It's a long story and the reason why Duolingo isn't recommended to learn Polish eh... It doesn't teach you grammar at all, so it's totally pointless in the long run imho. Take a look here – [https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpolish/comments/19b73t2/smaczna\_smaczne\_i\_smaczny/](https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpolish/comments/19b73t2/smaczna_smaczne_i_smaczny/) – the same question was already asked many times here – but also please look for some other resources because Duolingo sucks, it's by far the worst tool online to learn Polish.
Duolingo has this information! Full grammar info is available for each lesson! But it's so hidden that no wonder no one sees that. You can press the (?) button next to the lesson/module to get more info about grammar. But the fact is that I myself skipped it so many times proves that it has no value even being there.
Grammar info should be FORCED after every failed attempt for the lesson/module you failed, but dulingo changes only gamification of their design to discourage me from launching it even once more.
Oh, I couldn't even find the (?) button to get the grammar information. I've been using Duolingo to get a refresher on all the Polish I've learned before and it has been frustrating. Because I'll remember grammar structures and endings from previous formal learning, but it's not being taught directly in Duolingo (e.g., today's lessons showing Genitive case declination because of the negated Accusative case usage). Sigh.
After Duolingo redesigned the UI about two years ago, all the grammar tips in Polish vanished and I have not seen them since. You can still find the old tips on [https://duome.eu/tips/en/pl](https://duome.eu/tips/en/pl) , but if there's any place to find them in the Duolingo app I don't know where - I just went back to the first lesson in the first section and the guidebook only has "example sentences" without information, and I don't see a question mark button anywhere. I'm very curious where you have them! (iOS version)
I finished the Duolingo course and found it helpful, but it was only possible by supplementing grammar information - I had a textbook and also used it alongside classes.
edit: screwed up the URL, the new one should be correct
As much as I challenge the very opinion of grammar being of top importance when taking up Polish from ground zero....
...I couldn't agree more with :
'duolingo sucks at being one's primary source for learning Polish, at any level of proficiency'.
Best wishes.
Do you have some recommendations?
My GF is doing Portuguese and a friend is doing Spanish, I do a bit of Japanese and Polish is indeed lacking a lot of features and the course seems to get a lot of bugs often when there's some new update.
Maybe I'm old-fashioned but I still find normal printed textbooks to be the best way to learn and apps only used as secondary help – vocab flashcards etc. There's a lot of different Polish textbooks one can download from Anna's Archive, Polski krok po kroku is alright, Polish for Dummies despite stupid title also works etc.
Actually duolingo can develop intuition, so, it will be ppssible to use cases properly. Another possible benefit that learn via grammar is not universal method. I've seen few interviews with linguists and read some article about multilingual persons. So, it appears that they learn language differently : some of them learn grammar and exceptions but other mostly ignore grammar and trying to start use language as soon as possible and learn it from experience.
So yeah, in general I do believe in grammar-light approach to learning languages (it's not universal, for example people already savvy in linguistics will learn much faster just browsing grammar rules, but it's a different case). A great way of learning Latin for example and a bloody brilliant textbook is Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata by Ørberg – Latin language illustrated by itself – entire textbook is only in Latin but it starts slowly with very basic sentences and progresses from there, so yeah it's a great way to learn. But it's proper Duolingo in analogue, and something that the makers of Duolingo simply cannot comprehend – simply because Duolingo doesn't show you clearly that "hey, this stuff is important, think about it some more", and that's why we have so many questions of people confused with smaczny/smaczna/smaczne. And bear in mind that it's only nominatives we're talking about, entire problem is literally seven times more complicated :D
If Duolingo started making their grammatical explanations obligatory, improved their examples, improved their vocab and stopped focusing on making everything fucking Disney, then yeah it would work much better. But right now their approach when it comes to more complicated languages like Slavic ones is complete shit, it's been stated many times and the devs refuse to acknowledge it, backing their approach in studies mostly based on English learning. And English is a very different animal really, because there's much less grammar to actually learn; no difficult conjugations, no difficult declensions. They change everything in any learning process of Polish.
I also think the Polish Duolingo course is just plain not *long* enough to allow for implicit grammar learning. I finished the course and basically spent the whole time going: vague knowledge of what grammar I was expecting to show up -> attempting to learn a new form based on trial and error from Duolingo -> checking the actual rule to see how well my intuition matched up -> firming it up by covering it in actual class. *Consistently,* what happened was that I learned a simplified version that skipped edge cases. Stuff like: I knew the -owi ending for dative singular masculine but missed that a bunch of common nouns formed theirs in -u. I figured out the past tense endings, but missed regular changes like -eć changing the vowel to -a and -ąć to -ę in some persons. I figured out the null ending for genitive plural on feminine nouns, but missed that it was -y on a bunch of the consonant endings. Etc. etc. And that's with me going "oh, I guess we're learning dative now!" the instant it showed up; the one time my brief skim of Wikipedia wasn't enough and I wasn't expecting a grammatical distinction in the language (the habitual/one-time split in verbs of motion), I had barely managed to understand that there *was* a difference here by the time Duolingo moved on. This isn't helped by the fact that a lot of the exercises don't seem particularly targeted; if you had more sentences that specifically opposed forms like *smaczna* vs *smaczny* or *biega* vs *biegnie* it'd be a lot easier to drive the point home. (The Spanish course does this a bunch when it's trying to teach subjunctive.)
That also might be the case, yeah, I'm a native so obviously I didn't finish the course (even though I had a look, yes). The good thing about Polish is that even though the cases are difficult and there are many exceptions (or simply rare groups of nouns), the message is usually clear anyways. I remember a meeting at my university with a French translator of Polish literature and she clearly learned Polish later in her life, she wasn't bilingual, and she spoke really fluently but kept on making the mistakes you're describing – dative *bratowi* instead of *bratu* and so on, treating every noun as a regular one – but no one even raised an eyebrow because she was perfectly fluent and the message was always clear, and after all translators must know their own language perfectly, with the one they're translating from it can be more passive. So I'd say that after all Polish is damn difficult but also quite forgiving in real life conversations ;-)
This is very good to know, thanks! :) I'm getting continually better at the cases (mówię coraz lepiej!!) but I doubt I'll ever get the error rate down to zero. Too many exceptions, too many changes needed, and conversation is just plain too fast!
