{"id":580,"date":"2009-07-03T09:05:30","date_gmt":"2009-07-03T13:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/?p=580"},"modified":"2009-07-03T09:05:30","modified_gmt":"2009-07-03T13:05:30","slug":"swoj-or-moj-possessive-pronouns-continued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/swoj-or-moj-possessive-pronouns-continued\/","title":{"rendered":"Sw\u00f3j or m\u00f3j? &#8211; possessive pronouns continued"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ha! I see that \u201c<strong>sw\u00f3j<\/strong>\u201d and its different forms are not going to win any popularity contests when it comes to Polish grammar for foreigners. And honestly, I can\u2019t blame you guys. Those little buggers are really annoying.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve seen some really convoluted explanations of \u201d<strong>sw\u00f3j<\/strong>\u201d and so I\u2019m not all that surprised by your comments regarding this particular possessive pronoun. On the other than, I am not sure if my explanations can be any better.<\/p>\n<p>But let\u2019s give it a shot and see what happens. And first things first:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>sw\u00f3j<\/strong> <em>(masculine)<\/em>, <strong>swoja<\/strong> <em>(feminine)<\/em>, <strong>swoje<\/strong> <em>(neuter)<\/em>, <strong>swoi<\/strong> <em>(plural masculine personal)<\/em>, <strong>swoje<\/strong> <em>(plural, all others)<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now, take a look at these two examples:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Da\u0142a to jej rodzicom<\/strong>. \u2013 She gave it to her parents.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Da\u0142a to swoim rodzicom.<\/strong> \u2013 She gave it to her own parents.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Do you notice the difference? From the first example, we can deduce this thing:<br \/>\nthat a female gave something to parents of another female.<\/p>\n<p>Compare it with the second sentence. Here, it\u2019s clear that a female gave something to her own parents.<\/p>\n<p>At its most basic that is the difference between a \u201cregular\u201d possessive pronoun and this \u201c<strong>sw\u00f3j<\/strong>\u201d business. \u2013 It is used when a 3rd person possessive pronoun refers to the subject of the sentence. In our case \u2013 the parents of this mysterious woman who was the subject in our example.<\/p>\n<p>It gets all goofy, however, when \u201c<strong>sw\u00f3j<\/strong>\u201d is used in the first and second person. Like this, for example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Mam swoje powody<\/strong>. \u2013 I have my (own) reasons.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Przynios\u0142a\u015b swoja ksi\u0105\u017ck\u0119?<\/strong> \u2013Did you bring your (own) book?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>See what I mean? Why can\u2019t we say \u201cmam moje powody\u201d and \u201cprzynios\u0142a\u015b twoj\u0105 ksi\u0105\u017ck\u0119\u201d? Technically, the grammar is correct, and technically it shouldn\u2019t be wrong, yet, for a native speaker \u201c<strong>sw\u00f3j<\/strong>\u201d is the only proper choice in those sentences. And that is regardless of what Polish textbooks written by foreigners tell you.<\/p>\n<p>I would say that in the beginning it\u2019s probably best to remember that \u201csw\u00f3j\u201d refers to one\u2019s own something-something.<br \/>\nAnd the easiest way to remember it for a long time is through this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>On kocha swoj\u0105 \u017con\u0119.<\/strong> \u2013 He loves his (own) wife.<\/li>\n<li><strong>On kocha jego \u017con\u0119.<\/strong> \u2013 He loves his wife. (which in this instance would be not his own but some other guy\u2019s wife)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That should help you (or at least my male readers) remember when you should use \u201c<strong>sw\u00f3j<\/strong>\u201d and when it\u2019s time for a different possessive pronoun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ha! I see that \u201csw\u00f3j\u201d and its different forms are not going to win any popularity contests when it comes to Polish grammar for foreigners. And honestly, I can\u2019t blame you guys. Those little buggers are really annoying. I\u2019ve seen some really convoluted explanations of \u201dsw\u00f3j\u201d and so I\u2019m not all that surprised by your&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/swoj-or-moj-possessive-pronouns-continued\/\">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":[3353,7581],"class_list":["post-580","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-grammar","tag-possessive-pronouns","tag-swoj"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580","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=580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}