Mar 25
After learning the names of the months last time, it’s time for the days of the week. In the example sentences, they appear in their Accusative singular forms – that’s the form you use to talk about on which day something happens. Yes, it’s different from the Locative form used with months, and no, there’s no sensible rationale behind this. None that an average speaker knows of.
Notice that the days of the week, unlike in English, are not capitalized!
You’ll also notice that in the phrase we wtorek, the preposition w gets an extra letter. Why? Well, try to pronounce *w wtorek… There are two other instances where some speakers will add an e to the preposition: we środę and we czwartek. These forms appear probably as frequently as their equivalents with w, and are just as correct. So you can pick and choose ;)
poniedziałek – Monday
W poniedziałek mam ważne spotkanie.
On Monday I have an important meeting.
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Feb 27
The verb mieć – to have – has a number of idiomatic uses. Even a beginner should get familiar with at least some of them, since they’re very common, and, to make matters worse, they often don’t translate literally. Translating things literally can have disastrous consequences. Believe me, you don’t want to ask a Polish woman for her age by doing a word-to-word translation of the English “how old are you?”; in Polish the word for old – stary – feels much more negative than in English, and suggesting a woman she might be stara only works for you if you’re suicidal. Doing it the Polish way, you simply ask her how many years she has.
Even though you should know better than to ask about such matters in the first place.
1. mieć ochotę – to feel like
If you want to say you feel like doing something, you use the infinitive form of the verb:
Mam ochotę uczyć się gramatyki.
I feel like studying grammar.
Nie mam ochoty napić się wódki.
I don’t feel like drinking vodka.
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Feb 27
The verb mieć – to have – is more tricky than it seems. You probably already know that you have to inflect the noun following it – your direct object – since it would be a shame if the richness of Polish cases went to waste. The case used, however, will differ depending on whether your statement is a positive or a negative one.
If you do have something, you put the noun in the Accusative case. Now, remember that Polish inflects pretty much everything, so if you adorn your noun with any modifiers – adjectives, possesive pronouns or numerals, for example – you put them in the Accusative as well. Together with the noun, these extras constitute a noun phrase, and should be treated equally – in the fancy linguistic jargon it’s called agreement. Easy, right?
To jest książka.
This is a book. Nominative case, so that you can see the basic form of the noun.
Mam książkę.
I have a book. Accusative case.