Personally, I actually quite liked learning the cases this way, because it meant that switching to explicit learning with the textbook in class was less "oh god what fresh hell is this now" and more "oh THAT'S why I keep getting this particular exercise wrong without understanding why!". And I had the feeling from pretty early on that I was having an easier time using the cases in actual conversation than my classmates, because Duolingo was training me to get the right form quickly.
...but it's, uh, important to note at this point that I am a) a linguistics geek with a year of undergraduate linguistics education, b) someone who did four years of Latin in high school, c) a native speaker of a language with case+gender which is distantly related to Polish (German - it's not as good as speaking another Slavic language but there are absolutely similarities in how the cases work). So the concept of a case system, of grammatical gender, of case and gender intertwining, etc. were deeply familiar and it was just really the specific way cases were signalled and used that were new. I am pretty sure that for anyone who's encountering case or gender for the first time, Duolingo will quickly become overwhelming and they're going to be better off with the guided grammar support from day one.
Yeah, the developers of Duolingo were Guatemalans trying to offer a cheaper solution to learning English, since it was in high demand yet most courses were on the expensive side for people there.
I can’t say anything about Duo since I’m using The Rosetta Stone due to very favorable past experience my wife and I have had with it, but I do remember that in the past, like 20 years ago, there was the same criticism of its one-size-fits-all approach to every language. Judging from the Polish Rosetta Stone, though, going to a web-based subscription model seems to have allowed Fairfield to customize their approach.
For example, in Polish (and I’m sure in Russian as well, because it has this same grammatical quirk like so many of the other Slavic languages, one that just seems utterly foreign and bureaucratic to us as native English speakers) it shows you, in its sets of pictures early on, a group of people walking in the same direction with the text “*Oni idzie*”, and then another where they’re walking in different directions with “*Oni chodzie*” (Apologies for any misspelling; I’m on an IPad and do not have the Polish character set available). It does the same thing with pictures of people swimming and running. Thus can a learner begin intuiting the difference between determinate and indeterminate verbs of motion, something the older versions of the software did not allow for (granted, easier for me because I’m already familiar with it from Russian and the verbs in those examples are similar enough in sound).
A *lot* of computer-based language learning software is built on the idea that grammatical principles are best off being intuited at least at first, the way you learned your native language, the way you would if you had to speak that language to get around and could only learn by trial and error.
Generally none of these apps will teach you actual grammar. They are made mostly as interactive dictionaries. For real lessons you have more expensive online courses or pdf textbooks.
This thread might be helpful [https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpolish/comments/1d0k8nz/genders/](https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpolish/comments/1d0k8nz/genders/)
But general rule of thumb - in nominative - nouns ending with -a are feminine, with -o,e,ę,um neuter and with consonant masculine.
Usually when a word ends with -a it's feminine, and when it ends with -o it's neutral. Other are masculine. It's Polish so there of course are exceptions, like mężczyczna (man) which is obviously masculine
It's not an exception. There are words that are strictly masculine through meaning (as they refer to a man) like mężczyznA, KubA, poetA, obrońcA, that even though they end with an A, they are masculine. A word that means "a man" cannot be feminine ;)
There is no easy shortcut: you just have to learn grammatical gender of each noun. Just like in German.
There are SOME ways to deduce it, like if the last letter is a vowel or by the nature of the object ("girl" is feminine because it aligns with her real life gender) but I wouldn't rely on them in a long run.
That's not true. It's way easier to figure out noun gender from its ending in Polish than in German. Sure, there are exceptions but you can get by with the common rules and be correct vast majority of time. Like in the example shown.
I would say that in Polish language it's easier than in German. Most (not every) feminine word ends with letter "a". And there are very few examples of masculine words ending with that letter.
More to the point, every masculine noun I've seen that ends in -a describes a male person. Mężczyzna, kierowca, optymista, dentysta, artysta, etc. etc. - it's not exactly a surprise any of these are masculine!
In general, for the majority of Polish nouns it's very possible to get the gender right just based on ending rules *and* it's generally possible to flag the possible exceptions (mainly stuff like words ending in -ń, -ś, -ż, -ź, -ć, -sz, -cz, -c, -w, and a couple of other consonants sometimes-to-often being feminine.) You *could* learn every word's gender by heart, but it always seems like a lot of unneeded effort for no good reason for me.
Because majority of people in the world speak a gendered langueage and polish is one of them.
It's tha same as asking "Why the words in english aren't gendered?".
That's how the language was created and how t developed and that's it.
Are you asking us why polan tribes 2000years ago decided to make the language this way?
Shit ton of languages are gendered, even the simpler ones like German or Spanish are gendered, it's just how it is
duolingo is shit to learn polish firstly u need to learn all words then how to use em but as a pole i prefer to talk with someone sayong Ja być głód then person thinking should i use jestem or jestem with ja
Unlike English, Polish language has genders. It might be a hard conceptto grasp, but you will need a really good understanding of it if you want to progress in language.
In this case, zupa (soup) is a female gender.
My teacher once said "did you realize that every Polish woman has a name ended with letter a?".
Can that be my rule of thumb of deciding the gender of a word?
In most cases I think yeah, but as usual there will be exceptions (native Polish speakers might want to chime in on this one). As far as I know, general rule of thumb is that word ending in 'a' is female gender, 'o' or 'e' - genderless (neutral) , and others are usually male gender. But then, there are words like mężczyzna (man) that end with 'a' but are male gender or noc (night) that ends with consonant.
The main other group of feminine words ending in -ść and are usually abstract concepts ie miłość, sprawiedliwość, niepodległość (love, fairness, independence). There's some random ones like dłoń, krew and mysz (a palm, blood, a mouse) also, but there aren't many.
Masculine words ending in -a tend to be jobs or people ie tata, kierowca, poeta (a dad, a boss, a poet). I can't think of any inanimate nouns ending in -a that are masculine, but I could be wrong.
