"Styczeń jest miesiącem roku."

Translation: January is a month of the year.

[ChrisFlynn12]

Is it instrumental because it is with być?

[Euhan1]

Yes

[Gaiajack]

What case is "roku"?

[kpagcha]

Can someone link to the month's ethymology in Polish? I find them quite unique.

[Jellei]

It comes from Old Slavic *měsęcь, which meant 'the Moon'.

[kpagcha]

I didn't mean the word "miesiąc" ;) but rather every single month.

[Jellei]

Oh, right :D Well, a lot of them come from words that are so old that they are almost not used at all in contemporary language.

The ones that have most obvious roots:

kwiecień (April) from kwiat (flower)

lipiec (July) from lipa (the linden tree)

sierpień (August) from sierp (sickle)

listopad (November), because liście (leaves) (s)padają (fall).

[immery]

wrzesień- from wrzos (heather)

less obvious

październik- from paździerz (waste from producing fiber from hemp or linen)

marzec, maj - from Latin

grudzień- from "gruda" - frozen bit of soil

luty comes from word for "very cold"

czerwiec- comes from a name of insect, the same insect is a root of word "czerwony"=red

styczeń - has unknown etymology, some guess it's from "stykać" (connect, touch,) or from "tyka" (a kind of stick/pole)

[Maksym626803]

"Styczeń" in Ukrainian is "січень" (similar, but without "t"). Maybe it comes from the verb "сікти" - "to chop", "to cut". There is the expression "сікти зубами" - "to pound with your teeth" (usually because you are cold).

[Euhan1]

Isn't czerw a worm rather than an insect?

It seems likely that earthworms of some kind could be used to make red dye.

Admittedly "worm" can sometimes refer to the larval stage of an insect but i think it would be hard to gather enough of them to dye fabric. Perhaps the month could be named after an abbundance of caterpillars, though.

[immery]

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czerwiec_polski

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_cochineal

it's an insect, but the larvas were used to produce red.

[AstroVulpes]

You don't say...

[kiddo-depido]

You say it in Polish

[chce_polski]

It sounds like she says nie jest miesiącem roku...

[Jellei]

I don't hear it... and actually sometimes I have the same problem when real people talk.

[Dylan628390]

In my opinion duolingo would be a thousand times better if it had somewhere seperate from the lessons where you could go to get the cases explained and practice them, thats where 95% of my mistakes are coming from and the reason i cant get my legendary badges.

[Jellei]

We hope that in some time we're going to get the possibility of creating grammar lessons so we can teach that better.