#polish grammar

[lipowanoc]

Describing people in Polish - a few grammar remarks

Describing people in Polish requires either the use of Nominative or Instrumental case. Here's the short guide to it.

Quick reminder how to conjugate być (to be) in present tense:  ja jestem / ty jesteś / on  ona ono jest / my jesteśmy / wy jesteście / oni są

1.  być + noun in Nominative (the dictionary form)

Thanks goodness you can introduce yourself with the pattern " I + verb to be  + noun in Nominative (dictionary form, no strange endings)".  But that's actually limited to stating your name.

(Ja) jestem Tomek - I am Tomek

Wy jesteście Maria i Piotr? - Are you Maria and Piotr?

Note: You omit personal pronouns when it is clear who you're talking about. And while stating  "Jestem Tomek" it is obvious you talk about yourself because the verb "jestem" indicates it. You might use personal pronouns to put emphasis or contrast. Ex To jest Piotr, a  ja jestem Tomek - This is Piotr, and I am Tomek (contrast)

2.  być + noun in Instrumental

If you want to add any other noun to describe yourself or other people, then - here comes Instrumental.  To get Instrumenal,  you mostly add -"em" to masculine/ neutrum nouns and  you change the ending for  "ą" in feminine nouns (it's more complicated matter but let's stay with the basics for now). If you use adjectives or pronouns that describe the noun, then these adjectives and pronouns should be in Instrumental as well.

Nominative: silny  mężczyzna - Instrumenal: silnym mężczyzną  (strong man)

Nominative: znany lekarz - Instrumental: znanym lekarzem ( well-known doctor)

Nominative: dobra nauczycielka - Instrumental: dobrą nauczycielką (good female teacher)

Jestem dyrektorem firmy - I am a director of a company

Zaufaj mi, jestem inżynierem - Trust me, I am an engineer.

Maria jest nauczycielką w szkole podstawowej.  - Maria is a teacher in an elementary school.

Ona jest dobrą nauczycielką, dzieci ją lubią. - She is a good teacher, children likes her.

Państwo Wajda są naszymi sąsiadami - Mr. and Mrs. Wajda are our neighbours.

Wszyscy jesteśmy ludźmi i popełniamy błędy - we are all humans and we make mistakes.

3. być + adjective in Nominative

Uff, finally something easy. When you want to describe yourself or others just with the use of an adjective, then you use Nominative (dictionary form).

Ta nauczycielka jest dobra - This (female) teacher is good.

Ten lekarz jest bardzo znany - This doctor is very well-known.

Jestem piękna i mądra - I am beautiful and smart (female form).

but: Jestem piękną i mądrą kobietą (I am beautiful and smart woman) - here comes Instrumental, because adjectives don't stand alone, but describe a noun that follows.

Jesteś głupi - you're stupid - Nominative because you use an adjective

Jesteś idiotą - you're an idiot - Instrumental because you use a noun

4. "to / to jest + Nominative form "

"To jest ......"  could be translated as "This is....". Plural form: "To są..... " = "These are...."

This form is actually limited to description of a third person singular or plural. In its primary function it is a demonstrative form, like you point your finger and name things around you.

To jest kot!  - This is a cat.

To są moje kochane koty. - These are my beloved cats.

But you can build normal descriptive sentences  with this form. Often you can use only " to" ommitting "jest/ są".

Maria to (jest) dobra nauczycielka. - Maria is a good teacher.

Tomek to (jest) dyrektor firmy. - Tomek is a director of a company

Państwo Wajda to (są) nasi sąsiedzi - Mrs. and Mr. Wajda are our neighbours. 

So what's the difference between Maria  jest nauczycielką and Maria to nauczycielka? Well, it's subtle and both forms are quite interchangeable. To me "to jest" form is a little bit less formal, more conversational, used as a quick reaction or explanation. For example if you ask who is that Maria everybody are talking about, or why Maria is a little bit stuck-up, then you'd rather get an explanation that Maria to nauczycielka. But if you write Maria's bio, you'll use the form "Maria jest nauczycielką". Or if you ask about Maria's job, this form is likely to follow.

Edit: @gardens-and-cats thanks for correcting me!

[tkpolski]

Plurals

[atalienart]

What are your tips on improving writing?

