"She is buying nineteen blue plates."

Translation: Ona kupuje dziewiętnaście niebieskich talerzy.

[BronwynYoung]

Could someone please tell me why it's 'niebieskich' rather than 'niebieskie'? Is it in the genitive case?

[Jellei]

Yes indeed. Most numerals actually take Genitive..

The ones that take simple Nominative are: 1, 2, 3, 4 and those ending with -2, -3, -4... apart from those ending with -12, -13, -14. And that's just the beginning of Polish numerals, because then of course the function they serve in the sentence changes the case of the whole 'numeral+noun' phrase...

[arminia11_web_de]

Anybody old enough to remember blue plate specials?

[RadhaTereska]

I realize the number words are here so we can learn them but in real life situations would a Pole write out the numbers or use just numbers: Ona kupuje 19 niebieskich talerzy

[hivemindx]

You might need to say this sentence aloud, instead of writing it (although that is pretty unlikely I admit).

In the French course you can put the numerals instead of spelling out the words and it is accepted. I always do this for numbers and times when I am writing the English translation of the French text since I don't need the practice at learning "a quarter to five" is the same as "4:45". You could check and see if this works for the Polish course too.

As far as whether a Pole would bother to spell out the number we'll have to wait for a native to say. It's probably the same as in English though, sometimes you would and sometimes you wouldn't. It depends on the writing style and personality of the writer. I spell out numbers as often as I use the numerals when writing something that is primarily word based with a number here and there.

[immery]

that depends, I prefer to write the whole number/amount in more formal things. I think it looks better. Also you have to write "Słownie" on any money related documents.

And you know only situation where I can imagine anybody writing down "Ona kupuje dziewiętnaście niebieskich talerzy." are : texting, and some kind of story/novel. SMS 100% use digits, books 99% use words

[Vengir]

IMO, having to pronounce number names is rather crucial language skill.

But in writing it generally depends on how big the number is.

[Vassiliavk]

Probably a stupid question, but why is it not 'talerzów'? It's genitive plural right? Is 'talerz' an exception?

[Vengir]

It might be because the words ending with -rz get the -y ending in plural genitive. I'm not sure if that's the actual rule, but it seems to check up for the few examples I can think of off the top of my head.