"Two birds were sitting on the roof."

Translation: Dwa ptaki siedziały na dachu.

[dihm17]

Why is it "ptaki siedziały"? Isn't ptak a masculine noun?

[immery]

polish gender works different with plurals. With verbs, adjectives and pronouns we have two "plural genders", masculine personal, and not masculine personal

Masculine personal is :
- masculine personal plural nouns
- groups that contain at least one masculine person
- groups that contain at least one person and at least one masculine animated being (ex a girl and a dog)

not masculine personal is all other:
- neuter plural nouns
- feminine plural nouns
- masculine not personal nouns

[dihm17]

Fair enough. Guess I've never had to talk about animals doing things in the past before.

A girl and a dog being masculine personal is pretty tricky though...

[FredFukada]

Alright, but a bird is a masculine animated being such as the dog you were putting in your example. Shouldn t that make it ptaki siedzieli?

[Jellei]

Those are two separate things.

Being animate or inanimate only matters for masculine singular nouns in Accusative (Widzę zielony stół = I see a green table, Widzę zielonego ptaka = I see a green bird).

In plural, it matters whether the noun is 'masculine personal' or not. "ptak" is masculine, sure, but it's not a person. Therefore it goes under the second plural, known under the beautiful name of 'not masculine-personal'.

[FredFukada]

Thanks for the helpful and enlightening explanation, Jellei!