{"id":539,"date":"2009-05-04T18:52:46","date_gmt":"2009-05-04T22:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/?p=539"},"modified":"2009-05-04T18:52:46","modified_gmt":"2009-05-04T22:52:46","slug":"readers-questions-bez-and-nie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/readers-questions-bez-and-nie\/","title":{"rendered":"Readers&#8217; Questions &#8211; &#8220;bez&#8221; and &#8220;nie&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday was a public holiday in Poland to celebrate the Constitution of May 3rd, 1791 (<strong>Konstytucja Trzeciego Maja<\/strong>). And it made me realize that I didn\u2019t really know all that much about this historical event. So off to google I went. And what did I learn? A whole bunch of really boring historical bits of which only this stuck in my head \u2013 that the the Constitution remained in effect for only a year before being overthrown. Hmmm\u2026 not a very good track record. When I told my husband, he asked, <em>\u201cAnd you guys celebrate THAT?\u201d<\/em> But he did say it was a curious coincidence that Japan also celebrates its Constitution Day on May 3rd.<\/p>\n<p>But let\u2019s move on to more exciting stuff. Warning, warning &#8211; grammar ahead!<\/p>\n<p>One of our readers here (<em>hi Bea!<\/em>) sent an email with a somewhat confusing question:<br \/>\n<em>You quoted &#8220;<strong>bez wizy<\/strong>&#8221; meaning \u201cwithout a visa\u201d.\u00a0 This sentence doesn&#8217;t require &#8220;<strong>nie<\/strong>&#8220;?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>No, it doesn\u2019t require \u201c<strong>nie<\/strong>\u201d, because if you are saying that you are without something, that\u2019s all you need to say. That\u2019s how it works in English and luckily it\u2019s almost exactly the same in Polish. I say \u201calmost\u201d because Polish nouns have cases.<br \/>\nSo, we say:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>bez wizy<\/strong> \u2013 without a visa, in this context also \u201cno visa necessary\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Want more examples? No problem. Take a look:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>bez pieni\u0119dzy<\/strong> \u2013 without money,<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For example:<br \/>\n<strong>Przyszed\u0142 tutaj bez pieni\u0119dzy.<\/strong> \u2013 He showed here up without money.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>bez namys\u0142u \u2013 without thinking.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For example:<br \/>\n<strong>Bez namys\u0142u dalam mu pieni\u0105dze.<\/strong> \u2013 Without thinking, I gave him money.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>bez mleka \u2013 without milk<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Kaw\u0119 bez mleka prosz\u0119.<\/strong> \u2013 Coffee without milk, please.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>bez<\/strong> m\u0119\u017ca \u2013 without <em>(here we stick a possessive pronoun\/adjective in English)<\/em> husband<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Przyjecha\u0142am do Polski bez m\u0119\u017ca<\/strong>. \u2013 I came to Poland without my husband.<\/p>\n<p>And what can you tell me about the nouns that follow \u201c<strong>bez<\/strong>\u201d? Can you guess which case this is? Of course you can! And you don&#8217;t even need to guess, because I&#8217;m sure you know it already!<br \/>\n<strong>Dope\u0142niacz<\/strong> (genitive) &#8211; we covered it a while back, remember? Just put &#8220;genitive&#8221; in the blog&#8217;s search box and you should get a list of previous posts on this case.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>m\u0105\u017c<\/strong> (husband) \u2013 nominative, <strong>m\u0119\u017ca<\/strong> \u2013 genitive (sounds like accusative, but in this case it\u2019s the genitive we want, trust me)<\/li>\n<li><strong>mleko<\/strong> (milk) \u2013 nominative, <strong>mleka<\/strong> \u2013 genitive<\/li>\n<li><strong>pieni\u0105dze<\/strong> (money, this is plural in Polish) \u2013 nominative, <strong>pieni\u0119dzy<\/strong> \u2013 genitive<\/li>\n<li><strong>wiza<\/strong> (visa) \u2013 nominative, <strong>wizy<\/strong> \u2013 genitive<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>See, it wasn\u2019t all that difficult, now was it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday was a public holiday in Poland to celebrate the Constitution of May 3rd, 1791 (Konstytucja Trzeciego Maja). And it made me realize that I didn\u2019t really know all that much about this historical event. So off to google I went. And what did I learn? A whole bunch of really boring historical bits of&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/readers-questions-bez-and-nie\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1026,1083,7490,3007,7621],"class_list":["post-539","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-grammar","tag-cases","tag-genitive","tag-nominative","tag-noun","tag-without"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}