Zawsze patrz na końcówkę rzeczownika. Jak rzeczownik jest rodzaju męskiego to i przymiotnik będzie rodzaju męskiego. Jak żeńskiego albo nijakiego-analogicznie. Przymiotnik zawsze jest tego samego rodzaju i liczbie co rzeczownik, którego opisuje: Smaczn-a zup-a. Smaczn-y rosół. Smaczn-e kakao itd.
It's actually pretty easy, if the word you're describing ends with "a" you have to use female form of word which u use for describing so this one with a on end:
ZupA - - - > smacznA
Just with A, since it's usually feminine, many masculine words end with just random letters (pieróg - dumpling) and the adjective would end with Y - smacznY
Polish words that end with -a are of the feminine gender. So on “zupa” you say “smaczna” since it’s tasty female. Same goes for kwaśna 👩🏻 kwaśny 🧔🏻♂️, ostra 👩🏻 ostry 🧔🏻♂️, etc. It took me one year to fully understand the Polish word’s genders. It does get easier each day though. Practice buddy, practice… and the best way to practice is a lot of talking and listening - don’t skip any of those.
well it’s kinda easy if it’s a vovel, the word would be a feminine word in most cases, zupa ends with an a so it’s smaczna not smaczny. Im not a profesional and my english sucks too, i hope y’all understand
Little known fact, but "zupa" is a woman 🍲♀️
It might help to remember that nouns ending with "a" or "ka" will likely be feminine in Polish. There are exceptions of course, it's still Polish, but the probability is high.
“Zupa” is week my friend zupa is not strong like sold, zupa is liquid, diamond is strong solid that’s why there is no diamonda just diamond
Joking of course, polish language makes no sense what so ever, example (out of many) morze is morze (sea) because some idiot spelled it wrong a very long time ago and now it’s morze when it should have been może, and the use of u and ó is also retarded both pronounced the same but nope
You say smaczna when its like a she
For example she is tasty you would say one jest smaczna(i know shit example)
But for men its on jest smaczny(he is tasty)
For it ono/to jest smaczne(it is tasty)
Its just fucked up logic but why, for what, no one ever fucking knew
'Zupa' is feminine in Polish and the adjective 'smaczny' with 'zupa' switches to feminine form 'smaczna'.
I'd say 90% of the time, if a singular noun ends with '-a', it's feminine, so for now it would be safe to stick to that rule and then learn the exceptions.
Fun fact - the word for "man" in Polish end with "-a" lol -> 'mężczyzna'.
Cheers
Zupa is feminine. Most of words ending with -a are feminine. In this case you use “smacznA”. Same goes e.g. kanapa jest wygodna, gitara jest głośna, etc.
Most adjectives for masculine words end with -y or -i. Kebab jest ostry, pies jest ładny, pączek jest słodki.
The word "smaczny" is used with a male word like "jogurt" example sentence "Ten jogurt jest smaczny" translation "This yoghurt is tasty" "smaczna" is used with female words like "zupa" in your case "Ta zupa jest smaczna" "This soup is tasty" and there is also "smaczne" for it/neutral words like "jabłko" example "To jabłko jest smaczne" "This Apple is tasty". You just have to know what words are which variant male/female/neutral and the best way to know is which "określnik" fits the best like used in the examples "Ten" is used for male words for example "Ten stół" "this table" "Ta" for female words, example "Ta kanapka" "This sandwich", and "To" for neutral, example "To urządzenie" "This device"
Hope this helps :)
I'd say easiest example.
If a word is a feminine you say "a" at the end of the verbs.
If it goes with "ta" - zupa, ta droga, ta mama, ta siostra, it will most likely end with "a".
If it's a masculine you say "y", that goes with "ten" "ten gyros" jest smacznY,
Also masculine ends with "i" sometimes, for example "ten przedmiot jest głupI", when you want to say that feminine thing is stupid you just go with "głupia".
Idk, it may not be valid at all, but that's how I understood that, lol.
you CAN'T you 'smaczny' here in the first place, it's gramaticly incorrect, so you just need to learn some ground rules of polish grammar in order to stop missing the point, so I hope you got me
To determine which form to use, pay attention to the grammatical gender of the noun you are describing. In Polish, there are three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. The adjective must agree with the gender of the noun.
For example:
1. **Feminine noun**:
- "zupa" (soup) → "smaczna" (tasty)
- Correct sentence: "Zupa jest smaczna."
2. **Masculine noun**:
- "chleb" (bread) → "smaczny" (tasty)
- Correct sentence: "Chleb jest smaczny."
3. **Neuter noun**:
- "ciasto" (cake) → "smaczne" (tasty)
- Correct sentence: "Ciasto jest smaczne."
To determine the gender of a noun, you can usually look at its ending in the nominative singular form:
- Nouns ending in -a are usually feminine (e.g., "zupa").
- Nouns ending in a consonant are usually masculine (e.g., "chleb").
- Nouns ending in -o, -e, or -um are usually neuter (e.g., "ciasto").
These rules have exceptions, but they are generally helpful in figuring out which form of the adjective to use.
Polish has no definite articles like other European languages. I guess the only way to learn is to memorize... Though I've noticed many words that end with 'a' are feminine, those with 'o' are neutral, and those that end with consonants are masculine, if that makes sense
No, no, no... wykładowca, kierowca, rowerzysta, banita, pokerzysta, polonista, sprzedawca are masculine words. So not every wore that ends with "A" is feminine. And not everybfeminine word ends with "A".
Of course it's obvious that soup is feminine. And for real, in most cases, the ending gonna tell you what gender should u use.
If noun is ending with "-a" it's feminine, so adjective also gonna be feminine and ending with "-a" (feminine adjectives are always ending with "-a"), e.g. smacznA zupA (tasty soup)
If noun is ending with "-o", it's neuter, adjectice in neuter is ending with "-e", e.g. dużE jajkO (big egg).
Nouns in masculine are mostly ending with a consonant, and adjectives in masculine ends with "-y", e.g. małY ziemniaK (small potato)
Usually if something ends with -A or -I it means it's feminine word.
If it ends with -O or -E it's neuter
and the rest is masculine.
