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Polish/Plural
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Plural
< Order of words in a sentence < ^ Polish ^ > Noun cases >
Like most other Indo-European languages, and unlike Chinese or Japanese, in Polish, the grammatical number of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and verbs can be either singular or plural (pojedyncza and mnoga).
Let's first examine how verbs change in the singular and plural forms.
{| border="1"
|-
! rowspan="2" | Meaning
Singular
! colspan="3" | Plural
|-
! First person
Second person
! Third person
First person
! Second person
Third person
|-
| To eat || jem || jesz || je || jemy
| jecie || jedzą
|-
| To drink || piję || pijesz || pije || pijemy
| pijecie || piją
|-
| To see || widzę || widzisz || widzi || widzimy
| widzicie || widzą
|-
| To read || czytam || czytasz || czyta || czytamy
| czytacie || czytają
|-
| To write || piszę || piszesz || pisze || piszemy
| piszecie || piszą
|-
| To be || jestem || jesteś || jest || jesteśmy
| jesteście || są
|-
| To have || mam || masz || ma || mamy
| macie || mają
|-
| To think || myślę || myślisz || myśli || myślimy
| myślicie || myślą
|-
| To drive || jadę || jedziesz || jedzie || jedziemy
| jedziecie || jadą
|-
| To give || daję || dajesz || daje || dajemy
| dajecie || dają
|}
Now, let's look at how some nouns change in the singular and plural forms:
{| border="1"
|-
! rowspan="2" | Gender
Meaning
! colspan="2" | Singular
Plural
|-
! Nominative
Accusative
! Nominative
Accusative
|-
| Feminine || Girl || Dziewczyna
| Dziewczynę || colspan="2" | Dziewczyny
|-
| rowspan="2" | Neuter || Child || colspan="2" | Dziecko
| colspan="2" | Dzieci
|-
| Beer || colspan="2" | Piwo || colspan="2" | Piwa
|-
| Person-masculine || Boy || Chłopak || Chłopaka || Chłopcy
| Chłopców
|-
| Animate-masculine || Cat || Kot || Kota || colspan="2" | Koty
|-
| Inanimate-masculine || Computer || colspan="2" | Komputer
| colspan="2" | Komputery
|}
As you can see, with the exception of person-masculine, the nominative and accusative are the same in the plural (in the person masculine accusatives are the same as genitives).
Like in other Indo-European languages, the verb agrees with the subject.
Basia ma chomiki. - Basia has (owns) hamsters.
Dziewczyny mają komputer. - The girls have a computer.
Koty piją mleko. - The cats are drinking milk.
< Order of words in a sentence < ^ Polish ^ > Noun cases >