Learn Polish with SnapChat

I’m sure you have all heard of SnapChat!  Let's learn Polish together using this app!

Everyday I will be adding one or two very short videos (max. 10 seconds). One video= one sentence in Polish (you can hear the pronouncation and also see how to write it and there will be also translation in English). Each video you can watch many times during 24hours from the time of its publishing. If you want to revise or listen to some sentences again after 24h, you need to save them on your phone before it dissapears. This way you can always come back to them.

To learn Polish with me via SnapChat, add me please! This is my username: justynab6.

Once you’ve added me, you can send me a snap, snap video or a chat message to introduce yourself. Let me know how long you have been learning Polish- it will help me to prepare more videos at your level!

Hope you will enjoy!

Let's face BIERNIK (Accusative)

          As you may already know, Polish people change the endings (suffixes) of all adjectives and nouns all the time and it's pretty hard to learn when to use which ending. But I will help you to understand it, to practise and to remember.

For example if someone's name is ADAM, I can say: To jest Adam. (This is Adam). But when I say: Chcę zatańczyć z Adamem (I want to dance with Adam), I change the ending of his name- I dont say any more: Adam, but Adamem. And again, when I say: Myślę o Adamie (I'm thinking about Adam), I change the ending for diffrent
one. So we have: Adam, Adamem, Adamie.. looks pretty confusing for now, doesnt it? But let me explain step by step.

Firstly, you should know we have 7 cases in Polish (cases are resposible for those endings changes):

Mianownik- Nominative (basic form, the one you find in dictionary)

Dopełniacz- Genitive

Celownik- Dative

Biernik- Accusative

Narzędnik- Instrumental

Miejscownik- Locative

Wołacz- Vocative

We use cases to change the endings of adjectives and nouns.

Today:

BIERNIK (ACCUSATIVE)

First of all, you should remember how to know which noun is masculine, which one is feminine and which one is neutral. It is very important if you want to learn cases! So most of the time feminine nouns finish with -a (e.g. kawa, woda, spódnica), neutral with -e or -o (e.g. piwo, dziecko, okno) and the rest of them are masculine. 

Now: 

When do we use the Accusative?

If you are going to use in the sentence one of the following words:

lubić (to like), mieć (to have), chcieć (to want), jeść (to eat), pić (to drink), woleć (prefer), proszę (please), kochać (to love), oglądać (to watch), czytać (to read)

 then the word/ words (noun OR adjective+noun) which is after one of those should has Accusative endings.

 So the first sentence is: Lubię kawę (I like coffee). 

I have explained you that the word which follows the verb 'lubić' should has Accusative endings. The coffee is 'kawa' in Polish, but saying: "Lubię kawa." is not correct. I need to use Accusative, that is why I will say: "Lubię kawę."

Now you should learn what are Accusative endings for masculine, feminine and neutral adjectives and nouns.

We divide masculine nouns for animate and inanimate. To say very generally animate ones are: people, animals, fruit, vegetables.

Ok, let's try. How would you say in Polish: 

'I love watching TV'?

As you know, the verb 'to watch' should be followed by Accusative, so TV will have the Accusative ending.

TV is 'telewizja' in Polish. Is the word 'telewizja' masculine, feminine or neutral? It is feminine, because it ends with 'a'. So have a look at endings in the picture above (telewizja is a noun, feminine), so we can say:

Kocham oglądać telewizję. 

The second example:

I have a tall brother.

I have- mam

a tall brother- wysoki brat

Which words should have Accusative ending? Of course: a tall brother as they follow the word 'I have'('mam') which works with Accusative.

Is 'brother' masculine, feminine or neutral noun? Masculine. Ok, animate or inanimate? Animate. So:

Mam wysokiego brata.   

   

Questions

Questions are very important. During Polish courses, many teachers ask the students questions all the time and they wait for their answers. It's nothing bad about it, but when it comes to real life, the students also need to be able to ask many questions ( in the shops, whenever they are lost etc). That's why it is also very important to practise making them.

First of all, let's learn the question words:

GDZIE?- Where?

KIEDY?- When?

DLACZEGO?- Why?

KTO?- Who?
CO?- What?
JAK CZĘSTO?- How often?
ILE?- How much/ how many?
O KTÓREJ?- At what time?

JAK?- How?

JAK DŁUGO?- How long?

Now I will give you a few simple examples of the questions:

Gdzie jest bank?- Where is the bank?

Kiedy masz urodziny?- When it is your birthday?

Dlaczego jesteś smutny?- Why are you sad?

Kto ma mój długopis?- Who has my pen?

Co lubisz jeść?- What do you like eating?

Jak często pijesz kawę?- How often do you drink coffee?

Ile kanapek chcesz?- How many sandwiches do you want?

O której jest pociąg do Warszawy?- What time is the train to Warsaw?

Jak się masz?- How are you?

Jak długo mieszkasz w Polsce?- How long have you  lived in Poland?

Try to make your own questions and write them in comments:)

Studying grammar

Grammar! I like it;)

I guess it happens hardly ever to hear such words from someone studying Polish language. Polish grammar is not maybe the easiest, but absolutely possible to learn. However, Polish or any other foreign language can be ruined for you because of how much grammar is practised and discussed.

My advice is: Don't make grammar a priority, skip it at the beginning and come back to it a bit later. First, gain the confidence to speak using set phrases. Studying grammar until you knew it perfectly, wouldn’t help you if you had no words to fill it in or confidence to speak. Start with learning words, expressions and practise it despite speaking badly. When you are fine with it, buy grammar book. Then you will see the rule explained for something you’ve heard hundreds of times already and you will think: that’s why they say it that way:) When grammar has something to attach to, then it starts to really become a crucial part of a language.

But of course... you can’t speak a language well without doing it correctly! So in the pre- intermediate or intermediate level, the grammar should be more important. You can go through it, it just depends on your attitude and motivation. 

Remember, you’ll NEVER know all the grammar. There are always hidden exceptions, strange irregular verbs etc., so dont loose your motivation if you make one mistake in the exercise!

Also studying grammar can be fun. In the future posts I will be explaining for you the most important grammar thing.

Polish verb conjugation

Today I would like to advice you a website which might be very helpful if you have a problem with verbs conjugation.

For example, you can find in the dictionary that 'to cook' is 'gotować' in Polish. But how to say: I cook, you cook, he/she cooks, we cook, you cook and they cook? Also how to conjugate this verb in the past tense or in the future? Sometimes it is complicated, so have a look here:

http://aztekium.pl/osoby.py

It is enough you will write the invinitive of any verb and you will see its conjugation. Be aware that there might be mistakes here. Anyway most of the conjugations should be correct.