"That small animal is a dog."

Translation: Tamto małe zwierzę to pies.

[Cristian879873]

I don't understand why sometimes they use "to" to translate is

[Jellei]

That's just a way of creating sentences of the "X is Y" type, with both X and Y usually being nouns or noun phrases. They're both used in Nominative.

• Pies to zwierzę (A dog is an animal).
• Twój tata to miły człowiek (Your father is a nice man)
• Poprawna odpowiedź to "Czechy" (The correct answer is "Czech Republic")

But not only:

• Zielony to mój ulubiony kolor (Green is my favourite colour) - this could go the other way round as well.

This does not go well with using pronouns ("On to lekarz" would be a rather unnatural sentence), so be careful.

[Kamil175561]

But is using "to" in both instances not repetitive? Can in not be replaced by "jest"?

[Jellei]

Yeah, a bit, and Polish doesn't like repetitions. Sure, the second one could be replaced by "jest".

[Diane883411]

I tried "Tamto małe zwierzę jest pies" and it was rejected, is that normal?

[Okcydent]

Should be rejected. Correct versions are: „Tamto małe zwierzę to pies” (to requires noun in nominative) or „Tamto małe zwierze jest psem” (noun in instrumental).

[Martin267907]

As far as I understand, "Pies, to zwierzę" is a short form of "Pies, to jest zwierzę". The verb may but does not necessarily need to be silent. Therefore, could we possibly accept the bellow translation?
"Tamto małe zwierzę, to jest pies."

[Gatu77]

Do these two following sentences have the same meaning? Tamto małe zwierze to pies. & Tamto małe zwierze jest psem. And if they do, which is more correct and common in Polish?

[Jellei]

Those constructions are equivalent and generally mean the same, although of course there are some shades of meaning, which are rather hard to explain. "to" is a bit like a "=" sign. "jest" is more... like a description. That animal belongs to the canine family.

In this particular sentence, I would choose "to". A simple "Yup, that's a dog". But on the learner's level, they're generally similar enough.

[ginap06.59]

Zwierzatko??

[Jellei]

Zwierzątko = diminutive from "zwierzę" = little animal, so it's correct, it just depends on how the course creators look at diminutives. I'll ask.

EDIT: And yes, it was added.

[Yumiifmb]

I'm confused, if zwierzę is masculine, why is it "tamto małe" in that case?

[Jellei]

It's not masculine. It's neuter, so "tamto" and "małe" are exactly the right forms.