catsoldier: How can you tell when to use accusative and dative? For example: Widzę kawę. I see the coffee. Accusative, the coffee is the direct object of the action. Przyglądamy się kawie. We observe the coffee. This is dative as far as I know but it looks to me like the coffee is still the direct object of the verb even though dative means it is the indierct object. How is the coffee in this case an indirect object?
Don't base the choice of direct or indirect on some "logic", but on the specific verb (or preposition). A genitive after szukać or słuchać is completely out of logic for me, but only because the same verbs in my languages require different cases (prepositions), and I acknowledge that my native languages sound strange too in this respect.
English has gone even further with its phrasal verbs.
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EDIT: Huh it seems I can't post again in this thread until someone else posts. So here is my reply to Michal:
Michal: This is not the dictionary form for the word 'tea'. End of story.
And nobody asked for the dictionary form.
For me a word is the full set of its declined forms, and nominative is the "most important" form almost only by convention. Just to make an example, one of my native languages lost all cases and was left with only one form in the singular - and this came from the accusative, not nominative (in the plural the contrary).
Would you say that proszę is not a Polish word?
This said, I always find it odd when listening to some Pimsleur course and they say "what is the word for tea? Herbatę" (not this exact example, but there are plenty of them).
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