Polish Language – Case Endings (What do they mean?)?
Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at
6:51 am
I am trying to learn some Polish as I am working in Lodz. With all books they seem to go in to detail about the structure of the language and use descriptions that we wouldn't have used when learning english in school. Can anyone please explain in idiots language - what the various case endings mean - eg Nominative / Accusative / Genitive / Dative etc etc. Sometimes I think you need an english dictionary too to be able to use these book!
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Tagged with: case endings • english dictionary • lodz
Filed under: Polish Language
The thing closest to "case endings" in English is the " ’s " in "my friend’s house". Instead of "my friend’s house" you can say "the house of my friend". So in English you have two possibilities: using "of" (which is called a preposition) or using the case ending " ’s" . This " ’s " is the only case ending existing in English, a language in which the function of so-called cases are expressed by prepositions, small words like "of", "to", "with", "by". In all Slavic languages (except Bulgarian). and in many other languages, there are a number of case endings that take the place of prepositions.
In English, the difference between the one who does and the one it’s done to is expressed only by the place of the word in the sentence. In a sentence like "the cat fears the dog", you know who fears and who is feared only by the place of the respective words. In Polish, it’s not the place of the word but its ending which explains who fears whom.
And this is valid for the whole language:
matka = mother (doing or being the thing you’re talking about)
matki = of mother, mother’s : mother’s house = dom matki
matce = to mother : to give to mother: dać matce
matkę (with a small hook at the final "e") = mother (as the object of an action, "I love mother": ja kocham matkę,
matką (with a small hook = by mother, through mother
matko = mother ! (when calling: Please, mother! and such phrases).
"Accusative" is the name of the case you use when you’re talking of who is the object of the action. In "he loves her" "her" is the object of the love, so it’s the accusative ("her" is the accusative form of "she", as "him" is of "he", and "me" of " I "). Most other words don’t have an accusative form in English, the fact that it’s the object of the action is expressed by the place of the word after the verb.
"Nominative" is the name of the case you use when you refer to the one who does the action. In " he loves her", "he" is the nominative.
"Genitive" is the case of the English " ’s " or the preposition "of", it indicates what belongs to whom.
"Dative" is the case of the being your giving something to, or talking to.
"Instrumental" is the case of the thing you’re using, or the way you’re doing something. Very often, in English, it corresponds to the words "with" or "by". In "I’m writing with a pencil" "with a pencil" will be just one word in Polish, a word in the Instrumental case.
I’m not sure the book "Polish without toil" exists in English, but the "without toil" series is a series (the Assimil books) in which you learn the language gradually, without much theory, and with so many practical examples that the language is somewhat predigested. Maybe you should try to find it.
All the same, Polish is anything but easy. I wish you good luck. Dont’ be discouraged too quickly, things will get clearer after a while.