"My dogs walk."

Translation: Moje psy chodzą.

[Braito84]

Moje psy idą, też jest możliwe, nie?

[luless]

It would be my dogs are walking.

[Braito84]

Yes, you are right

[Oliver536732]

Please help quickly: It's "moje" because the dogs are not "personal" i.e. men right? But I remember reading one of the comments that if the dogs are male and allocated names they become personal? Is this the case? so: "Moi Max i Jan chodzą" referring to my dogs Max and Jan.

[Jellei]

Perhaps you could defend such an interpretation, especially if you are veryveryveryvery close with your animals, but I'd say that rather not.

It's not just about having names, as generally almost all pets have names. It's about personifying them. Which happens almost only in comics and cartoons. So, if you talk about Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Garfield, Bugs Bunny, etc. - they are masculine personal, as we treat them as persons. But in real life, that rather doesn't happen.

EDIT: Frankly, after a second thought, I'm not so sure. I never had any animals. Maybe people do that more often than I think. I'd just say "Moje psy chodzą", but if I wanted to use their (male) names, then maybe...

[Emwue]

„Pies i kot poszły” but „Burek i Maciek poszli” – while „pies” i „kot” are not personal, most names in Polish are, because they usually denote people. ;)

[Oliver536732]

Thanks! I was wondering if by my logic you could defend "Moi psy chodzą", but I think I have this German notion in me where "der Hund" is referred to as "er". I'm happy with your reasoning and will treat all animals, with names or not, as impersonal for all future cases.

[Emwue]

This is a bit more complicated – „Pies” is indeed „on”(just like in German), but beside the grammatical gender, Polish also uses two noun classes, personhood used to differentiate nouns that are persons (those nouns are personal) or not (those are not-personal) and animacy, used to differentiate nouns that are alive (those nouns are animate) or not (those are inanimate).

In order to use masculine personal in plural, you have to have in your group one noun that is masculine-animate and one noun that is personal(worth noting that masculine-personal nouns meet both conditions at once), for every group that fails on these two conditions, you use the not-masculine-personal inflections.

Since „pies” is a non-personal noun, you have to couple it with a personal noun to use the masculine-personal inflections:

• „Pies i kobieta (feminine personal noun) poszli (masculine-personal verb conjugation) na spacer”. ["A dog and a woman went for a walk"]
  But:
• „Pies i kot poszły na spacer” ["A dog and a cat went for a walk"]

[Oliver536732]

Thanks that helps a lot too! So would it be correct to say "moi dziewczyna i pies poszli na spacer"? or would you rather say "moja dziewczyna poszła z moim psem na spacer" (I had help constructing that :P)

[Emwue]

Rather the latter, but it has nothing to do with the subject at hand – we simply hate using plural pronouns in front of a singular nouns. ;) This even affects the verb choice, for example for a list of singular items:

• „W moim domu jest(!) łazienka, toaleta, kuchnia i trzy pokoje.”
  but at the same time:
• „W moim domu są trzy pokoje, łazienka, toaleta i kuchnia.”

Just an interesting quirk of Polish grammar. As for the matter at hand, you could easily say:

– Moja dziewczyna wzięła mojego psa na spacer, poszli na dwie godziny.

Using „poszły”(not-masculine-personal) would be a grammatical error here, though some Poles would do that if the „pies” was in fact a „suka”("❤❤❤❤❤", as in, a female dog). Still, even then if would be an error, as „pies” is masculine-animate regardless of his/its biological gender, so coupled with a feminine-personal noun can only be used with masculine-personal inflections for a group. ;)

Nevertheless, I think it's not really something worth paying attention to – even some Poles get it wrong and most of the situations are easily covered by the simplification of "Use masculine-personal for a group of masculine-personal nouns, not-masculine-personal otherwise", so unless you want achieve some perfect C2, there is really no point, IMHO. ;)

[Will127979]

Why is this not Moi Psy? I thought since pies is masculine it should be Moi

[alik1989]

Plural distinguishes between masculine personal (virile) and non-masculine-personal (nonvirile}. Dogs are nonvirile, as they aren't human.

[WilliamM.G]

Please tell me where I did NOT learn that the masculine pies does not carry the masculine "moi" when dogs become psy. Grazie infinite.

[Jellei]

The "Possession" skill. If you take Lesson 4 again, you will see that all those nouns used with the possessives in that lesson are not only masculine, but they describe people ('masculine personal plural'). Meanwhile earlier, in lesson 3, "moje", "twoje" etc. have been used with nouns that are masculine, but they do not denote people ('not masculine-personal plural).

[Will127979]

I get that this lesson is focusing on chodzić, but without any extra context why couldn't this be "Moje psa idą"?

[Jellei]

"idą" is for Present Continuous.