Dative Case (czemu? komu?)

The Dative case is used to express:

1. Senses of to and for a person, especially the indirect object (naming the recipient or beneficiary, or sometimes the person negatively affected by an action).

Kup mi coś. Buy me-Dat. something.

Zepsułem ci samochód. I’ve ruined your car for you-Dat.

2. After verbs of communication:

Powiedz mi coś. Tell me-Dat. something.

3. In construction with certain verbs like podobać się (be attractive to), pomagać (help), powodzić się (be successful for), smakować (taste), dziwić się (be surprised at), and others:

Twój kolega podoba mi się. Your colleague is attractive to me-Dat.

Dobrze mu się powodzi. He-Dat. is doing very well.

Muszę mu pomagać. I have to help him-Dat.

Dziwię się tobie. I’m surprised at you-Dat.

Zdaje ci się It seems that way to you.

4. As the subject of impersonal adverbs:

Jest mi zimno. I-Dat. am cold. (It’s cold to me-Dat.)

Nam jest łatwo. It’s easy for us-Dat.

5. After the prepositions dzięki (due to), ku (toward), przeciwko (against):

Wszystko, co wiem, to dzięki tobie. Everything I know is thanks to you-Dat.

Nie mam nic przeciwko temu. I don’t have anything against that-Dat.

Accusative Case (co? kogo?)

The Accusative case is used to express:

1. The complement after transitive verbs

Mam brata i siostrę I have a brother (Acc.) and sister (Acc.)

Chcę kupić ser, masło i cytrynę I want to buy cheese (Acc.), butter (Acc.), and a lemon (Acc.)

Chciałbym poznać twoich przyjaciół I’d like to meet your friends (Acc.pl.)

This use of the Accusative is called the direct-object use. In general, one chooses the Accusative after a verb unless there is a specific reason to use another case.

2. Various verb+preposition phrasal combinations take the Accusative case, for example czekać na (wait for), patrzyć na (look at), pytać o (ask about), martwić się o (worry about), dbać o (look after, care about):

Czekam na moją córkę. I’m waiting for my daughter-Acc.

Dbam o kondycję. I see to my fitness-Acc.

O co pytasz? What-Acc. are you asking about?

3. After the prepositions przez (across, through, by); za in the meaning (in/after a period of time) or in exchange for; after na in the meaning (for or to); and after w in the meaning ‘into’, and in various other expressions.

Pan Józef został zaangażowany przez pana Kowalczyka. Jozef was hired by Mr. Kowalczyk-Acc.

Będę gotowy za minutę. I’ll be ready in a minute.

Dziękuję za prezent. Thanks for the present-Acc.

Idziemy do Warszawy na konferencję. We’re going to Warsaw to a conference-Acc.

Wchodzimy w las. We’re entering the forest-Acc. (On a day of the week is expressed with w + A: w poniedziałek [on Monday].)

4. After the usually Instrumental prepositions nad, pod, przed, za in the sense of

“motion-to”:

Jedziemy nad morze. We are going to the sea.

Taksówka podjechała pod dom. The taxi drove up to the house.

5. In expressing duration of time.

Pracowałem tam jedną godzinę. I worked there one hour-Acc.

Instrumental Case (czym? kim?)

The Instrumental case is used to express:

1. Predicate nouns (nouns after linking verbs like być [be], zostać [become]):

Jestem farmakologiem. I am a pharmacologist-Inst.

Ona jest gwiazdą filmową. She is a movie star-Inst.

On został prezydentem. He became president-Inst.

2. Expressing by means of:

Jedziemy tam moim samochodem. We’re going there in my car-Inst.

Piszę nowym długopisem. I’m writing with a new ball-point-Inst.

Here also goes the “Instrumental of Path”:

Niech pan idzie tą ulicą do rogu. Go along this street-Inst. to the corner.

3. Accompaniment of an action by a body movement:

Ona machnęła ręką. She waved (with) her hand-Inst.

On zareagował uśmiechem. He reacted with a smile-Inst.

4. Abstract causes:

Byłem zaskoczony jego szczerością. I was surprised by his sincerity-Inst.

5. With respect to:

On może jest starszy wiekiem ale nie usposobieniem. He maybe is older with

respect to age-Inst. but not deportment-Inst.

6. Certain time periods:

zimą in the winter

nocą at night

wieczorem in the evening

7. After the static-location prepositions między (between), nad (over), pod (under), przed (before), z (with), za (behind):

Idę na koncert z moimi dobrymi przyjaciółmi. I’m going to a concert with my good friends-Inst.

8. After certain verbs, e.g. interesować się (be interested in), kierować (direct),

zajmować się (be busy with, take care of), władać (have power over, master):

Interesuję się muzyką klasyczną. I’m interested in classical music-Inst.

Matka zajmuje się domem i dziećmi. Mother takes care of the house-Inst. and

children-Inst.

