"Czy ci mężczyźni je znają?"

Translation: Do these men know them?

[lucy-kate]

Would somebody be able to please explain the difference between "Czy ci mężczyźni je znają" and "Czy ci mężczyźni ich znają"?

[mihxal]

je - women; group of neuter, feminine, non-masculine-personal nouns

ich - men or mixed group of people

[vytah]

je is accusative of one

ich is accusative of oni

When they appear after prepositions, as usual with personal pronouns, they turn into nie and nich respectively.

je is also accusative of ono and ich is also gentive of oni and one.

[JanLania]

Is it just me, or is the pronunciation of "mężczyzni" strange?

[Jellei]

Seems fine to me.

[travel.linguist]

If we change the "je" to a "ją", then it would mean "Do these man know her"?

[Jellei]

Yes indeed.

[Sandude]

So if je is the accusative of ono, why is it not correct to say "Do these men know it?"

[Jellei]

It is correct and accepted.

It is less probable, and this particular "it" would need to be neuter in Polish (for example a lamp would be 'it' in English, but wouldn't suite this sentence because it's feminine in Polish), but it sure is correct.

[Rosa_Komorowska]

i could have sworn that "Je" means he/she/it eats??

[Jellei]

Yes, it does. And it also means 'them' in Accusative, if there are no men among 'them' (ergo: for 'not masculine-personal plural').

[JaniceSchl1]

Confusing as je is also he/she/it eats

[margotgm]

why isn't - do these men know her? correct? isn't 'je' her?

[Jellei]

No, it's not. That would be "ją".

[safoe1]

How can we get from this sentence what we shall speak about? "Them" may concern as well as ONI and ONE. There is no precise information on the composition of the group.

[Jellei]

Yes, and without context - and Duolingo doesn't have it - there won't be. "ich" and "je" are equally probable and equally correct, you choose.

[Kashakot]

Besides gender, whne do you use ich and je? I keep getting onw of the exercises wrong because i use je but the xorrect answer is ich. (It is either "i do not know them" or " i know them" and i cant remember which at the moment) i only use the mobile app so i have been able to figure out when to use ich and je

[Jellei]

It is only about the (grammatical) gender ("je" can also be neuter singular, so knowing 'it'), so in sentences like the ones you mentioned, both should be equally correct and accepted - we have no context to decide what 'their' gender is.

This would change if you were to translate "Do you know those women? I do not know them", because we have context that tells us that 'them' refers to some women, so we know it has to be "je".

[sharinglanguage]

I am a bit at a loss now. I bet it is repeatedly explained in previous comment sections that placing the pronoum before the verb, like in this example, would have a meaning similar to: "Is it them who these men know?".

[Jellei]

I would need to see an example in which someone (even me) claims that to see what the difference is, because "Czy ci mężczyźni je znają?" is the most natural word order to me. In fact I'd say that the version we don't like, "Czy ci mężczyźni znają je?" would have a similar meaning to what you say, as it sounds like "znają JE", "know THEM".