"You are eating an egg and drinking tea."
Translation:Jesz jajko i pijesz herbatę.
68 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
How is one supposed to know whether it is meaning more than one person is eating and drinking.
I got this answer correct by looking for which version began with a capital letter - Jecie vs jesz. (Obviously, this trick won't help outside of Duolingo...)
It's really funny to read this kind of question. For me, a native Portuguese speaker, this is really easy to suppose.
It's not wrong, it's a starred answer. I refreshed the answers, maybe this will help.
Can you put in brackets prular or singlar form so we will practicing both forms without forgetting one
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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.
Hang in there. I used to "cheat" a lot by hovering over the words to get a prompt. and still always use the word bank. It helps to over come the frustration. Here's a lingot.
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.
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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.
"pić" (to drink) takes Accusative. The nouns ending with -a (so almost all feminine ones and several others) take an -ę ending in Accusative.
I think "jajko" is neuter and these words have the same ending in nominative and accusative.
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
Only the most important courses with the biggest number of learners have Stories right now.
Pijesz is not even given as a possible answer so what am I missing as a learner that I should use this word????????
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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 noticed that too. It tripped me up and i got the answer wrong the first time. But logically, if you're using "jecie" for eating, then the (matching) word for drinking must be "pijecie". Similarly, if you used "jesz" for eating, then it follows that you would use "pijesz" for drinking.
On my side, I can see "pijecie" as a hint. It's not the first one, because the main sentence put in the database was singular (jesz/pijesz), but of course the plural is also correct.
That's odd. Definitely wasn't a hint for me on the app. "Jecie" was but "pijecie" wasn't
Perhaps there was a problem with the hints if they are written on non-consecutive words (here: "are [...] drinking"), I just added "pijecie" on "drinking" alone. That should do it.
I said "Ty jesz jajko i ty pijesz herbatę". Is this incorrect because I've stated "ty" twice? If so does that really change the sentence or is it just because it's redundant?
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.
If you emphasize it with your tone, then I guess I agree, but my first thought would be that the first "you" and the second "you" are actually different people.
Basically, you shouldn't repeat the subject of the sentence. Especially that here even the English sentence doesn't do that.
In Polish it is not a good style to repeat. Since pronouns are easily omitted (form of the verb implies them) it is common to drop them if you can. Unless you want different meaning e.g. TY pijesz herbatę i TY jesz jajko! (and what about me? I need nourishment too!).
Jecie is eat for plural. Is it just me or is You (guys) are eating an egg and drinking tea un-natural? English is not my first language. Mixing the an(one) egg with the You plural becomes confusing to me.
Have you seen an ostrich egg? Some people eat that and those eggs are massive. You can easily make dishes for multiple people from this one egg ;)
What are the odds of getting an Ostrich egg around the world? You have a lot of imagination ;) Might encourage me to use mine more, thanks!
I can agree that plural "jecie" should perhaps not be suggested, although it's still technically correct and should be accepted. But it will be a 'just accepted' answer now.
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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?
If you're on the Google keyboard, just hold down the spacebar, then tap "Language Settings". I'm not sure about the apple keyboard though...
Just out of curiosity would Ty jesz jajko i pije herbatę be correct and if not why...
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.
Dziękuję VarHyid, after a while it became clear why my statement was incorrect...have a lingot..
Cases. "kawa/zupa" are both Nominative, used mostly for the subject of the sentence. "kawę/zupę" are both Accusative, used mostly for the direct object.
Y'all got options to choose from, mine is just literally a test right now, how am I meant to know whether its pijecie or piję. Is there like an easy way to know or not which it is based off of nothing?
Pijecie = plural you are drinking (you guys or y'all are drink) piję = i am drinking
It doesn't matter which "you" is used, singular or plural. Both are correct as long as they are used properly in a sentence; ie "jesz jajko i pijesz herbatę" OR "jecie jajko i pijecie herbatę".
the only issue i have here is that my keyboard is set to Polish and it says these words aren't correct
Why not 'a' instead of 'i' as a translation of 'and'? I thought 'a' was for combining facts whereas 'i' was for lists of nouns, no?
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.
Hi, melissagra394141. Here is the difference between (jesz, jecie), and (pijesz, pijecie). They are singular and plural verbs that's, jesz = singular, jecie = plural. Pijesz = singular, pijecie = plural.
I knew that "pijesz" was the answer, but instead I read "pije" as hint, hence misleading me. I felt disastrously stupid and betrayed.
From what I see and understand, the top hint should be "pijesz" defined on "are ... drinking". I'm surprised if it wasn't. I also defined such a hint on just "drinking".
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).
But 2 people can't eat 1 egg, logic maybe help :( You -ty or wy You are eating an egg - ty jesz jajko
It's not very likely that 2 people are eating 1 egg (half an egg each), but it's not impossible, it's still a correct interpretation. It probably shouldn't be suggested (and I see it's not), but it should be accepted.