej) dziewczyny? Do you message this or that (other) girl?
"tamta" is Nominative, used mostly for the subject of the sentence, e.g. "Tamta dziewczyna jest wysoka" ("That girl is tall").
Then we have Accusative "tamtą", used mostly for the direct object of the sentence ("Znamy tamtą dziewczynę" = "We know that girl").
When we negate a sentence that took Accusative, it takes Genitive instead (that's the only case which changes when negated, other cases stay unchanged). Genitive is "tamtej" - and that's how we end up wit our sentence here.
The main translation uses "tamtej", but "tej" is also accepted, because Polish and English use those words differently. Roughly, [this/that/that] = [tej/tej/tamtej], so the middle options overlap.
I'm glad to see that I am not the only one confused here! I thought 'that' would be a dummy pronoun and therefore tamtego? Why is it not a dummy?
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Well, it's not a dummy pronoun because it refers to 'girl', it doesn't stand on its own. A dummy pronoun would be present in "I like that", "Can you see that?" or "Could you give that to me?". When you have a dummy pronoun in English, then all of the following three: "this", "that", "it" are possible to use and they mean more or less the same. Here you have "that girl". It's a determiner here.
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All English dummy pronouns translate to Polish "to" and its forms, so "tamtego" wouldn't be an option anyway.
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If the sentence was "We do not know that" then in Polish it would be "Nie wiemy tego". The verb changes because the meaning of the English sentence changes, more or less from "We are not familiar with that girl" (which uses "znać" in Polish) to "We do not know that = We do not have that knowledge", which uses "wiedzieć".
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https://www.clozemaster.com/blog/polish-demonstrative-pronouns/ this should be helpful.
Well, in here that's Genitive singular, but those forms are also the basic forms for "girls", plural.
"dziewczynki" is about a younger girl, "dziewczyny" about an older one, even a young woman. The age difference is subjective, personally I place it somewhere between 8 and 13.