I don't think I'm at the level to give such tips. I myself try to read a lot of different books and learn from the authors that way. I watch youtube writing channels that talk about story structure, character development, or give advice how to improve prose and what to avoid. It's good to have someone who can look at your writing and give some feedback too. Also, I write. After some time, when I go back to my writing, I can see the mistakes better.

I can share some things that I've learnt from others and I think are good advice, for example:

use strong verbs (the person may walk but may also stroll, march or tiptoe);

there are more interesting verbs than to be;

weave description into action (The building was big. She walked towards it. ➜ She lifted her head as the stone walls grew before her. or He took the book in his hand nervously. He was tall, had brown hair and was wearing glasses. ➜ He reached for the high shelf without an effort. Book in hand, he pushed glasses up his nose to read the title - "Magic spells to improve writing." "This is it," he murmured, nervously running fingers through his brown hair.) (or some shit like that);

write sentences of different length so they don't sound monotonous;

If you want to write quick scenes. Short sentences. Actually. Make them slower. Why? Because periods. Are. Long. Pauses. xD

leave the most important words for the end of the sentence (He was thinking about the woman, while drinking his tea. ➜ He was drinking his tea, thinking about the woman.)

avoid filter words like hear, feel, see, etc. (She heard the noise that startled her. ➜ The noise startled her. or She was startled by the noise. or She jumped at the noise.)

be careful with time shifts (She noticed him behind the trees and smiled. Her beautiful monster. She runs to him and takes his hand and all of a sudden everything is all right. "Where is your hat?" she asks, but he just stares at her. He's always been a monster of few words, soft and quiet, but the lack of answer still surprised her. - is this present or past tense? confusion)

every scene should have a purpose - advance the plot, develop the character, add some conflict; ideally it will do all these things;

white room syndrom is bad - avoid;

use as many characters as you need; if one character can do the work of two, you need only one, scrap the other;

every character should want something!

give a character a desire, fear and misbelief;

Here are some of them. I hope they're useful. (They were useful for me even if I write in Polish :)) Of course some of these are optional but I think they make my writing better. I read somewhere that you should write only necessary words, so I'm trying to go by this rule. This is rather hard btw xD

[skinnypaleangryperson]

My BoJack x reader fanfiction that came out a couple of years ago solely from a profound spiritual borderline psychotic experience mixed in with severe alcoholism and terrible jobs and an American crisis not being able to believe that this is the rest of my life has finally reached over the 2 million mark on Archive of our own, which basically means that my writing career is about to either take off, stay the same, or people are going to write articles about how bad it is once it gets big enough to appease people's boredom in their free time

[nearlydark]

Finally after years of like…needing my notes to be a certain way I have let go and embraced chaos (but planned). I think my biggest gripe w learning languages is the amount of resources and how to properly track what you’re learning from where but at the end of the day it’s all going to the same place (my brain) so who fucking cares??? So right now my system is to just chug along in this book and use duolingo for practice, maybe some YouTube channels for more listening practice/understanding but have it all in this notebook. Wish me luck 🇵🇱

[strawberrystepmom]

not to be meta but i've been thinking a lot lately about what is so appealing about writing and reading and being a part of this bigger fan fiction writing community and tbh it's that everything feels so human.

there's a piece of every author i follow in what they write and that is such an interesting comparison to what, i feel, is an overly sanitized, digestible, dumbed down literary world. i honestly cannot tell you the last time a new book that just came out, shiny and spine unbent, wowed me upon reading it. i can't and i read A LOT.

im wowed by you guys and what you write every single day and that's so special. you can't find that anywhere else.

[abalidoth]

Problem: Arithmetic notation is ambiguous (ex. 2 + 2 x 4 could be 16 or 10)

Need: Unambiguous notation

Solution: Polish notation (or reverse). From now on all mathematics must be written with the operators at the end to reduce ambiguity. 2 2 + 4 x = 16 and 2 2 4 x + = 8. I see no issues with the solution whatsoever.

None whatsoever :D

[hanzajesthanza]

i worry about running into mistakes with auto-translate in my web-delving, but then i remember i can’t possibly run into anything worse than david french sword of destiny something more part iv “she ordered me to cheat you. and kill it.”

