"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?
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.
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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.