Deser pachnie wanilią i smakuje słodko; moja córka go uwielbia.

The dessert smells of vanilla and tastes sweet; my daughter loves it.

Breakdown of Deser pachnie wanilią i smakuje słodko; moja córka go uwielbia.

• mój: my
• i: and
• smakować: to taste
• go: it

Questions & Answers about Deser pachnie wanilią i smakuje słodko; moja córka go uwielbia.

Why is wanilią in the instrumental case rather than the nominative wanilia?

The verb pachnie (“smells of”) requires the instrumental case to indicate what something smells like. So pachnie wanilią literally means “it smells with vanilla,” which we translate as “it smells of vanilla.”

Why is słodko an adverb and not the adjective słodki?

With taste verbs like smakuje (“tastes”), Polish uses an adverb to describe how something tastes. Słodko (“sweetly”) tells you the manner of tasting. If you wanted to use an adjective, you’d say something like Deser jest słodki (“The dessert is sweet”).

What does the pronoun go refer to, and why is it placed before the verb?

Go is the masculine singular direct-object pronoun referring back to deser (a masculine noun). In Polish you can place object pronouns before or after the verb—moja córka go uwielbia or moja córka uwielbia go—but putting them before the verb is very common in neutral statements.

Why do we use moja instead of mój in moja córka?

Possessive pronouns agree in gender and number with the noun they modify. Córka is feminine singular, so the correct form is moja (“my” in feminine), not mój (masculine).