Trzeba władać tym przypadkiem gramatycznym. One must master this grammatical case-Inst.

Tomorrow we will finish with Locative and Vocative cases.

Do następnego razu! (Till next time…)

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Let’s take a look at a few typical feminine declension nouns in singular and are equal to nominative in plural):

As you can see it’s quite regular. Possible changes are:

• softening of final consonant group in the singular dative and locative (which have the same form)
• change of “o” to “ó” (pronounced “u”) in the plural genitive
• insertion of “e” between the two final consonants in the plural genitive. You may think of this “e” as a kind of aid to pronunciation. “mrówk” would be pretty hard to say without this “e”. The Polish language allows quite complicated consonant groups at the beginning of a syllable, but it tries to avoid complex syllable endings.

These changes aren’t specific to the feminine noun declension – they happen throughout the Polish language, so you’d better get used to them.

A bit less typical are feminine nouns that end in “-ia”:

Notice that in the genitive and the accusative the pronunciation is the same. This is not usual in Polish, and may cause some problems if number is not obvious from context. One solution is to overemphasize difference between “e” and “ę” in speech (which are usually pronounced the same at word endings). A better solution is to use some adjective or pronoun, for example:

• “tej komedii” (singular genitive, of this comedy)
• “tych komedii” (plural genitive, of these comedies)
• “tę komedię” (singular accusative, this comedy)
• “te komedie” (plural accusative, these comedies)

And abstract feminine nouns ending in “-ść” (note vocative forms):

There is some magic here with “ść” changing to “śc” but it’s only spelling. You never write the softened version of a consonant before a vowel – you change it to the “normal” version and add “i” to mark it as “soft”. You don’t have to add “i” if it’s already there.

Without this magic endings would look like:

Let’s try to use that knowledge in practice.

• Agnieszka myśli o miłości – Agnieszka thinks about love (love in locative)
• Agnieszka nie myśli o miłości – Agnieszka doesn’t think about love (as above)
• Dziewczyny lubią komedie – The girls like comedies (comedies in accusative)
• Kobieta pije kawę – The woman is drinking coffee. (coffee in accusative)
• Dziewczyna nie pije kawy – The girl doesn’t drink coffee (coffee in genitive)
• Basia nie widzi krów – Basia doesn’t see cows (cows in genitive)
• Marta nie lubi mrówek – Marta doesn’t like ants (ants in genitive)

• myśli – third person singular form of “to think”
• lubi – third person singular form of “to like”
• lubią – third person plural form of “to like”

Please let me know if you have questions.

Do następnego razu! (Till next time…)

a

In English, it’s simple, whether you like or don’t like someone (or something), the noun that follows the verb expressing your feeling doesn’t change.
I like winter. I hate winter.
“Winter” stays “winter” no matter what.

As you’ve probably figured out by now, this is not how it works in Polish. Well, nothing is ever simple and straightforward in Polish. It wouldn’t be Polish otherwise.

Remember when we talked about these two cases: dopełniacz (genitive) and biernik (accusative)? No? Then now it’s the time to look up those blog posts (I wrote about those cases in the past) and refresh your memory. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

OK, I see you’re back. Good! We can move on to the fun bits now.

So, this is how those winter (zima) sentences would look like in Polish.

• Lubię zimę. – I like winter
• Nienawidzę zimy. – I hate winter.

See what happened to “zima”? Yes… Your worst fears have been confirmed. We have two different cases here.

In “Lubię zimę” we have the accusative case – biernik, which answers to these questions: “kogo?” and “co?”.
“Lubię kogo” – when talking about people. Or “Lubię co” – when talking about everything else.

In “Nienawidzę zimy” we have the genitive case – dopełniacz, which answers to these questions: “kogo?” and “czego?”.
“Nienawidzę kogo” – when talking about people. Or “Nienawidzę czego” – when talking about everything else.

Yes, you are right – in both of these examples, the “kogo?” question when talking about humans is the same. But that doesn’t actually mean that the noun will stay the same. Not so! (And what did you think, huh?)

For example:

• Lubię Kasię (or Anię, if you want to talk about me behind my back) – I like Kasia (Ania).

and

• Nienawidzę Kasi (Ani) – I hate Kasia (Ania).

Luckily, this is only the issue with feminine humans. Masculine humans stay the same.

• Lubię Pawła – I like Paweł.
• Nienawidzę Pawła – I hate Paweł (Paweł, it’s nothing personal, it’s just an example, OK?)

Incidentally, when talking about space aliens in Polish, treat them as humans (at least grammatically), even though they are very clearly not.

So, basically, this is the drill:
If you have positive feelings towards someone or something, use biernik (accusative).
If you have negative feelings towards someone or something, it’s time to use dopełniacz (genitive).

Hey! What happened to you? Wake up! Wake up!!!

Post from: Polish Blog