[vintagestagehotties]

Hot Vintage Stage Actress Round 3

Pola Negri: Anieli in Śluby panieńskie (1912 Warsaw); Hedvig in The Wild Duck (1914 Warsaw); Yannaia in Sumurun (1917 Berlin)

Lily Pons: Lakmé in Lakmé (1928 Mulhouse); Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor (1931 Met); Linda in Linda di Chamounix (1934 Met)

Propaganda under the cut.

Pola Negri:

A bisexual femme fatale sex symbol from Poland, we love to see it! She dated Valentino and Chaplin and spent like two decades living with her oil heiress girlfriend. She was living the life, the hottest catch, ten out of ten would marry her

Lily Pons:

[hammill-goes-fogwalking]

The issues & beauties of German music

(70s Kraut Rock )

Here, NOT ONE SINGLE SOUL talks about Krautrock 🌿 it seems like dead & forgotten (except CAN)

which is sad about this phenomenon :/ the only ones paying attention are prog magazines and music connoisseurs

Everyone talks about the Scorpions and Rammstein (in fact it's quality). Sometimes Boney M but... it's always the same: good music is too elite for the masses.

Even the band Eloy. Prog fans love them- the most listeners come from other places of the earth but not their origin country. Often a fault of the music industry, critics as well as the radio stations which really neglected these now in modern times.

//

The rhymes & language, pronunciation

Sure, worse languages exist. But to be honest, can you relax, with the German language? There's no flow at all, nothing like Italian or, you know, English. It's a popular opinion and what speaks against it?

Depends on the way someone sings and per region there is a difference but some harshness is always there.

//

Sung in English example: Eloy (again)

Some people are totally fine with the accent (their whole discography is in English sung by Frank Bornemann!!) others have problems getting into this band. Depends on the listener.

What often happened was that the groups had a British singer...

//

Old fashioned names

For example British rock: someone asks you, you say your idol is some random Jeff or Pete or whatever their names are. What about German musician's names? They're called Dieter or Jogi or Herbert or Udo

"Who's your favourite musician?" - Jürgen xy (sorry shouldn't sound mean)

People make jokes about old fashioned names, then why blaming yourself and getting sideeyed.

This is all a matter of coolness, let's move to the music...

//

A few information

Okay don't judge (seems extremely stereotype now) the people, musicians of the 60s and 70s were the first generation after WW2. You can imagine. The children of ex- patriots. They wanted to change something. BUT!! They were BOUND in the roots of their country.

There was a scene and later with many students and discotheques. There were artists from all over the world. The music is innovative and you can hear it even clearly. You can also hear their protest, spirit and the diversity of sounds.

There is nothing you can call THE Kraut. It's practically impossible to sum the sound up. Actually it's not a genre. That one word represents all the music made in Germany

//

An example.

You hear the instruments? The bass, drums, hard guitar, organs, saxophone EVERYTHING WORKS. SO FINE MUSIC.

Listen to it, create your own opinion.

Notes

1. So many songs by this one group called Lied des Teufels? Yeah. They're not known at all. That singer sounds like imitating Ian Gillan- Everyone can TRY to copy but they do it in their own style which is not copying, it's storytelling. (Kind of)

2. THE WHOLE THING SHOULD NOT MAKE ME SEEM PASSIONATE OR SOMETHING BECAUSE I DISCOVERED KRAUT LITERALLY YESTERDAY

3. Probably it's something that gets boring really fast

//

So...

Skillful musicians w/ ability to express themselves and the problems of their country. Wether the singing style is something for you or not- there are countless of other groups.

We HAVE TO speak about these forgotten acts again & give it a chance

[too-much-gacha]

fuck you mean a prepositional phrase in english can be a noun in polish?? what do you mean a premodifier in english can be a postmodifier in polish??? i hate the amount of differences between analytical and synthetical language <-lying

"tHe AdJeCtIvEs iN pOliSh MuSt AgReE iN gEnDeR, nUmBeR aNd CaSe" yeah no shit

english: no postmodification of premodifiers! and no complementation of them either! don't even think about it!!

polish: do whatever you want. maybe you'll sound slightly odd but not like anyone cares

[maszynamoss]

Hi! I'm cursed by my knowledge and I'm gonna make it everyone elses problem - a basic guide to Polish verbs

So yeah here is grammatical conjugation (all forms of verbs) in Polish. For examples I used the word "czytać" - "to read" as its conjugation is regular and to change its form you only have to add prefixes and suffixes to the root -czyta-. Please note that prefixes change according to different verbs and there are a few irregularities that I will not get into. My credentials? I'm making BA in applied linguistisc and I'm a native Polish speaker.

