"I do not see the woman."

Translation: Nie widzę kobiety.

[flyguyaustin]

Hey just a little constructive criticism for this lesson. I really like this program but somehow this one went completely over my head. I did the whole thing without even realizing that the noun case changes when you negate the verb. I only just realized it now months later and went to redo that whole lesson.

Maybe if you threw in some regular sentences like "I see the woman" beside the negated ones "I don't see the woman" it would be more apparent that the noun changes because of the verb being negated.

It's a really abstract concept for English speakers it really needs to be hammered in.

[DommyP]

I completely agree. This hasn't been mentioned in any of the tips and notes at this point. The Polish course really needs much more in depth notes, otherwise it's almost impossible to pick up.

[jordandykstra42]

Why is the usage of "the woman" in this sentence kobiety and not kobietę?

[immery]

Because the sentence is negated. If a verb needs accusative (widzę kobietę), a negated verb needs genitive.(nie widzę kobiety)

[bassemryad]

woman ... kobieta
women .. kobiety
I do not see the woman. .... nie wiedze kobieta

[immery]

that would be true if Polish was easy language without the thing called declension.

Unfortyunately we have it so:

1) you need accusative after "widzę" but you need genitive after "nie widzę"

2) woman = Nominative "kobieta"= Genitive "kobiety"
women= Nominative kobiety = Genitive "kobiet"

[WarsawWill]

Teeshirt seen in Warsaw:

"I speak Polish. What's your superpower?" :)

[Jellei]

Mostly worn by Polish people, which doesn't really make much sense ;) But I've seen my Brazilian co-worker in it and his Polish is really quite good, so he deserves to wear it :)

[WarsawWill]

Oh I don't know. I sometimes get the impression that Poles are rather proud of having such a difficult language. I've occasionally had students being a bit miffed at the suggestion that there might be even more difficult languages (I'm exaggerating of course) :)

[Jellei]

Yes, I believe we are, but being able to speak your mother tongue is hardly a superpower ;)

[PeterBaumg7]

Wow! Thank you for alleviating my frustration. I was going crazy with this.

[WillyPrast]

Kobieta becomes kobiety? Is it dopelniacz case?

[alik1989]

Yes, because it's a negated direct object in this sentence.

[patbiagi]

why do I no longer get the
polish letters and accents under the answer boxes? This really shouldn't be eliminated - please bring it back

[5134ad]

Isn't kobiety plural.? I thought kobieta is singular and kobiety plural.

[Jellei]

Cases, cases, cases. In basic, Nominative form, you have "kobieta" (a woman) and "kobiety" (women). Then you took the verb "widzieć" (to see). It takes Accusative. So "I see a woman" would be "Ja widzę kobietę", and "I see women" would be "Ja widzę kobiety".

When in a positive sentence you had Accusative, when you negate it, then you need Genitive. so for "I don't see a woman" you have "Nie widzę kobiety" and for "I don't see women" you have "Nie widzę kobiet".

If you need more info about cases, check this topic for posts about it.

Here you can see the declension of "kobieta".

[margotgm]

I used tamta in that sentence and it was corrected to tej. Why?

[Jellei]

1. It is the wrong case. 'tamta' is Nominative, you need Genitive here. Which would be 'tamtej kobiety'.
2. 'tamta' can only be a translation of 'that'. You had 'the' in the English sentence.
3. Technically, 'the' has no translation, as we don't have articles. But 'ta' (Genitive: 'tej') works as well because often when you use 'the' in English the meaning is almost exactly the same as 'this'.

[Chrismicha918337]

Not where I come from