It’s been a while, a looong while actually, since our last post about nouns and cases. I think I started telling you about the dative case and then promptly began to practice avoidance. So where were we last? Oh yes, personal pronouns and indirect objects, me thinks.

So, let’s quickly go back and review. I told you that the dative case is used to modify personal pronouns and I showed you how it’s used in examples where the sentences did not have a specific subject and the dative case was used after the verb “to be” in its many different forms and tenses, such as here:

• Było mi zimno. – I was cold.

The word “zimno” is an adverb, of course. And there is a whole slew of adverbs used in impersonal “adverbial” expressions, which describe feelings and sensations. And all those expressions, needless to say, use the dative case.

I gave you one example last time, remember?

• Jest nam przykro. – We are sorry.

Here “przykro” is our adverb of choice. But wait, there’s a whole list of those adverbs that tend to go together with the dative.

• gorąco – hot, as in – Jest mi gorąco. – I’m hot.
• łatwo – easy – Nie jest nam tak łatwo. – It’s not so easy for us, as in “we can’t make ends meet,” for example. Incidentally, I heard that phrase from almost every person I spoke to in Poland during my trip.
• miło – nice – Bardzo mi miło. – Used normally when someone’s introduced to you, as in “Nice to meet you” with the “meet you” implied.
• smutno – sad – Jest jej smutno. – She feels sad.

And so on…

And I think I also briefly touched on the subject of indirect objects. Now, that sounded a bit weird, didn’t it? “The subject of objects…” Anyway…
You see, in Polish all noun cases have certain questions assigned to them. For the dative, these questions are:

• komu? czemu? – to whom? to what?

These questions are a sure giveaway that the case you need is the dative and that it describes either a recipient of something, or a person to whom something was/is/will be said. Complicated? Nah, only a little. These examples should make it a bit easier:

• Muszę pomóc mojemu tacie. – I have to help my dad.

Nominative: mój tata – my dad
Dative – mojemu tacie
Here, the dad is the recipient of my help.

• Sprzedajemy mieszkanie Jackowi z Olsztyna. – We’re selling (our) apartment to Jacek from Olsztyn.

Nominative – Jacek (a guy’s first name)
Dative – Jackowi
Here, Jacek from Olsztyn is the beneficiary of our action.
In the Polish sentence above, the possessive “our” is implied and understood, so everybody knows we’re talking about selling “nasze mieszkanie” – “our apartment” and not somebody else’s.

• Oddałam sąsiadce jej klucze. – I gave back the neighbor her keys.

Nominative – sąsiadka – neighbor (female)
Dative – sąsiadce
Here our female neighbor (sąsiadka) is the recipient of the keys.

So, we can say that the dative case is normally used when you have a verb that requires you to have someone as a beneficiary of your action, for example:

• dać/dawać – to give (to whom)
• oddać/oddawać – to give back/ to return (to whom)
• sprzedać/sprzedawać – to sell (to whom)
• kupić/kupować – to buy
• pomóc/pomagać – to help
• pokazać/pokazywać – to show

And so on… and the noun (or a personal pronoun) following such a verb will most likely be in the dative case.

To be continued…