Lesson 25: Plurals - They are, They were, There are, There were

We've come a long way and somehow managed to do it without every stumbling across a plural like 'tickets', 'lamps' or 'wines'.

There was method in that madness. It's hard enough to get your head around all the different cases and genders for single items without trying to learn plurals at the same time.

But before we go plural ... "Witam! Dzień dobry albo Dobry Wieczór! Teraz mamy dobrą lekcję!".

Yes, good news. If you are still here and still going(!), plurals are going to seem remarkably simple to what has come before ... so that is good news! Let's look at a masculine, feminine and neuter example of nouns we have already come across:

English	Polish
Ticket (masculine)	Bilet
Tickets (masculine)	Bilety
Lamp (feminine)	Lampa
Lamps (feminine)	Lampy
Wine (neuter)	Wino
Wine (neuter)	Wina

OK! so what do we have?

• Masculine nouns: - add a 'y' - "Bilet" -> "Bilety"
• Feminine nouns: - change the 'a' to 'y' - "Lampa" -> "Lampy"
• Neuter nouns: - change the 'o' to 'a' - "Wino" -> "Wina"

So actually no new endings there .. just the same endings used slightly differently! Now even better news, adjectives are all in neuter form and remain the same no matter the gender!

English	Polish
They are good tickets	Są dobre bilety
They are good lamps	Są dobre lampy
They are good wines	Są dobre wina

Now we've seen how flexible "jest" is in that it can mean "it is" and "there is". Well "Są" can mean "they are" and "there are". So how would you say:

English	Polish
There are big cars there	Tam są duże samochody Click to Reveal
I think that they are new bags	Myślę, że są nowe torby Click to Reveal
You are saying that they are bad passwords	Mówisz, że są złe hasła Click to Reveal
Why are you are saying that they are bad passwords?	Dlaczego mówisz, że są złe hasła? Click to Reveal

Plurals in the past

Now we have our endings they stay the same even in the past tense (phew!)

English	Polish
There/They were good tickets	Były dobre bilety
There/They were good lamps	Były dobre lampy
There/They were good wines	Były dobre wina

So how would you say:

English	Polish
There/they were historical problems	Były problemy historyczne Click to Reveal
We think (that) they were bad problems	Myślimy, że były złe problemy Click to Reveal
I'm saying that they were small sofas	Mówię, że były małe sofy Click to Reveal
You think they were weak beers?	Myślisz, że były słabe piwa? Click to Reveal
Why do you think they were weak beers?	Dlaczego myślisz, że były słabe piwa? Click to Reveal

.... and the femine doesn't even change in the "Masz/Lubisz/Móvisz" case (after the verb) ...

English	Polish
I have good tickets	Mam dobre bilety
I have good lamps	Mam dobre lampy
I have good wines	Mam dobre wina

So how would you say:

English	Polish
I know (that) I had good tickets	Wiem, że miałem dobre bilety Click to Reveal
We know (that) we had old bags	Wiemy, że mieliśmy stare torby Click to Reveal
You know (that) she had good bad passwords	Wiesz, że miała złe hasła Click to Reveal

"Świetny!" OK - let's try a few at random

English	Polish
We had good cars	Mieliśmy dobre samochody Click to Reveal
You have big bags	Masz duże torby Click to Reveal
They are good passwords	Są dobre hasła Click to Reveal
They are small sofas	Są małe sofy Click to Reveal
He/she has big (great) secrets	Ma wielkie sekrety Click to Reveal

Plurals in the "nie masz/lubisz/mówisz" case (something is missing)

The only place we see a change is in the "nie masz/lubisz/mówisz" case - the case where something is missing.

English	Polish
We didn't have good tickets	Nie mieliśmy dobrych biletów
We didn't have good lamps	Nie mieliśmy dobrych lamp
We didn't have good wines	Nie mieliśmy dobrych win

So

• "Dobre" -> "Dobrych" for all genders.
• "Bilety" -> "Biletów"
• "Lampa" -> "Lamp" and "Wina" -> "Win" - in other words removing the endings

So how would you say:

English	Polish
We don't have new cars	Nie mamy nowych samochodów Click to Reveal
We don't have big coffees	Nie mamy dużych kaw Click to Reveal
We don't have small beers	Nie mamy małych piw Click to Reveal

That's still quite a lot to remember but not as extensive as all the changes for singular nouns! So let's update our table from lesson 7:

Now we're always going to get some exceptions coming in but they are often quite easy to spot. As I've mentioned before Polish is a language which bounces along so it likes to avoid hard endings. "Torba" for example, in the phrase "I didn't have big bags", would be 'torb' if we followed the rules but the 'b' ending doesn't allow for much bouncing so the ending is fiddled:

English	Polish
We didn't have big bags	Nie miałem dużych toreb

'sł' is also a strange way to end a word so:

English	Polish
We don't have small passwords	Nie mam małych haseł

Exceptions are exceptions, they just have to be learnt. But if you said "Nie mam małych hasł" you would be close enough to be understood and someone would correct you so you would learn the exception.

OK - let's try a mega sentence and get it right by breaking it down: "When my firm had old laptops your firm didn't have laptops or computers"

• "When" - "Kiedy"
• "my firm" - "moja firma"
• "had" - "miała"
• "old laptops" - "stare laptopy"
• "your firm" - "twoja firma"
• "didn't have" - "nie miała"
• "laptops" - "laptopów"
• "or" - "ani"
• "compters" - "komputerów"

English	Polish
When my firm had old laptops your firm didn't have laptops nor computers	Kiedy moja firma miała stare laptopy, twoja firma nie miała laptopów ani komputerów