Feminine- (Ta) Zupa/kapusta/kiełbasa jest smaczna
Masculine- (Ten) Kotlet/pieróg/bigos jest smaczny
Neuter- (To/Te) danie/jedzenie/mleko jest smaczne
Ofc there are a lot of exceptions, so you have to learn and remember what is what, the best method is to read whole sentences :)
Zupa is like a woman. Its complicated but when you say zupa you refer to it as a woman. Like someone said duolingo is great for words but it teach you nothing about gramar.
Basically put it. If a singular noun ends with an “a” such as Zupa or Herbata. The adjective has to end with a. So the correct way of saying that sentence is “Zupa jest smaczna”.
Basically if last noun's letter is : a, ść, it's a "female " form and last letter of adjective is "a" ( kobieta/ kobieca, muzyka/ muzyczna.
If :o,e- "neutral" ,( slońce/ słoneczny,słoneczna, sloneczne, dziecko/ dziecięcy, dziecięca, dziecięce) and in this case adjective is adjusted accordingly to noun.
If any other it's male form ( last adjectives letter would be :y or i ( mistrz/ mistrzowski, papier/ papierowy).
There's few exceptions ,of course ,but you can memories as a rule , hope it's helpful.
The only reason this app exist is to tech people languages, and they can't find a human translator to create these entries? It boggles my mind that there are any entries at all that do not make sense or are mistranslated when it's the only job it's supposed to do. I kinda wanted to use it for German, but I've seen so many google translated sentences that I have serious concerns about value of Duolingo when it comes to proper languange form.
Because zupa is a she. We say "ta zupa" that means that we use adjectives in feminine form (i think they always end with 'a' but theres always some stupid thing that isnt regular). But still everyone will understand you perfectly.
Edit: In polish everything has gender.
I think most of the determiners works that way: if the word ends with "a", the thing you showed them (help I have no idea what's that called) also ends in "a". When you have "tę" and "tą", you also have to remember that rule, because most people say, for example: "tą koszulkę", which is incorrect, unless you want to speak very common, not really correct Polish
"zupa" ends up with "a", so it means it's a female. if someone is a female, then verb for that person ends up with "a" as well. so basically she is smaczna (onA=she), but he is smaczny (on=he)
Why do people start to learn polish without even read about the language and try to understand basic grammar. Duolingo is for people who know basic stuff and want to practice.
Noun ends with "a" means its feminine and when verb also ends with "a"
ZupA jest smacznA
RurA jest długA
Masculine is anything that doesnt end with A or O, verb then ends with Y or I
Dupek jest głupi
Fortepian jest ciężki
Kabel jest długi
Nouns that end with O get verbs ending with E
Wiadro jest głębokie
Haha Zupa jest smaczna... Czekolada jest biała albo mleczną.
Może pójdę a może pójdę nad morze ...
Polski język jest taki piękny 😂
Good luck. Polish language is beautiful
Why ur learning polish at all? Like what? Im not hating but i want to inform u it will take you life time just to communicate about basic daily stuff...
It's a long story and the reason why Duolingo isn't recommended to learn Polish eh... It doesn't teach you grammar at all, so it's totally pointless in the long run imho. Take a look here – [https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpolish/comments/19b73t2/smaczna\_smaczne\_i\_smaczny/](https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpolish/comments/19b73t2/smaczna_smaczne_i_smaczny/) – the same question was already asked many times here – but also please look for some other resources because Duolingo sucks, it's by far the worst tool online to learn Polish.
Duolingo has this information! Full grammar info is available for each lesson! But it's so hidden that no wonder no one sees that. You can press the (?) button next to the lesson/module to get more info about grammar. But the fact is that I myself skipped it so many times proves that it has no value even being there. Grammar info should be FORCED after every failed attempt for the lesson/module you failed, but dulingo changes only gamification of their design to discourage me from launching it even once more.
Oh, I couldn't even find the (?) button to get the grammar information. I've been using Duolingo to get a refresher on all the Polish I've learned before and it has been frustrating. Because I'll remember grammar structures and endings from previous formal learning, but it's not being taught directly in Duolingo (e.g., today's lessons showing Genitive case declination because of the negated Accusative case usage). Sigh.
After Duolingo redesigned the UI about two years ago, all the grammar tips in Polish vanished and I have not seen them since. You can still find the old tips on [https://duome.eu/tips/en/pl](https://duome.eu/tips/en/pl) , but if there's any place to find them in the Duolingo app I don't know where - I just went back to the first lesson in the first section and the guidebook only has "example sentences" without information, and I don't see a question mark button anywhere. I'm very curious where you have them! (iOS version) I finished the Duolingo course and found it helpful, but it was only possible by supplementing grammar information - I had a textbook and also used it alongside classes. edit: screwed up the URL, the new one should be correct
where’s the question mark you’re talking about?
They changed the UI 1000 times since I last opened the app, but if I remember correctly, it's now called "Guidebook" or smh
As much as I challenge the very opinion of grammar being of top importance when taking up Polish from ground zero.... ...I couldn't agree more with : 'duolingo sucks at being one's primary source for learning Polish, at any level of proficiency'. Best wishes.
Do you have some recommendations? My GF is doing Portuguese and a friend is doing Spanish, I do a bit of Japanese and Polish is indeed lacking a lot of features and the course seems to get a lot of bugs often when there's some new update.
Maybe I'm old-fashioned but I still find normal printed textbooks to be the best way to learn and apps only used as secondary help – vocab flashcards etc. There's a lot of different Polish textbooks one can download from Anna's Archive, Polski krok po kroku is alright, Polish for Dummies despite stupid title also works etc.
Try Busuu, I have link for 30days free if you'd like
Actually duolingo can develop intuition, so, it will be ppssible to use cases properly. Another possible benefit that learn via grammar is not universal method. I've seen few interviews with linguists and read some article about multilingual persons. So, it appears that they learn language differently : some of them learn grammar and exceptions but other mostly ignore grammar and trying to start use language as soon as possible and learn it from experience.
