Tego/Jego

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Edited by: Leonis Nov 12, 09, 18:31 #1

Witaaj!
I had a ćwiczenia in my Polish exercise book: to convert the object of the sentence into personal pronoun accusativus. And I and my teacher were disagree and I don't understand why I was wrong.
The sentence:
Andrzej myje samochód.
And we had to replace the word "samochód".
I used "tego", but my teacher said the correct replacement is "jego".
Andrzej jego myje.
But why??? Jego is the Acc. of On, but 'On' is a male person, a living thing, isn't it? So a "samochód" can only be "To", because it is not a person, it is only an... it.
To=It
On=He
Am I incorrect??

DerevonThreads: 12 Posts: 186 Joined: Oct 11, 09 ♂	Nov 12, 09, 18:46 #2
In Polish "on" and the equivalent forms in other cases refer to either a living person or an object. It's not like in English where "he" is always a person. Tego is the neuter/male genitive or male accusative animate version of "ten" which is "this". "Samochód" is a masculine word, hence the accusative male inanimate version is needed, which is "go/jego".

SzwedwPolsceThreads: 13 Posts: 1,915 Joined: Feb 21, 09 ♂	Edited by: SzwedwPolsce Nov 12, 09, 19:17 #3
Leonis: 'On' is a male person, a living thing, isn't it? So a "samochód" can only be "To", because it is not a person, it is only an... it. No. On can refer to any noun of the masculine gender, living or non-living. To refers to a noun of the neutral gender. To has nothing to do with masculine gender. Samochód is a masculine gender noun, so use on, and acc. of on is jego as you know.

peter_olsztynThreads: 8 Posts: 760 Joined: Apr 18, 07 ♂	Nov 12, 09, 21:10 #4
Leonis: Andrzej jego myje. Although jego sounds far better than tego but it still sounds strange. Pole say it this way Andrzej myje samochód. Andrzej go myje. Andrzej myje go. Andrzej myje go na myjni. Andrzej myje go gąbką.

SzwedwPolsceThreads: 13 Posts: 1,915 Joined: Feb 21, 09 ♂	Edited by: SzwedwPolsce Nov 12, 09, 21:29 #5
Accusative of on has 3 forms; jego, niego and go. Jego is used when stressing something. Niego is used after preposition. In other situations go is used.

LeonisThreads: 30 Posts: 60 Joined: Aug 15, 09 ♀	Nov 13, 09, 20:43 #6
Awww Thank you all very much... Sometimes I don't know what I could do without this forum.

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Nov 17, 09, 03:22 #7

Hi!
I'm Monica, I'm native Polish and I think I can help you with your little grammar problem ;)
In Polish: nouns, adjectives, most of pronouns and numerals decline by: numbers, genders and cases.
There is a very huge difference between ‘jego’, ‘go’ and ‘tego’.
- ‘go’ is a personal pronoun which means ‘him’, for ex. I like him: Lubię go/Ja go lubię
and here is the list of Polish personal pronouns:
-singular -plural
Nom.-Who? I - ja (subject) we - my
Gen.-Whom? Who?
in negatives -me - mnie -us - nas
Dat. -Who do you trust/
give/believe -me - mnie/ mi -us - nam
Acc.
-Who can you see? -me - mnie -us - nas
Ins.
-Who are you talking to?
Who are you dancing with?-to/with me - ze mną -to/with us - z nami
Loc.
-Who are you thinking about?-about me - o mnie -about - us
Voc. -Oh!-Oh me/I ! - och ja!-Oh we! - och my!
Nom.- -you - ty -you - wy
Gen.- -you - ciebie -you - was
Dat. - -you - tobie/ci -you - wam
Acc. -you - ciebie/ cię -you - was
Ins. - -to/with you - z tobą -you - z wami
Loc.- -about you - o tobie -you - o was
Voc.- -oh you! - och ty! -you ! - oh wy!
Nom.- -he - on -they - oni
Gen.- -him - go -them - ich
Dat. - -him - jemu/mu -them - im
Acc.- -him - go, jego -them - ich
Ins. - -him - z nim -them - z nimi
Loc.- -him - o nim -them - o nich
Voc.- -he! - on! -they! - oni!
Nom.- -she - ona -they - one
Gen.- -her - jej -them - ich
Dat. - -her - jej -them - im
Acc.- -her - ją -them - ich
Ins. - -her - z nią -them - z nimi
Loc.- -her -o niej -them - o nich
Voc.- -she! - ona! -they! - oni!

