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koleżanek = genitive plural of "koleżanka"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kole%C5%BCanka#Polish
so "wiele" takes the genitive plural.....
So, because koleżanek here is genitive, does that mean a direct translation is something like "many of friends?" Where else does Polish have such a construction, where a quantitative adjective takes a genitive following it?
I wouldn't call 'wiele' an adjective... although I see that English Wiktionary does :| To me, it's a kind of a numeral, or more of an adverb. Anyway, it's a quantifier, and quantifiers just take Genitive.
koleżanek is feminine - actually girlfriends isn't it? - but I was marked wrong?
In Polish "girlfriend" means somebody's partner, this is a sign of deeper relationship.
Girlfriend would be probably closer than a 'koleżanka', which is just a bit more than a 'znajoma'. A girlfriend might be a 'przyjaciółka', where a girlfriend in a sense of a partner is a 'dziewczyna'.
Yeah, but in this course we always treat "girlfriend" as a romantic partner, it would rather only mess things up if we were to deal with "girlfriend" as something that teenagers say about their friends.
Why is it wielu kolegów ('u' ending), but then wiele koleżanek ('e' ending)??? I don't understand why wiele is changing endings.
Well, it has two versions, depending on which plural you're using. "wielu" is masculine personal, "wiele" is 'not masculine-personal'.
(This comment used to have another part which was completely wrong.)
Jellei, Can Duolingo maybe set up a supplementary tree just for Polish numerals? Having all these rules bunched up into one part of the tree feels too challenging for those trying to learn this language step by step. Or at least, can't there be a few separate Number branches to the tree? Thanks for your help!
Tree 2.0 plans at least 5 skills for Numbers ;) For example "Numbers 1" only uses Nominative and Accusative and nothing else, despite that the users know also Genitive and Instrumental at this point. We are aware that this is one of the most difficult things in this whole language.
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So if "wiele" takes Nominative, is koleżanek an irregular Nominative non-masculine personal plural of koleżanka? I thought it would be koleżanki in Nominative. Koleżanek looks like Genitive to me.
It is Genitive. I don't know where my brain was when I wrote that comment, that was complete nonsense... Both "wielu" and "wiele" take Genitive. Apologies for confusing you.
(the comment has been edited now)
