GCSE Polish - the best way of learning the seven cases?

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Jul 11, 11, 21:28 #1

Hi folks,
I am thinking of doing GCSE Polish next year (June 2012). My vocabulary is average, knowing a lot of verbs and nouns. I was rather astonished going throught the AQA syllabus, that the seven cases need to be known.

Does anyone here know what the best way of learning these cases. Must I deconstruct a sentence into subject, noun, verb, adverb and so on in order to use the correct spelling of the noun etc? I'm familiar with macsculine, femenine, neuter gender.

Is it requried to know what role the noun plays in a sentense for the correct spelling to be used? Is is used in the nominative, imperative, dative case etc?

Has anyone indeed done GCSE Polish?

With many thanks,
Dżdżownica

catsoldierThreads: 90 Posts: 697 Joined: Sep 27, 09 ♂	Jul 11, 11, 21:33 #2
best way of learning these cases Get a book like Hurra Po Polsku 1. It teaches you the cases and uses them later in other exercises, this means that you come accross what you have learnt again and again making it easier to remember. It is a well structured book. best of luck

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Edited by: SzwedwPolsce Jul 11, 11, 22:14 #3

Here I explain the accusative case.

And here are the case endings (singular NOUNS) for all cases: (adjectives have different endings)

Nominative
Fem: -a
Masc: ends in consonant
Neutr: -e, -o, (-i)

Accusative
Fem: -ę
Masc: -y, -i (living: -a)
Neutr: -e

Genitive
Fem: -y, -i
Masc: -u (living: -a)
Neutr: -a

Dative
Fem: -e, -i
Masc: -owi, (some -u)
Neutr: -om

Locative
Fem: -e, -i
Masc: -u, -e
Neutr: -u, -e
Plural: -ach

Instrumental
Fem: -ą
Masc: -em
Neutr: -em

pawianThreads: 90 Posts: 5,395 Joined: May 30, 08 ♂	Edited by: pawian Jul 11, 11, 22:19 #4
SzwedwPolsce: Here are the case endings (singular): Oops, I get depressed when I look at this stuff. I will never be able to learn it. :(:(:(

catsoldierThreads: 90 Posts: 697 Joined: Sep 27, 09 ♂	Jul 11, 11, 22:27 #5
I will never be able to learn it. Learn it whatever way suits you best. For me learning a chart of endings wouldn't work. I need to do examples and after a while I remember them. Accusative Fem: -ę Masc: -y, -i (living: -a) Neutr: -e example: Ja, pić, kawa Piję kawę.

delphiandomineThreads: 42 Posts: 9,954 Joined: Nov 25, 08 ♂ [Suspended]	Jul 11, 11, 22:29 #6
pawian: Oops, I get depressed when I look at this stuff. I will never be able to learn it. :(:(:( And to think that you lot have the cheek to complain about phrasal verbs ;)

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Jul 11, 11, 22:32 #7

Case endings for adjectives (Looks more complicated than it is)

And it is very important to learn which preposition is associated with which case.
(for example; od, do, bez = genitive)

pawian:

Oops, I get depressed when I look at this stuff. I will never be able to learn it. :(:(:(

So good for you that you already know Polish. ;) As with all languages, it is about understanding the structures and principles.

pawianThreads: 90 Posts: 5,395 Joined: May 30, 08 ♂	Jul 11, 11, 23:16 #8
catsoldier: I need to do examples and after a while I remember them. Accusative Fem: -ę Masc: -y, -i (living: -a) Neutr: -e example: Ja, pić, kawa Piję kawę. So do I. I learn with the context best. Accusative Fem: -ę Masc: -y, -i (living: -a) Neutr: -e example: Ja, pieprzyć, głupoty. Pieprzę głupoty. Hey, it works! Głupoty ends with -y, just like in Masculine Accusative!

SzwedwPolsceThreads: 13 Posts: 1,915 Joined: Feb 21, 09 ♂	Edited by: SzwedwPolsce Jul 11, 11, 23:51 #9
SzwedwPolsce: Accusative Fem: -ę Masc: -y, -i (living: -a) Neutr: -e For many masc and neutr nouns, the accusative ending is the same as nominative. I should have added it. This is actually more common than what I wrote above. But the rest of the table should be easy to follow.

Zman	Jul 12, 11, 00:39 #10
Szwed (wP) is the best. Albeit polish is my vernacular I couldn't explain it better! (Or perhaps, because of that fact) :-)

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Jul 17, 11, 13:33 #11

There's no way around it, you do need to learn cases, there are two main ways to practice them:

1) exercises, i.e. gap fills. There aren't a great deal of resources online but there is this one: http://polishgrammar.com/
2) collocations - don't try and remember words, instead focus on phrases and sentences, this requires a lot of reading/listening

Generally, the most common cases used are: Nominative, Accusative, Genetive then Instrumental and Locative, then Dative and finally Vocative.

Vocative is really not worth learning as a set of rules, it's more of a 'pick it up as you go along' kind of case.

Dative is most commonly used with pronouns so don't worry about the more general use until you're comfortable with them

A good tip to help is to remember the question words (e.g. czego, kogo for Genetive) these help because they often tell you the male/neuter adj. endings, i.e. -ego for the genetive

In my experience it really just takes time to get used to things, nom, acc and gen are pretty easy to get used to, instrumental is also easy to form and use. Locative can be a real pain, it's best to remember example words with different endings, then when you hit a similar word you can refer to the ones you've memorised. Often also the cases have the same endings, e.g. feminine dative and locatative, so it's not *quite* as impossible as it seems.

good luck and remember that to learn you need to make mistakes, so be patient!

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Edited by: SzwedwPolsce Jul 17, 11, 14:57 #12

Polish Pronoun Declensions (maybe too advanced for the beginner)
As said above. When it comes to dative, just focus on the personal pronouns to start with.

Get a good book. For example, Polish in 4 weeks. The book is very "pedagogiczna", and explain things well.

zinc:

Generally, the most common cases used are: Nominative, Accusative, Genetive then Instrumental and Locative, then Dative and finally Vocative.

Vocative is really not worth learning as a set of rules, it's more of a 'pick it up as you go along' kind of case.

Dative is most commonly used with pronouns so don't worry about the more general use until you're comfortable with them

Good points.

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