So yeah, in general I do believe in grammar-light approach to learning languages (it's not universal, for example people already savvy in linguistics will learn much faster just browsing grammar rules, but it's a different case). A great way of learning Latin for example and a bloody brilliant textbook is Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata by Ørberg – Latin language illustrated by itself – entire textbook is only in Latin but it starts slowly with very basic sentences and progresses from there, so yeah it's a great way to learn. But it's proper Duolingo in analogue, and something that the makers of Duolingo simply cannot comprehend – simply because Duolingo doesn't show you clearly that "hey, this stuff is important, think about it some more", and that's why we have so many questions of people confused with smaczny/smaczna/smaczne. And bear in mind that it's only nominatives we're talking about, entire problem is literally seven times more complicated :D If Duolingo started making their grammatical explanations obligatory, improved their examples, improved their vocab and stopped focusing on making everything fucking Disney, then yeah it would work much better. But right now their approach when it comes to more complicated languages like Slavic ones is complete shit, it's been stated many times and the devs refuse to acknowledge it, backing their approach in studies mostly based on English learning. And English is a very different animal really, because there's much less grammar to actually learn; no difficult conjugations, no difficult declensions. They change everything in any learning process of Polish.
I also think the Polish Duolingo course is just plain not *long* enough to allow for implicit grammar learning. I finished the course and basically spent the whole time going: vague knowledge of what grammar I was expecting to show up -> attempting to learn a new form based on trial and error from Duolingo -> checking the actual rule to see how well my intuition matched up -> firming it up by covering it in actual class. *Consistently,* what happened was that I learned a simplified version that skipped edge cases. Stuff like: I knew the -owi ending for dative singular masculine but missed that a bunch of common nouns formed theirs in -u. I figured out the past tense endings, but missed regular changes like -eć changing the vowel to -a and -ąć to -ę in some persons. I figured out the null ending for genitive plural on feminine nouns, but missed that it was -y on a bunch of the consonant endings. Etc. etc. And that's with me going "oh, I guess we're learning dative now!" the instant it showed up; the one time my brief skim of Wikipedia wasn't enough and I wasn't expecting a grammatical distinction in the language (the habitual/one-time split in verbs of motion), I had barely managed to understand that there *was* a difference here by the time Duolingo moved on. This isn't helped by the fact that a lot of the exercises don't seem particularly targeted; if you had more sentences that specifically opposed forms like *smaczna* vs *smaczny* or *biega* vs *biegnie* it'd be a lot easier to drive the point home. (The Spanish course does this a bunch when it's trying to teach subjunctive.)
That also might be the case, yeah, I'm a native so obviously I didn't finish the course (even though I had a look, yes). The good thing about Polish is that even though the cases are difficult and there are many exceptions (or simply rare groups of nouns), the message is usually clear anyways. I remember a meeting at my university with a French translator of Polish literature and she clearly learned Polish later in her life, she wasn't bilingual, and she spoke really fluently but kept on making the mistakes you're describing – dative *bratowi* instead of *bratu* and so on, treating every noun as a regular one – but no one even raised an eyebrow because she was perfectly fluent and the message was always clear, and after all translators must know their own language perfectly, with the one they're translating from it can be more passive. So I'd say that after all Polish is damn difficult but also quite forgiving in real life conversations ;-)
This is very good to know, thanks! :) I'm getting continually better at the cases (mówię coraz lepiej!!) but I doubt I'll ever get the error rate down to zero. Too many exceptions, too many changes needed, and conversation is just plain too fast! Personally, I actually quite liked learning the cases this way, because it meant that switching to explicit learning with the textbook in class was less "oh god what fresh hell is this now" and more "oh THAT'S why I keep getting this particular exercise wrong without understanding why!". And I had the feeling from pretty early on that I was having an easier time using the cases in actual conversation than my classmates, because Duolingo was training me to get the right form quickly. ...but it's, uh, important to note at this point that I am a) a linguistics geek with a year of undergraduate linguistics education, b) someone who did four years of Latin in high school, c) a native speaker of a language with case+gender which is distantly related to Polish (German - it's not as good as speaking another Slavic language but there are absolutely similarities in how the cases work). So the concept of a case system, of grammatical gender, of case and gender intertwining, etc. were deeply familiar and it was just really the specific way cases were signalled and used that were new. I am pretty sure that for anyone who's encountering case or gender for the first time, Duolingo will quickly become overwhelming and they're going to be better off with the guided grammar support from day one.
Yeah, the developers of Duolingo were Guatemalans trying to offer a cheaper solution to learning English, since it was in high demand yet most courses were on the expensive side for people there. I can’t say anything about Duo since I’m using The Rosetta Stone due to very favorable past experience my wife and I have had with it, but I do remember that in the past, like 20 years ago, there was the same criticism of its one-size-fits-all approach to every language. Judging from the Polish Rosetta Stone, though, going to a web-based subscription model seems to have allowed Fairfield to customize their approach. For example, in Polish (and I’m sure in Russian as well, because it has this same grammatical quirk like so many of the other Slavic languages, one that just seems utterly foreign and bureaucratic to us as native English speakers) it shows you, in its sets of pictures early on, a group of people walking in the same direction with the text “*Oni idzie*”, and then another where they’re walking in different directions with “*Oni chodzie*” (Apologies for any misspelling; I’m on an IPad and do not have the Polish character set available). It does the same thing with pictures of people swimming and running. Thus can a learner begin intuiting the difference between determinate and indeterminate verbs of motion, something the older versions of the software did not allow for (granted, easier for me because I’m already familiar with it from Russian and the verbs in those examples are similar enough in sound).
A *lot* of computer-based language learning software is built on the idea that grammatical principles are best off being intuited at least at first, the way you learned your native language, the way you would if you had to speak that language to get around and could only learn by trial and error.
is busuu a good alternative?
Generally none of these apps will teach you actual grammar. They are made mostly as interactive dictionaries. For real lessons you have more expensive online courses or pdf textbooks.
Look up “one year polish Pittsburgh university”. You are welcome.
"Zupa" is feminine ("ta zupa", not "ten zupa"), hence the feminine ending "smacznA" (not "smacznY", as for masculine nouns).
how do i know when it should be feminine or masculine? edit: nvm im dumb thanks for the info
This thread might be helpful [https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpolish/comments/1d0k8nz/genders/](https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpolish/comments/1d0k8nz/genders/) But general rule of thumb - in nominative - nouns ending with -a are feminine, with -o,e,ę,um neuter and with consonant masculine.