Firstly let's go through finite form of the verbs. In Polish verbs are inflected by gender (male, female, neutral), person (1st, 2nd, 3rd), number (singular or plural), tense (past, present, future), aspect (perfective and imperfective), mood (indicative, imperative, conditional) and voice (active, passive, middle). Phew!

Here's the conjugation of "czytać" - "to read" in indicative mood:

Present tense singular (like gerund in English): 1st person: czytam; 2nd person: czytasz; 3rd person: czyta; Present tense plural: 1st person: czytamy; 2nd person: czytacie; 3rd person: czytają;

Easy right? Present tense is quite uncomplicated and troubles begin with the past tense because here we also have grammatical gender and aspect. So:

Past tense singular perfective (like past simple in English) (the order of genders is masculine, feminine and neutral): 1st person: przeczytałem, przeczytałam, przeczytałom*; 2nd person: przeczytałeś, przeczytałaś, przeczytałoś*; 3rd person: przeczytał, przeczytała, przeczytało; Past tense plural perfective 1st person: przeczytaliśmy, przeczytałyśmy, przeczytałośmy*; 2nd person: przeczytaliście, przeczytałyście, przeczytałoście*; 3rd person: przeczytali, przeczytały (this form is both feminine and neutral);

Past tense singular imperfective (like past continous in English): 1st person: czytałem, czytałam, czytałom*; 2nd person: czytałeś, czytałaś, czytałoś*; 3rd person: czytał, czytała, czytało; Past tense plural imperfective 1st person: czytaliśmy, czytałyśmy, czytałośmy*; 2nd person: czytaliście, czytałyście, czytałoście*; 3rd person: czytali, czytały (this form is both feminine and neutral);

Future tense perfective uses present tense form of the verb and ads prefix from the past tense:

Future tense perfective singular (future perfect in English): 1st person: przeczytam; 2nd person: przeczytasz; 3rd person: przeczyta;

Future tense imperfective uses past tense imperfective form of the verb in third person in addition to the verb "być" - "to be" that changes only by person and number, or its base form that is used for all genders:

Future tense imperfective singular (future simple in English): 1st person: będę czytał, będę czytała, będę czytało*/będę czytać; 2nd person: będziesz czytał, będziesz czytała, będziesz czytało*/będziesz czytać; 3rd person: będzie czytał, będzie czytała, będzie czytało/będzie czytać; Future tense imperfective plural (in this form feminine and neutral person are the same): 1st person: będziemy czytali, będziemy czytały, będziemy czytać; 2nd person: będziecie czytali, będziecie czytały, będziecie czytać; 3rd person: będą czytali, będą czytały, będą czytać;

Phew! Indicative mood is very extensive in Polish but worry not! Conditional and imperative moods are simple as they don't conjuge by tense.

Conditional mood is created by combining future tense with forms of "by" that in case can be translated as "would":

Conditional mood in perfective singular: 1st person: przeczytałbym, przeczytałabym, przeczytałobym*; 2nd person: przeczytałbyś, przeczytałabyś, przeczytałobyś*; 3rd person: przeczytałby, przeczytałaby, przeczytałoby; Conditional mood in perfecive plural: 1st person: przeczytalibyśmy, przeczytałybyśmy, przeczytałobyśmy*; 2nd person: przeczytalibyście, przeczytałybyście (this form is both feminine and neutral); 3rd person: przeczytaliby, przeczytałyby (this form is both feminine and neutral);

Conditional mood in imperfective singular: 1st person: czytałbym, czytałabym, czytałobym*; 2nd person: czytałbyś, czytałabyś, czytałobyś*; 3rd person: czytałby, czytałaby, czytałoby; Conditional mood in imperfecive plural: 1st person: czytalibyśmy, czytałybyśmy, czytałobyśmy*; 2nd person: czytalibyście, czytałybyście (this form is both feminine and neutral); 3rd person: czytaliby, czytałyby (this form is both feminine and neutral);

