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- Topic: Polish >
- "This fish is not good."
"This fish is not good."
Translation:Ta ryba nie jest dobra.
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2169
I typed "Ta ryba jest nie dobra" and got told that I had an extra space and the answer should be "Ta ryba jest niedobra". There is an alternate solution "Ta ryba nie jest dobra".
Can I assume that in general you use "nie" as a prefix to an adjective, and not a separate word, to negate it? So you could say "niezła" for "not bad" and "niemała" for "not small" if you wanted but not "nie zła" or "nie mała"?
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Yes, you write "nie" as a prefix with some parts of speech, for example with adjectives. However if you stress "nie" (to confront, to oppose) you write both words separately, i.e. "Ta ryba jest nie mała, ale malutka!" (This fish is not small but tiny/very small). Nota bene, you always write comparative and superlative adjectives without "nie": niemała ryba, nie mniejsza ryba, nie najmniejsza ryba.
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Thanks for the fast reply. I haven't gotten to the adjectives lessons yet but I'll bear what you said about superlatives in mind when I get there.
In English you can prefix some words with "un" to negate them, but not others. So for example you can say both "unhappy" or "not happy" although they have a pretty subtle difference that I would have a hard time explaining. With others you cannot do that, there is no "unbig", you must say "not big" or "small". Is the same true of Polish or can you prefix most adjectives with "nie" to get the inverted meaning?
Yes, you can add "nie" to most adjectives. And in this matter Polish is more regular than Eglish which has a few negative prefixes: a–, dis–, il–, im–, in-, ir–, non–, un–.
I cannot remember any adjective or participle that you cannot add "nie" to, but I know some adjectives that you cannot take "nie" out of like niebieski is just blue , not unbieski
–Jasiu, co to jest?
–Toperz!
–Nie, Jasiu, to jest nietoperz.
–Jak nie toperz, to ja już nie wiem!
Sometimes the initial „nie” is just part of the word itself and has nothing to do with negation.
I got the same - seems odd - first time I've encountered it, i.e. "niemala". Because I didn't want to manage an instrumental case for dobry due to equating (using jest), I put in:
Ta ryba to nie dobra
This came up as incorrect. How come you cannot use "to nie" here?
Because "dobra" is not a noun. You cannot use the "X to Y" construction if Y is an adjective.
Besides, it would be "niedobra". "Ta ryba jest niedobra".
„To” can be used when comparing two nouns for example. And in a bunch of other situations when it has some different meaning. But you can't compare a noun and an adjective with it.
Can anyone explain me the difference between "dobra" i "dobrza"? I think I'll die trying to figure it out...
"dobrza" is not a word.
You either mean "dobrzy" (masculine personal plural, e.g "dobrzy ludzie" = good people) or "dobrze" (the adverb "well").
You can only use the 'to' construction if you have noun phrases on both its sides.
Why "nie jest dobra" and not "nie jest dobryem"? Is "Dobry" not a masculine thingy (I dont know really what noun or adjective mean if im to be honest).
OK, this is Google Translate but on such basic sentences it will probably be correct.
Ta ryba jest dobra. = Ова риба је добра.
Ten lew jest dobry. = Овај лав је добар.
It really seems that Serbian grammar is quite similar to Polish. Both "риба" and "ryba" are feminine nouns and they need feminine adjectives. Both "лав" and "lew" are masculine nouns and they need masculine adjectives. There surely will be differences between Polish and Serbian, but it seems worth it to compare it to your native language.
As for nouns or adjectives... I guess you need to read about it on the internet.
Firstly, you didn't translate "this" at all, and secondly, "not good" and "bad" aren't exactly equivalent.
I can't get my head around cases. Could that be part of the solution so when I get it wrong (most of the time) I could see why straight away? Sorry I'm so dumb.
We don't have a technical way to easily show you which word is in which case.