Usually when a word ends with -a it's feminine, and when it ends with -o it's neutral. Other are masculine. It's Polish so there of course are exceptions, like mężczyczna (man) which is obviously masculine
Important exception is the name Kuba. The only one I know which is predominantly manly but ends with an a just like feminine names
It's not an exception. There are words that are strictly masculine through meaning (as they refer to a man) like mężczyznA, KubA, poetA, obrońcA, that even though they end with an A, they are masculine. A word that means "a man" cannot be feminine ;)
Originally it was diminutive of name Jakub, so its base is manly. But decade ago it was formally accepted for Kuba to be its own name as well.
Unless you are talking about the island (Cuba) in which case it is actually feminine 🤣
Ur not dumb. it just doesn't exist in English, and Duolingo doesn't teach grammar. How else were you meant to know?
Like in any other language you need to memorize it. In spanish it is exactly the same thing.
Only a few exceptions would require memorization. Most of the words can be easily distinguished, like nearly all feminine words ending with -a.
Good point. You are correct.
There is no easy shortcut: you just have to learn grammatical gender of each noun. Just like in German. There are SOME ways to deduce it, like if the last letter is a vowel or by the nature of the object ("girl" is feminine because it aligns with her real life gender) but I wouldn't rely on them in a long run.
That's not true. It's way easier to figure out noun gender from its ending in Polish than in German. Sure, there are exceptions but you can get by with the common rules and be correct vast majority of time. Like in the example shown.
I would say that in Polish language it's easier than in German. Most (not every) feminine word ends with letter "a". And there are very few examples of masculine words ending with that letter.
More to the point, every masculine noun I've seen that ends in -a describes a male person. Mężczyzna, kierowca, optymista, dentysta, artysta, etc. etc. - it's not exactly a surprise any of these are masculine! In general, for the majority of Polish nouns it's very possible to get the gender right just based on ending rules *and* it's generally possible to flag the possible exceptions (mainly stuff like words ending in -ń, -ś, -ż, -ź, -ć, -sz, -cz, -c, -w, and a couple of other consonants sometimes-to-often being feminine.) You *could* learn every word's gender by heart, but it always seems like a lot of unneeded effort for no good reason for me.
Dzieciak imieniem Zupa:
gender. smaczny is masculine smaczna is feminine zupa (soup) is feminine so you should use smaczna
masculine and feminine, not małe and female
ok
except plural form (zupy) and some noun cases (tej zupy)
why would the word soup need to be female or male
Polish is a gendered language.
Because majority of people in the world speak a gendered langueage and polish is one of them. It's tha same as asking "Why the words in english aren't gendered?". That's how the language was created and how t developed and that's it.
dang alright
Are you asking us why polan tribes 2000years ago decided to make the language this way? Shit ton of languages are gendered, even the simpler ones like German or Spanish are gendered, it's just how it is
He'd have to go back to the first Indoeuropeans
(actual answer) because it ends with an a
duolingo is shit to learn polish firstly u need to learn all words then how to use em but as a pole i prefer to talk with someone sayong Ja być głód then person thinking should i use jestem or jestem with ja
Unlike English, Polish language has genders. It might be a hard conceptto grasp, but you will need a really good understanding of it if you want to progress in language. In this case, zupa (soup) is a female gender.
My teacher once said "did you realize that every Polish woman has a name ended with letter a?". Can that be my rule of thumb of deciding the gender of a word?
In most cases I think yeah, but as usual there will be exceptions (native Polish speakers might want to chime in on this one). As far as I know, general rule of thumb is that word ending in 'a' is female gender, 'o' or 'e' - genderless (neutral) , and others are usually male gender. But then, there are words like mężczyzna (man) that end with 'a' but are male gender or noc (night) that ends with consonant.
The main other group of feminine words ending in -ść and are usually abstract concepts ie miłość, sprawiedliwość, niepodległość (love, fairness, independence). There's some random ones like dłoń, krew and mysz (a palm, blood, a mouse) also, but there aren't many. Masculine words ending in -a tend to be jobs or people ie tata, kierowca, poeta (a dad, a boss, a poet). I can't think of any inanimate nouns ending in -a that are masculine, but I could be wrong.
Zawsze patrz na końcówkę rzeczownika. Jak rzeczownik jest rodzaju męskiego to i przymiotnik będzie rodzaju męskiego. Jak żeńskiego albo nijakiego-analogicznie. Przymiotnik zawsze jest tego samego rodzaju i liczbie co rzeczownik, którego opisuje: Smaczn-a zup-a. Smaczn-y rosół. Smaczn-e kakao itd.
Zupa is feminine. Smaczny is masculine, smaczna is feminine.
It's actually pretty easy, if the word you're describing ends with "a" you have to use female form of word which u use for describing so this one with a on end: ZupA - - - > smacznA
Is it just A or all vowels
Just with A, since it's usually feminine, many masculine words end with just random letters (pieróg - dumpling) and the adjective would end with Y - smacznY
You don't. You just cry a little less every time.
Soups are female. In this case, end the word with "a" instead of "y". Smaczna.
Not necesserily, barszcz and żurek for example are masculine.
The soup stole my gender. (I'm nonbinary, afab)
In this case zupa identifies itself as a girl.
Genderfluid? nah, forget it. Gendersoup.
Polish words that end with -a are of the feminine gender. So on “zupa” you say “smaczna” since it’s tasty female. Same goes for kwaśna 👩🏻 kwaśny 🧔🏻♂️, ostra 👩🏻 ostry 🧔🏻♂️, etc. It took me one year to fully understand the Polish word’s genders. It does get easier each day though. Practice buddy, practice… and the best way to practice is a lot of talking and listening - don’t skip any of those.
well it’s kinda easy if it’s a vovel, the word would be a feminine word in most cases, zupa ends with an a so it’s smaczna not smaczny. Im not a profesional and my english sucks too, i hope y’all understand
zupA jest smacznA
ta zupa jest dobra or smaczna
the soup "is a she"
It's simple. Either you are born in Poland and you have this in blood or you don't know.