Remember! Nouns, pronouns, numerals have got the gender In Polish grammar:
1)singular: masculine, feminine, neuter
2)plural:
a) masculine:
- personal (masculine words and ‘group words’ including both men and women),
- impersonal (animate - animals), inanimate(- things, plants, natural phenomena) !they are masculine in singular and in plural they decline just like feminine words!
b) feminine: includes words which were in feminine or neuter gender in singular

- word ‘jego’ is a possessive pronoun (use ‘jego’ as a personal noun when you say it at the beginning of the phrase to emphasize: ‘he is the one I love the most’ - ‘Jego {singular, Accusative} kocham najbardziej’) ! As a possessive pronoun it means ‘his’
- word ‘tego’ is a demonstrative pronoun not a personal pronoun. You use Polish demonstrative pronouns like ‘this’, ‘that’, ’these’, ’those’ in English to say for ex. This is my friend Kate - To jest moja przyjaciółka Kasia, I won’t put this sweater on. - Nie założę tego swetra. So if you don’t like to make the mistakes like this in the future, think about things as humans - a car - ‘he’, a spoon - ‘she’ etc. ;D

Have a good fun with difficult Polish language and forgive me the mistakes I’ve made!

LeonisThreads: 30 Posts: 60 Joined: Aug 15, 09 ♀	Apr 13, 10, 21:59 #8
A lot of posterior thanks, monique! You helped me a lot with this list! :-)))

Go/Jego	Feb 1, 11, 21:48 #9
Well... do you also use "jego" after verbs? Or is it only when you want to make sth. more important and on the beginning and the end of the sentence?

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Feb 8, 11, 23:33 #10

Go/Jego:

Well... do you also use "jego" after verbs? Or is it only when you want to make sth. more important and on the beginning and the end of the sentence?

The use of 'go' is prevalent firstly beacause it is shorter, secondly to avoid ambiguity because 'jego' also means his (and even its) - a possesive pronoun
( 'go' is never used instead of 'jego' possesive pronoun)

In reality 'jego' is used only when an emphasis (one can say a focus) is called for on the word him/jego (in speech the word is actually phisycally stressed be it in English or in Polish) - so you get: 'Wash him' (meaning him and not me or someone else) -where the stress can only be shown in written English with different font (in this case bold) and you get 'Umyj jego' or 'Jego umyj' in Polish (meaning the same as the sentence in English). 'Jego' is used because it fits much better into 'the flow' or 'rythm' of Polish language when under stress indicating emphasis(focus) than the shortened 'go' version .

kgoessThreads: 8 Posts: 11 Joined: Mar 11, 11 ♂	Mar 12, 11, 23:38 #11
Merged thread: jego/swojego? I could put this on the end of the "Tego/Jego" thread, but maybe a separate topic will be easier for others to find in the future. Can anyone help me with the why "jego" is used for "his" in some cases, but "swojego" in others? Chłopiec odwiedza swojego dziadka. Chłopiec i jego dziadek są w łazience. Any help is appreciated, thanks!

LeopejoThreads: 6 Posts: 154 Joined: Sep 16, 09 ♂	Mar 13, 11, 10:44 #12
Just as a side note, I think that in Russian you must use 'swój' (свой) when, and only when, referring to the subject of the sentence, that is: subject + verb + "swoj"-something. Therefore in Russian it would go exactly as in your examples (note that in the second example the subject is "chłopiec i jego dziadek". But I think in Polish it's much more of a free choice.

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Edited by: strzyga Mar 13, 11, 12:39 #13

I think Leopejo has a point here. You should use "jego" when dziadek is part of the sentence subject - on par with the boy.
chłopiec i jego dziadek
nie było chłopca i jego dziadka
powiedziałem chłopcu i jego dziadkowi
widziałem chłopca i jego dziadka
etc.

When dziadek is not part of the subject, you use "swój":
chłopiec nie kocha swojego dziadka
chłopiec przygląda się swojemu dziadkowi
chłopiec widzi swojego dziadka
chłopiec idzie ze swoim dziadkiem
chłopiec mówi o swoim dziadku

Nominative case is impossible here.

cinekThreads: 1 Posts: 264 Joined: Nov 16, 07 ♂	Mar 14, 11, 10:45 #14
Leopejo: But I think in Polish it's much more of a free choice. No, in Polish it works tha same way as in Russian. Cinek

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Edited by: pole Aug 16, 11, 00:40 #15

Jego is used when stressing something.

it is not true;
jego is used when we say about possession as follows: "this is his car", "this car is his" (To jest jego samochód. Ten samochód jest jego.)
niego is used after prepositions: "the car does not belong to him" (Samochód nie należy do niego.)
go is used as an equivalent for a singular noun or pronoun. I don't love him./ I like this car but I don't possess it. (Nie kocham go/ podoba mi się ten samochód, ale nie posiadam go.)

i think it should help a bit.

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