And the imperative mood, the least complicated, indicates that making orders knows no gender:

In perfective singular: 1st person: doesn't exist; 2nd person: przeczytaj; 3rd person: doesn't exist as a verb form In perfective plural: 1st person: przeczytajmy; 2nd person: przeczytajcie; 3rd person: doesn't exist as a verb form

In imperfective singular: 1st person: doesn't exist; 2nd person: czytaj; 3rd person: doesn't exist as a verb form In imperfective plural: 1st person: czytajmy; 2nd person: czytajcie; 3rd person: doesn't exist as a verb form

And that's all for the finite forms. Infinite forms in Polish are few and not really used in everyday speech. We have base form of the verb: "czytać"; but also something that is characteristic for slavic languages: -active adjectival participle "czytający/czytająca/czytające" - "the one who reads" -passive adjectival participle "czytany/czytana/czytane" - "the one that is read" -present adverbial participle "czytając" - "while reading" -perfect adverbial participle "przeczytawszy" - "having read"

As you can see verbs in Polish hold a lot of meaning and because of that subject is often omitted. So, to contain the full meaning of the word "przeczytałybyśmy" (which can also be a full correct sentence by itself) you would have to say in English "We, a group of several women, would have read" or "We, a group of several women, would like to read".

And also, if you are learning Polish please don't feel discouraged by the amount of different forms of verbs. There is a logical pattern hidden within the conjugation and if you will take it slowly it will all fall into place. You can also dm me if you need help in studying :)

*most gender neutral forms of verbs are possible to create but are not used. I have learnt about them in Uni as a theory but decided to put them in as I would love to use them in my speach.

[cum-roll]

hi ::) whats ur favorite word?

first ordeal, I'm studying linguistics. I know my words, you just hit an awesome nerve

the simplest answer is "Kurwa", because it's a beautiful word and such a useful one at that

however, i cannot use it. I have a speech defect that makes me sound funny when I curse out my friends. I have been told that I sound "cute" when I yell it but like I just called you a slut!!! bitch!!!

I know that it isn't a question about swear words but they are infinitely more interesting to talk about then normal words, so to answer your question - my favourite word is: "jeb"

What is "jeb" you ask - its an onomatopoeia. Simplest translation is "FUCKING SLAM" in all caps, just like that. Surprisingly useful!

Real life example from a conversation I had a week ago:

"I'll be sitting in my room all quiet then JEB kurwa my neighbor shut the door so hard the walls shook and he wasn't even done I'm trying to focus as he goes JEB JEB fucking insane"

Beautiful word!

You know I'm not even done with it! Jeb can be just the core of many, many beautiful words. Basically it's a core word to be used to make a swear word out of a verb. A few examples:

jebać - to fuck

zajebać - to fucking steal/kill/punch

przyjebać - to fucking punch

ojebać - to fucking eat whole

and also other useful words like

zajebiście - fucking awesome

Fun fact! You can do the same things with cores "kurwa" and "pierdolić" snd others so have fun with that

Another fun fact, with slight changes this will ALSO work in other Slavic languages (which is literally my studies rn), like in Czech or Ukrainian I think, and all the others will have some version of that. Definitely "Kurva"

My most favourite non-swear word is probably szczęście because foreigners make funny wide eyes at that

[o2studies]

Okej, wróciłam ze spaceru z moimi psinami (to niewygląda poprawne..) i wypiłam szklankę wody. Napewno nie piję wystarczająco ale próbuje. Słucham Włoskich piosenek i nic z nich nie rozumiem ale brzmią super, więc. Zaraz znowu się zacznę uczyć chemii i potem troche pomaluję.

Angielskie tłumaczenie jest poniżej/The English translation is under the cut

Okay, I'm back from a walk with my dogs (that does not look correct..) and I drank a glass of water. I definitely don't drink enough but I'm trying. I'm listening to Italian songs and I don't understand a thing from them but they sound great, so. Soon I'll continue learning chemistry and later I'll paint a bit more.

[citrisz]

I absolutely love following this one polish nascar news acc like yes kocham chrisa bueschera

[kasumingo]

Using English not as a native but just someone who spends a lot of time in English-speaking circles both at work and among friends is wild, because I can feel what things mean and I think mainly in English but I could not translate some of those sentences to Polish even if my life depended on it