Level: Beginners (A1/A2)
Category: Polish Cases
Crash Course in Polish Cases Table of contents
Polish cases are a funny concept for native English speakers. We don't really have anything similar in the English language.
What are Polish cases?
In English, if we want to say "This is John's hat", we change "John" by adding "'s" to it, to indicate that he owns it. This is the closest thing that I have found in the English language that is similar to how Polish cases work.
A polish case changes some words, depending on the context.
(BTW you use the Genitive case in Polish to show possessiveness. )
How many Polish cases are there?
There are 7 cases:
- Nominative Case in Polish (Mianownik)
- Genitive Case in Polish (Dopełniacz)
- Dative Case in Polish (Celownik)
- Accusative Case in Polish (Biernik)
- Instrumental Case in Polish (Narzędnik)
- Locative Case in Polish (Miejscownik)
- Vocative Case in Polish (Wołacz)
However the only really important ones are Accusative (used all the time), Genitive (also used all the time).
Instrumental case is also important, and Locative is quite common but hard to learn.
Of course, you also must know the Nominative case - but this is the 'basic' form of the words so it is simple to learn!