Wednesday 4 March 2009

Learning the cases

This post is in response to anonymous' comment on this post. I'm assuming my own lack of a grammar foundation here - I was never taught the mechanics of grammar and, in order to learn Polish, I had to learn what the different parts of speech actually do - even down to adverb/adjective... so, I sympathise, anonymous!

My esteemed przyjaciółka, Sam, will be able to help explain more than I can about why the instrumental is used in the particular example you give: 'Marek i Piotr są studentami Politechniki. Są dobrymi przyjaciólmi, chóć kazdy jest inny'

However, this was my strategy for being able to 'spot the case' in an exam I sat last year - it's a very old technique of learning: by rote - but it worked like a dream, so I pass it on in the hope that it might be useful to you, too. 

Print the following documents, which are (arguably) the most important cases and their endings: 
Look at the completed table and test your memory of it - then try to write the endings out from memory in the blank tables. I guarantee, you make yourself do this over the course of a week, you'll remember. Good luck!

5 comments:

  1. I just wanted to say that this table has been so useful to me..! I printed it out and have been using it all the time. You both are amazing because I finally understood how and when to use those cases after such a long time of not having a clue~ I love this blog! :D

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  2. Thanks Ana! Really pleased to help :-)

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  3. Heyhey, where i can find a locative and datove table like this too? THX!

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. Deleted comments always look a bit dodgy - I simply forgot to write 'dative' in and there's no chance of editing! Here are the two things you asked for :-)

    Locative: http://polish-bilus.blogspot.com/2008/01/locative-case.html

    Dative: http://polish-bilus.blogspot.com/2008/01/dative-case.html

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