This lesson has a lot of things to learn, so don't feel discouraged if you take some time to get the general idea of plurals. Plus... Duolingo made a mistake of teaching plural nominative, accusative, etc all in one spot. So buckle up.
| Singular - Liczba pojedyncza | Plural - Liczba mnoga | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Polish | English | Polish | English | |
| ♂ | Człowiek | Human | Ludzie | People |
| ♂ | Koń | Horse | Konie | Horses |
| ♂ | Pies | Dog | Psy | Dogs |
| ♂ | Kot | Cat | Koty | Cats |
| ♂ | Pomidor | Tomato | Pomidory | Tomatoes |
| ⚲ | Jabłko | Apple | Jabłka | Apples |
| ⚲ | Jajko | Egg | Jajka | Eggs |
| ⚲ | Zwierzę | Animal | Zwierzęta | Animals |
* Just a note: just as in English “people” is the plural of “person” and the words aren’t similar in writing, Ludzie (people) is the plural of Człowiek (human) when consulting a Polish dictionary. Now let’s review some of the plurals that Duolingo introduced before we knew it. Cheeky Duo…
| Singular - Liczba pojedyncza | Plural - Liczba mnoga | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Polish | English | Polish | English | |
| ⚲ | Dziecko | Child | Dzieci | Children |
| ♀ | Dziewczynka | Girl (little girl) | Dziewczynki | Girls (little girls) |
| ♂ | Chłopiec | Boy (little boy) | Chłopcy | Boys (little boys) |
| ⚲ | Ciasteczko | Cookie | Ciasteczka | Cookies |
| ♂ | Owoc | Fruit | Owoce | Fruits |
Plurals of nouns have many different endings so it would be better to just memorize the words by themselves. However, a few patterns we can see: Ending in -y (sometimes replacing -a):
| Kobieta | Kobiety |
| Kot | Koty |
Ending in -y after -ie:
| Chłopiec | Chłopcy |
| Pies | Psy |
Ending in -i replacing -a:
| Dziewczynka | dziewczynki |
| Mężczyzna | mężczyźni |
Ending in -ie after a soft consonant (ńść…) and losing the diacritic
| Koń | Konie |
| Słoń | słonie |
Ending in -o changes to -a:
| Jabłko | jabłka |
| Ciasteczko | ciasteczka |
And so on, but there’s many rules so let’s better remember each word.
Practice exercises - Ćwiczyć ćwiczenia| Ryby to mała zwierzęta. | Fish are small animals. |
| Dziewczynki lubią konie. | The girls like horses. |
| Dziewczynki lubią psy i koty. | Girls like dogs and cats.* |
| Psy jedzą jabłka. | The dogs are eating apples. |
| To są dzieci. | These are children. |
Notice that just like in singular “To jest + noun" will be in nominative, "To są + noun” will also be in nominative. *For some reason in English “cats and dogs” as in “it’s raining cats and dogs” is used in this order more often than the opposite. In Poland, most people would say “psy i koty”, while the opposite order is not incorrect, it is said less by the general public.
Declensions in adjectives are split between Masculine-personal plural and non-masculine-personal plural. What this means is : if it’s a human and it’s male, it’s masculine personal; otherwise it is non-masculine personal.
Non-masculine personal (niemęskoosobowy) (abbreviated nmp.) plural (pl.) adjectives will end in -e in nominative. So anything that’s not a male human, will have adjectives ending with -e.
| Konie są duże | The horses are big |
| Jabłka są smaczne | The apples are tasty |
| Nowe dziewczynki | New girls |
| Stare psy | old dogs |
On the other hand, masculine personal (męski osobowy) (abbreviated mp.) plural adjectives will end in -i , and if there’s an -r before it, it changes to -rzy. -ry changes to to -rzy:
| Dobrzy ludzie | Good people. (s. dobry) |
| Oni są starzy | They are old. (s. stary) |
Ł,ż, ending in -i and loose the diacritics:
| Źli mężczyźni | bad men (s. zły) |
| Duzi chłopcy i mali chłopcy | big boys and small boys (s. duży s. mały) |
Ending in -i:
| Nowi chłopcy | new boys (s. nowy) |
| Smaczni chłopcy | tasty boys (s. smaczny) (said a monster from a fairy tale) |
| Duże kobiety, duzi mężczyźni i duże dzieci | Big women, big men and big children |
| Mali chłopcy, małe dziewczynki | Little boys, little girls. |
| Są starzy | They are old (male they) |
Duolingo introduces a few examples of Accusative plural nouns later as you level up in this section, but just for reference: https://mowicpopolsku.com/polish-grammar/cases/accusative/#plural What it says is that similar to the adjectives, nouns get split into Masculine personal and Non-masculine personal nouns.
