"This is an important person."

Translation: To ważna osoba.

[AnnFabiszakPayne]

Another correct answer given by the program is To jest wazna osoba. (sorry about the missing accent mark). My question: doesn't jest take instrumental case? If so wouldn't the answer have the instrumental fem. endings for wazna and osoba?

[mihxal]

https://www.duolingo.com/comment/15115874

[lviv_citizen]

why i can't translate it as "ta osoba jest ważna"?
thnx in advance

[mihxal]

Bacause it means "This person is important".

[lviv_citizen]

i'd say there is no such difference in meaning here, but i get ur point, thnx!

[Jellei]

Not in meaning, but the structural difference between "This is an [adjective] [noun]" and "This [noun] is [adjective]" is something that we always try to differentiate here.

[lviv_citizen]

as i said, i got the point, but thnx for additional elucidation

[Oliver536732]

Is it usual to drop the "jest"? Wouldn't "to ważna osoba" actually be "this important person"?

[Okcydent]

On many occasion we drop „być” and it's variants because the ending of the verb already contains the same information - that is the gender. In case of 3rd person singular and 3 person plural we leave them on many occasion and drop them only when we can deduce this out of context.

Now to your question. „This important person” is in Polish: „Ta ważna osoba”. „To (jest) ważna osoba” correspond to English „This is an important person”. Here „jest” is not required. „x to y” type of sentences are better without it (it's a matter of style in Polish).

[Oliver536732]

Ah yes of course, thank you so much! I remember now and it makes a lot of sense. I got confused because of the "x to y" type of sentences and didn't regard this as one.