Dative

Dative: to whom? to what? - Celownik: komu? / czemu?

Singular dative is used for the indirect object. The idea is something which goes towads somebody or some place, e.g. I buy the child a present: Kupię prezent dla dziecka.

The indirect object answers to the question: "to whom?, to what?", it expresses the direction of the action.

We use the indirect object in the following cases:

• - the action is directed towards someone or something, e.g. I throw a bone to the dog: rzucam kość psu.

• - to help someone ("pomagać"): the action of helping someone is seen in Polish as help directed to someone, e.g. I help my mother: pomagam mojej mamie.

• - to seem to someone, e.g. It seems me that it is raining: wydaje mi się, że pada.

• - to taste like ("smakować"), e.g. it tastes like chicken: smakuje jak kurczak.

• - with verbs of perception: "I am cold", just like in German, is constructed with the dative: "mir ist kalt", which means "to me (is) cold". In polish we say: "zimno mi".

• - impersonal expressions such as "it is hard"; in Polish we would say "it is hard / it is easy to me": jest mi trudno / jest mi łatwo.

• - thank someone: we thank "to someone", thanks are directed towards persons (thanks to...), e.g. thanks everybody: dziękuję wszystkim.

• - after some prepositions:

• thanks to/due to (dzięki), e.g. thanks to the rain plants grow: dzięki ulewie rośliny rosną.

• against (przeciwko), e.g. I am against death penalty: jestem przeciwny karze śmierci.

• - when the speech is directed to someone, e.g. tell me what's your problem. Powiedz mi jaki jest twój problem.

Singular Dative

GENDER	ADJECTIVE	NOUN
Masculine	- ym - im	- owi - ie - u
Femminine	- ej - iej	- e - ie
Neutral	- ym - im	- u

Plural Dative

GENDER	ADJECTIVE	NOUN
Masculine, Femminine and Neutral	- ym - im	-om

Polish Dative Personal Pronouns

NOMINATIVE		DATIVE
ENGLISH	POLISH	ENGLISH	POLISH
I	ja	me/to me	mi
you	ty	you/to you	ci
he/it	on/ono	him, it/to him, to it	jemu*
she	ona	her/to her	jej
we	my	us/to us	nam
you	wy	you/to you	wam
they	oni/one	them/to them	im

*"jemu" is often shortened in "mu".

Exercises