"You are eating an egg and drinking tea."
Translation:Jesz jajko i pijesz herbatę.
68 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
495
I cant do this man. Ive been doing this for a week and i dont know when "you me they ect." change. Ive looked everywhere but it doesnt line up. I know so many words but i always fail because i dont know when the word i am using changes. Ive tried to notice a pattern but the rules always change. My brain is fricken soup rn, ive made sheets and watched videos but i just cant gather it. Ive done T charts for spanish and after that i flew through the langage in a few months but in Polish its holding me back so much and i dont know what to do.
Welcome to Polish ;)
But seriously - please describe the issue in detail because I'm not sure what you mean by "why you, me, they change", what change are you referring to? Are you talking about the fact that it's not possible to tell in the English language when "you" means one person or multiple people? If so, then it shouldn't matter as Duolingo should accept both answers - singular and plural.
I've mostly done romance languages before (spanish, Italian, French) and I have to admit, this is super challenging. Don't beat yourself up, but do keep trying. It seems to get easier merely from repetition and "sounding right" for me. Personally I find that once it seems to feel right, I can go back and think about it more. Do read the tips however. They set me straight a few times
I would suggest trying to listen to Polish online. And slowly internalizing whole constructs/phrases. Trying to speak all the time from "first principles" (memorize rules and attempting to utilize them) will be VERY VERY challenging with Polish. It is just way too complex. I am a native speaker and I tried to teach Polish to few people in States and "deer in the headlight" stare is very typical reaction.
Also do not feel compelled to be 100% correct - people will understand you and definitely WILL appreciate the effort.
919
Could someone please explain when one should use instrumental? Thank you in anticipation (before I lose the plot altogether...)
The basic uses of Instrumental are:
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After the preposition "z" meaning "with" (e.g. "talking with someone").
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When you use something 'as an instrument' ("Jem zupę łyżką" = "I am eating soup with a spoon". Yeah, no "z" here).
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After certain prepositions refering to location: "za" (behind), "nad" (above), "pod" (below, under), "przed" (in front of).
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And last but definitely not the least, sentences built as "[noun] is [noun]" or "[pronoun] is [noun]" take Instrumental after the verb "być" (to be).
Hi Chaylen1, I feel your pain...I've been struggling with this myself, the tiny cards have helped but just repetition has worked for me...after seeing kobiety for a billion times it FINALLY stuck...keep it you'll do well..im also doing Russian and unless I get sent to the Gulag I feel I won't get that either...good luck..
What I've been doing to know when to change it from herbata to herbatę is, think of it like an active word, if the word is active like if someone is drinkjng tea or has tea, then its active, so you change a to ę. Same for other words like ryba which is fish, if it's active, it's rybę. I'm not sure how effective this is for every word, but it's working well at the moment.
Jesz is singular = you (one person) are eating. Jecie is plural = you (a group of people) are eating.
Pijesz is singular = you (one person) are drinking. Pijecie is plural = you (a group of people) are drinking.
Here's the whole list:
- Ja jem/piję
- Ty jesz/pijesz
- On/ona/ono je/pije
- My jemy/pijemy
- Wy jecie/pijecie
- Oni/one jedzą/piją
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You are not supposed to know whether it's singular or plural. In 99% of the sentences with 'you' there is no context and therefore the singular and plural are equally probable, they both have to be starred answers. But if you have a sentence about 'your wife', that's definitely singular.
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If "pijesz" was not among the possible answers, that must mean that "pijecie" was, and the app wanted you to write the answer in plural. It seems that the app just chooses one of the starred answers randomly and makes it possible to write it but not necessarily to write another starred answer.
I think it slightly changes the emphasis on what you want to say. If you only use "ty" once, the emphasis is on what it is that the other person is eating - "you're eating this and that".
However, using "ty" twice almost sounds like you're ordering the other person to eat and drink - "YOU're eating this and YOU're drinking that, no excuses!". The "you" becomes the focus of the sentence.
583
I am having problems with certain words because I do not have a Polish keyboard. It counts some words wrong and others it says watch accent marks. How do i download a Polish keyboard?
It would not be correct because you're mixing "you" and "I" here.
"Ty jesz jajko" means "you're eating an egg" while "piję herbatę" means "I'm drinking tea".
That said, you could say: "Ty jesz jajko i pijesz herbatę" and that should be correct because in the English sentence you can't really tell if "you" refers to just one person or a group.
You're generally right, but you go too far in the interpretation. From the grammatical point of view there is no contrast between "eating an egg" and "drinking tea" in this sentence. Those are just two activities that you are performing, so you list them. The contrast would be if "you" were eating an egg and "I" was drinking tea. You would use "a" then.
I knew that "pijesz" was the answer, but instead I read "pije" as hint, hence misleading me. I felt disastrously stupid and betrayed.
They are different grammatical cases: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/herbata#Declension
"herbata" is Nominative, used mostly for the subject of the sentence ("Herbata jest smaczna" = "Tea is tasty")
"herbatę" is Accusative, used mostly for the direct object of the sentence, as here.
"herbatą" is Instrumental, used mostly after the preposition "z" = "with" (and after the verb "być" = "to be", but it's not likely in this example).