If I want to start with grammar, I have to start from the very beginning - that is from the NOUNS. You can already find some information about it
HERE.
I will basically touch the same topic but from a more grammatical point of view, as you know I am a grammar freak:)
The Nouns (that is, all things = objects,
touchable like table, chair, bicycle, and
abstract like weather, feeling, dance; AND people, animals, living creatures, UFO, etc.) have all their own genders:
masculine,
feminine, or
neutral. For instance, a table "stół" is masculine and we refer to it as "he", a chair "krzesło" is however neutral and we refer to it as "it" (so just like in English), but "kiełbasa" (that I don't have to translate) is female and we refer to it as "she". Think about it, as if every thing or creature had its own personality. In English, we actually have a few nouns as well, who have their genders (and almost personalities)! A boat is a lady, a car is a lady as well - for guys at least;), and I'm sure we could find a few more like that.
How do we know what has what gender? It's actually one of the easiest things in Polish, purly grammatical and like not that many phenomena, very logical:)
MASCULINE NOUNS:
- almost all nouns ending in a
consonant* (
kot=cat, pies=dog, rower=bicycle)
- a small group of nouns ended in -
a (
mężczyzna=man, kolega=male friend, poeta=
poet) A very funny point of this group is that those nouns ended in - as you will see below - the most typical female ending "a"- are the most masculine nouns:)
FEMININE NOUNS:
- almost all nouns ended in -
a (
wiewiórka=squirrel, poduszka=pillow, malina=rasberry)
- a small group of nouns ended in a
consonant* [a revenge?;)] (
noc=night, twarz=face, rzecz=thing)
- just a few words ended in -
i (
pani=Mrs., m'am, gospodyni=hostess)
NEUTRAL NOUNS:
- all nouns ended in -
e (
serce=heart, słońce=sun, miejsce=place)
- all nouns ended in -
o (
masło=butter, wiadro=bucket, dziecko=child)
- all nouns ended in -
ę (
imię=name, prosię=piglet, źrebię=foal)
- all nouns ended in -
um (
muzeum, liceum=a kind of a high school, laboratorium)
Seems overwhelming? It's just a matter of practice.
EXERCISES:
On a big page draw a picture of a biiig woman, biiig man, and a biiig child. Then write
inside all the nouns you can think of: all female nouns in the woman, all masculine ones in the man, and all neutral nouns in the child. You can also divide our "family members" in parts (or e.g. draw parts of their clothing) and put the nouns with certain endings in each part (e.g. all nouns ending in masculine go to man's sweater, and all ending in -a go to his pants;)).
Then, you can try to add the modifiers**: TEN, TA, TO (=this/that for respectively: masculine nouns, female nouns, neutral nouns), e.g.
ten kot, ten kolega, ta wiewiórka, to masło, etc.
Not that complicated, right?
*
Polish constants: b, c, ć, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, ł, m, n, ń, p, r, s, ś, t, w, z, ź, ż
*
Polish vowels: a, ą, e, ę, o, ó, u, i
**
Modifiers: anything that comes in front of a noun and gives us a little more information. As Polish DOES NOT HAVE ARTICLES (a, an, the) at all! we sometimes use some other words to describe the word further; it can be a possessive adjective (my, your, his), a demonstrative pronoun (this, that), an adjective (big, small, red) etc.
Questions?
