"The lunch is tasty."
Translation:Obiad jest smaczny.
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Can somebody link me to where it says the difference between smaczny and smaczna? From what i know now it can only presume it's random number generated.
Each noun in Polish has its grammatical gender: male, neutral or female.
Adjective has to fit its form to the gender and the case of the noun that it describes.
- "Obiad" (lunch/dinner) is male, so the adjective has to be in male form "smaczny obiad".
- "Zupa" (soup) is female, so it would be "smaczna zupa".
- "Mięso" (meat) is neutral, so it would be "smaczne mięso".
If you do not know which form an adjective should take, you can check the gender of the noun to describe in a dictionary, for example:
Because the trick with using "to + noun in nominative" instead of "jest + noun in instrumental" can be done only in structures "noun is noun" [1]
See my comment to 94BlueLane's question.
[1] To be more precise, it can be also done with other words or groups of words, as long as in a sentence they perform the function of subject as a noun or a noun phrase. Perhaps also the function of object, but I can't think of any case where no "real" noun would be used as a part of object.
I was under the impression that "jest" governed a certain case (instrumental?) and so any following adjectives should end in "m/em" or something like this. Can someone explain this for me? :)
This is true for phrases type Subject-Verb-Object, where object can be either a noun or a noun described by some adjectives (noun phrase). In that case, the verb "jest" governs the object and requires instrumental case, then the case of the adjective must match the case of the noun:
- Pies jest zwierzęciem. - The dog is an animal.
- On jest dobrym człowiekiem. - He is a good man.
The above is a different case: Subject-Verb-Adjective. We do not have an object (or another noun besides the Subject), we only use the adjective to describe the Subject. In this structure there is no instrumental case, only the adjective in nominative:
- Pies jest miły - The dog is nice.
- On jest dobry - He is good.
You can only use the 'to' construction in an "X is Y" sentence in which both X and Y are noun phrases.
You can think of it as something like a "=" sign. You can say "The lunch = a tasty meal" but not really "The lunch = tasty".
More info here: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/16373167
Just to make things interesting, while I was staying in Poland with a family the lunchtime meal was called kolacja, they didn't really use 'obiad' at all
That sounds very surprising to me, are you completely sure? I just can't imagine any native speaker changing the meaning of the word like that...
Yup, we even had several discussions about it, because 'dinner' and 'tea' can mean different things in Australia than they do in UK etc. I started calling late lunches 'koblacja' and late breakfasts 'śnobiad' which they seemed to find perfectly acceptable
100% true!! Obviously they're not real Polish words, but they liked them anyway :) Maybe it's a Łodz thing? Reply: i would assume Antonina was referring to the noonish/lunch meal. I miss her schnitzels and kotlety :( also weird was how 'makaron' was used for all pasta including noodles :/
We sometimes call a late dinner "obiadokolacja" (Eng. "high tea" or "meat tea")
So, if they asked you "Jutro będziesz z nami jadła kolację?" how would you know if they're referring to the meal at noon or in the evening?
It's mostly dependent on the ending of the basic form of the noun. This post should be helpful: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/14133935