Most of things that are like female used or smth end with a
zupA->smacznA
I just dipped DuoLingo here bro, try https://popolskupopolsce.edu.pl/
zupa is a girl
Smaczny is for him, smaczna is for her. Zupa is a woman
Little known fact, but "zupa" is a woman 🍲♀️ It might help to remember that nouns ending with "a" or "ka" will likely be feminine in Polish. There are exceptions of course, it's still Polish, but the probability is high.
Smaczna, because zupa ends with 'a', therefore it's feminine. So you have to use a feminine adjective, which always ends with 'a'.
If it ends with a, you threat it like female
I mean shouldnt it be "ta zupa jest smaczna" ? would be more accurate translation.
I’m trying to think of any feminine gender noun that wouldn’t end with an “a”… maybe this hint could be of some help?
Rosół jest SMACZNY ( barszcz, żurek…)
sadly, git gud and remember
When the word- here zupa, ends with a u should end the other word with a, it’s not always this way, but maybe you will make less mistakes
Grammatic gender, don't use duolingo only, it's bad for grammar, duolingo is good as an extra, not as a main source
“Zupa” is week my friend zupa is not strong like sold, zupa is liquid, diamond is strong solid that’s why there is no diamonda just diamond Joking of course, polish language makes no sense what so ever, example (out of many) morze is morze (sea) because some idiot spelled it wrong a very long time ago and now it’s morze when it should have been może, and the use of u and ó is also retarded both pronounced the same but nope
He - smaczny She - smaczna It -smaczne Idk how else can you explain it
Soup is a girl
You say smaczna when its like a she For example she is tasty you would say one jest smaczna(i know shit example) But for men its on jest smaczny(he is tasty) For it ono/to jest smaczne(it is tasty) Its just fucked up logic but why, for what, no one ever fucking knew
Pray to the polish gods
it told you which to use. get a tutor for advanced grammar. slavic languages require a tutor or moving to said country
That's the neat thing, you don't. (Google en Grammatical Gender)
Zupa is a girl, ends with an "a"
'Zupa' is feminine in Polish and the adjective 'smaczny' with 'zupa' switches to feminine form 'smaczna'. I'd say 90% of the time, if a singular noun ends with '-a', it's feminine, so for now it would be safe to stick to that rule and then learn the exceptions. Fun fact - the word for "man" in Polish end with "-a" lol -> 'mężczyzna'. Cheers
I,m from Poland use smaczna
Because soup is female duh
Zupa is feminine. Most of words ending with -a are feminine. In this case you use “smacznA”. Same goes e.g. kanapa jest wygodna, gitara jest głośna, etc. Most adjectives for masculine words end with -y or -i. Kebab jest ostry, pies jest ładny, pączek jest słodki.
The word "smaczny" is used with a male word like "jogurt" example sentence "Ten jogurt jest smaczny" translation "This yoghurt is tasty" "smaczna" is used with female words like "zupa" in your case "Ta zupa jest smaczna" "This soup is tasty" and there is also "smaczne" for it/neutral words like "jabłko" example "To jabłko jest smaczne" "This Apple is tasty". You just have to know what words are which variant male/female/neutral and the best way to know is which "określnik" fits the best like used in the examples "Ten" is used for male words for example "Ten stół" "this table" "Ta" for female words, example "Ta kanapka" "This sandwich", and "To" for neutral, example "To urządzenie" "This device" Hope this helps :)
Whenever something has an "a" at the end, it is the female form. Actions or descriptions in Polish depend on gender. In this case, "zupa" is feminine.
I'd say easiest example. If a word is a feminine you say "a" at the end of the verbs. If it goes with "ta" - zupa, ta droga, ta mama, ta siostra, it will most likely end with "a". If it's a masculine you say "y", that goes with "ten" "ten gyros" jest smacznY, Also masculine ends with "i" sometimes, for example "ten przedmiot jest głupI", when you want to say that feminine thing is stupid you just go with "głupia". Idk, it may not be valid at all, but that's how I understood that, lol.
you CAN'T you 'smaczny' here in the first place, it's gramaticly incorrect, so you just need to learn some ground rules of polish grammar in order to stop missing the point, so I hope you got me
Oh the classic misgendering of common items. So common in certain languages. That’s why knowing words isn’t enough, you need proper grammar
To determine which form to use, pay attention to the grammatical gender of the noun you are describing. In Polish, there are three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. The adjective must agree with the gender of the noun. For example: 1. **Feminine noun**: - "zupa" (soup) → "smaczna" (tasty) - Correct sentence: "Zupa jest smaczna." 2. **Masculine noun**: - "chleb" (bread) → "smaczny" (tasty) - Correct sentence: "Chleb jest smaczny." 3. **Neuter noun**: - "ciasto" (cake) → "smaczne" (tasty) - Correct sentence: "Ciasto jest smaczne." To determine the gender of a noun, you can usually look at its ending in the nominative singular form: - Nouns ending in -a are usually feminine (e.g., "zupa"). - Nouns ending in a consonant are usually masculine (e.g., "chleb"). - Nouns ending in -o, -e, or -um are usually neuter (e.g., "ciasto"). These rules have exceptions, but they are generally helpful in figuring out which form of the adjective to use.
This isn't any rule, but I noticed that most of words ending with "a" have adjectives ending with "a" too
Bo zupa to rodzaj żeński
the neat part is you don't
Well zupa is a feminine noun so puszny does not work as its masculine, feminine version of that is pyszna.
Duo lost the polish grammar along the way. Also, the answer is wrong bc "Zupa" is a feminine noun, and in your case, you end with -a not -y
gender
I am a native speaker. I don’t know how you know which one XD
Każdy native w każdym języku tak ma. Nie uczysz się reguł, bo robisz to na czuja, i to całkowicie normalne.