Non-masculine personal nouns, everything that is not a male human will have the same declension as the Nominative, so basically the same as the dictionary form. Duolingo has been showing us examples before without us really noticing: Dziewczynka ma ciasteczka - The girl has cookies This simple example shows us the accusative plural being the same as nominative, but we can use it from now on knowing for certain how it works:
| Chłopcy mają psy | The boys have dogs. |
| Mężczyźni jedzą jajka | The men are eating eggs. |
| Mamy koty. | We have cats. |
Now, Masculine personal pronouns are the same as in genitive, which we haven't seen yet, and Duolingo will probably not introduce yet.
Like I said before, duolingo will introduce accusative plural adjectives in masculine personal later on, as it is the same as genitive, which we haven't seen. For reference: https://mowicpopolsku.com/polish-grammar/cases/accusative/#adjective-plural For now, let's see non-masculine personal plural: Accusative adjectives in nmp pl end in -e.
| Nowi chłopcy mają stare psy | The new boys have old dogs. |
| Tamta kobieta ma duże konie | That woman has big horses. |
Accusative adjectives in mp pl are -ych/ -ich.
If you remember correctly, instrumental case is necessary when something is being defined as something else. We will now see them in plural.
https://mowicpopolsku.com/polish-grammar/cases/instrumental/#nouns-plural All nouns, regardless of gender, change from their ending in nominative plural to -ami.
| Oni są mężczyznami | They are men. (Mężczyźni) |
| Jesteśmy kobietami | We are women. (Kobiety) |
A few exceptions exist, even in this Duolingo lesson. Some words don't end in -ami, but instead remove the ending vowels, add a diacritic to the last consonant and end in -mi.
| Wy jesteście ludźmi | You are people. (Ludzie) |
| Nie jesteśmy dziećmi! | We aren’t children! (Dzieci) |
| Chłopcy są dziećmi | Boys are children |
| One są ludźmi i my jesteśmy ludźmi | They are people and we are people. |
| Wy jesteście ludźmi | You are people |
| Jesteście dziećmi? | Are you children? |
| Wy jesteście mężczyznami, my jesteśmy kobietami | You are men, we are women. |
| One są kobietami | They are women. |
https://mowicpopolsku.com/polish-grammar/cases/instrumental/#adjectives-plural I haven’t seen these show up in Duolingo, but well, we’re already here aren’t we? All adjectives in the instrumental case in plural, regardless of gender, end in -ymi, except for adjectives that end in -g or -k, in which case they end in -imi.
| Oni są dobrymi ludźmi | They are good people. |
| Mój brat jeździ drogimi samochodami. | My brother drives expensive cars. |
In a previous lesson, we learned how to point at things: Ten, ta, to, tamten, tamta, tamto. We also learned the way they change in accusative: Ten, tego, tę, to, tamten, tamtego, tamtą, tamto. They would mean “This” or “That” depending on the distance, with the ones starting with tam- being further away. However we only studied them in singular back then, so it’s time for the plurals as well. In English it would be “These” and “Those”.
For plurals the split will be between masculine personal (Męskoosobowy) and non-masculine personal (Niemęskoosobowy). See the table below. As before, the guide is here: https://www.clozemaster.com/blog/polish-demonstrative-pronouns/
| Plural - Liczba mnoga Nominative - Mianownik |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| Distance to the person speaking |
Gender Rodzaj |
Demonstrative Pronoun Zaimek wskazujący |
In English Po angielsku |
| Closer to the person x ---> y |
♂ Męskoosobowy ♂ Male Personal |
ci | these ♂ |
| ⚲ Niemęskoosobowy ⚲ Non-Male Personal |
te | these ⚲ | Farther from the person x -----------> y |
♂ Męskoosobowy ♂ Male Personal |
tamci | those ♂ |
| ⚲ Niemęskoosobowy ⚲ Non-Male Personal |
tamte | those ⚲ | |
| Ci ludzie jedzą kaczki | These people eat ducks |
| Tamci mali chłopcy i tamte małe dziewczynki | Those little boys and those little girls |
| Tamte kobiety jedzą posiłek | Those women are eating a meal |
| Ci mężczyźni lubią jabłka | These men like apples. |
| Te kanapki są smaczne | These sandwiches are tasty. |
| Ci chłopcy mają kanapkę | These boys have a sandwich. |
| Tamte kobiety jedzą ciasteczka | Those women are eating cookies. |
| Te kobiety i tamten mężczyzna jedzą obiad | These women and that man are eating lunch. |