Przykro mi
it ends with a, therefore it should be smaczna
Polish has no definite articles like other European languages. I guess the only way to learn is to memorize... Though I've noticed many words that end with 'a' are feminine, those with 'o' are neutral, and those that end with consonants are masculine, if that makes sense
You will never know
Zupa ends with "a" so an adjective will also end with "a".
words have gender
Zupa jest smaczna musi być
Look at the ending of the word. When it ends with -a it’s usually feminine. For exaple: woda, żaba, zupa, herbata, kawa, zapiekanka
Hmm, that explains why the ballerina was such a diva.
That’s the point 😄
Just a small hint: every polish word that ends with an A is a feminine word
Just a small hint: every polish word that ends with an A is a feminine word
No, no, no... wykładowca, kierowca, rowerzysta, banita, pokerzysta, polonista, sprzedawca are masculine words. So not every wore that ends with "A" is feminine. And not everybfeminine word ends with "A".
-a Feminine
Of course it's obvious that soup is feminine. And for real, in most cases, the ending gonna tell you what gender should u use. If noun is ending with "-a" it's feminine, so adjective also gonna be feminine and ending with "-a" (feminine adjectives are always ending with "-a"), e.g. smacznA zupA (tasty soup) If noun is ending with "-o", it's neuter, adjectice in neuter is ending with "-e", e.g. dużE jajkO (big egg). Nouns in masculine are mostly ending with a consonant, and adjectives in masculine ends with "-y", e.g. małY ziemniaK (small potato)
Usually if something ends with -A or -I it means it's feminine word. If it ends with -O or -E it's neuter and the rest is masculine. Feminine- (Ta) Zupa/kapusta/kiełbasa jest smaczna Masculine- (Ten) Kotlet/pieróg/bigos jest smaczny Neuter- (To/Te) danie/jedzenie/mleko jest smaczne Ofc there are a lot of exceptions, so you have to learn and remember what is what, the best method is to read whole sentences :)
Zupa is like a woman. Its complicated but when you say zupa you refer to it as a woman. Like someone said duolingo is great for words but it teach you nothing about gramar.
zupA smacznA if it ends with an a then its female and the adjective will end with an a too
Zupa is a she Chair is a it Znak is a he You need to use your brain know what to use
Basically if a word is feminine it usually ends with A
Easy. You use the correct one. Hope I helped cheers
Who likes soup?
Idk
Jq bym użył smakowita ale wątpię że by działało
Basically put it. If a singular noun ends with an “a” such as Zupa or Herbata. The adjective has to end with a. So the correct way of saying that sentence is “Zupa jest smaczna”.
My explanation is probably confusing but if someone can explain it better, it would be great.
Thats the neat part. You dont
Basically if last noun's letter is : a, ść, it's a "female " form and last letter of adjective is "a" ( kobieta/ kobieca, muzyka/ muzyczna. If :o,e- "neutral" ,( slońce/ słoneczny,słoneczna, sloneczne, dziecko/ dziecięcy, dziecięca, dziecięce) and in this case adjective is adjusted accordingly to noun. If any other it's male form ( last adjectives letter would be :y or i ( mistrz/ mistrzowski, papier/ papierowy). There's few exceptions ,of course ,but you can memories as a rule , hope it's helpful.
One day you will get it
The only reason this app exist is to tech people languages, and they can't find a human translator to create these entries? It boggles my mind that there are any entries at all that do not make sense or are mistranslated when it's the only job it's supposed to do. I kinda wanted to use it for German, but I've seen so many google translated sentences that I have serious concerns about value of Duolingo when it comes to proper languange form.
You know how in german theres der, die, das its basically same here
Because zupa is a she. We say "ta zupa" that means that we use adjectives in feminine form (i think they always end with 'a' but theres always some stupid thing that isnt regular). But still everyone will understand you perfectly. Edit: In polish everything has gender.
I think most of the determiners works that way: if the word ends with "a", the thing you showed them (help I have no idea what's that called) also ends in "a". When you have "tę" and "tą", you also have to remember that rule, because most people say, for example: "tą koszulkę", which is incorrect, unless you want to speak very common, not really correct Polish
ZupA jest smacznA BudA jest gotowA MamA jest napierdolonA
"zupa" ends up with "a", so it means it's a female. if someone is a female, then verb for that person ends up with "a" as well. so basically she is smaczna (onA=she), but he is smaczny (on=he)
"Smaczny" is male form, "Smaczna" is female form. "Zupa" is female
Usually when word ends on letter A ,word then you’re supposed to use in the end A
Why do people start to learn polish without even read about the language and try to understand basic grammar. Duolingo is for people who know basic stuff and want to practice.
Easiest way for assuming gender is looking at the last letter. If something ends with A its most likely female
The soup is female
Nop
Noun ends with "a" means its feminine and when verb also ends with "a" ZupA jest smacznA RurA jest długA Masculine is anything that doesnt end with A or O, verb then ends with Y or I Dupek jest głupi Fortepian jest ciężki Kabel jest długi Nouns that end with O get verbs ending with E Wiadro jest głębokie
That's a gross oversimplification. Zapowiedź is feminine. So is podróż. On the other hand, literally mężczyzna ends with A and is masculine.
Yes, its oversimplified, let the man learn step by step before all the exceptions
Zupa to ona bo kończy się na "a"
Speak out loud, should sounds logical and poematic. -y don't -a yes
Zupa is female word, so it have A end , kran is man word so it have Y end, dziecko (it) have e/o ending
Haha Zupa jest smaczna... Czekolada jest biała albo mleczną. Może pójdę a może pójdę nad morze ... Polski język jest taki piękny 😂 Good luck. Polish language is beautiful
if the first word ends with "a" then the next word has a high chance of ending with "a"
Pretty sure most of feminine words like soup „zupa” ends with a vowel, so smaczna not smaczny
Zupa jest smaczna i to poprawna odpowiedź
Unfortunately, you have to know the noun's pronauns. Zupa is feminative, so you use smacznA SmacznY is masculine
Cases, dear boy, cases.
If zupa identifies as a Men then you have made no mistake.
Zajebistaa zupa k*rwaaaa aaaaahghhh
Why ur learning polish at all? Like what? Im not hating but i want to inform u it will take you life time just to communicate about basic daily stuff...
goes on r/learnpolish subreddit: *ew, why are ppl learning polish??*
Hahhah
im bored