W salonie jest duże lustro.

to be

Breakdown of W salonie jest duże lustro.

• duży: big
• w: in
• salon: the living room
• lustro: the mirror

Questions & Answers about W salonie jest duże lustro.

Why is salonie used instead of salon?

salonie is the locative singular form of salon. In Polish, when you use the preposition w (in) to indicate location, the following noun must be in the locative case. The basic form salon (nominative) cannot be used after w in this meaning.

What case is lustro in, and why?

lustro here is in the nominative singular. After the verb jest (is), Polish uses the nominative case for the subject or predicate noun. Even though in English we say “there is a mirror,” in Polish the mirror is treated grammatically as a nominative noun linked by the copula jest.

Why is duże used and not duży or duża?

Adjectives in Polish must agree with the noun in gender, number, and case. lustro is a neuter noun in the nominative singular, so the adjective takes the neuter nominative ending -e. That gives duże, not the masculine duży or feminine duża.

Why isn’t there an article like “a” or “the” before lustro?

Polish does not have definite or indefinite articles (no equivalents of “a,” “an,” or “the”). If you need to specify “the mirror” or “a mirror,” you either rely on context or add words like to (this) or jakieś (some/a certain), or use word order and intonation.

Can I change the word order, for example to Jest w salonie duże lustro or Jest duże lustro w salonie?

Yes. Polish word order is relatively flexible because cases mark grammatical roles.

• W salonie jest duże lustro is the neutral/default order.
• Jest w salonie duże lustro shifts focus slightly onto the existence/appearance of the mirror.
• Jest duże lustro w salonie emphasizes that it’s a large mirror, with location added afterward.
  All are grammatically correct, but the nuance and emphasis change.

Could I say W salonie jest lustro duże instead?

Grammatically you could, since adjective–noun agreement still holds (lustro duże, neuter nominative). However, putting the adjective after the noun is marked and often used for poetic or contrastive emphasis (“a mirror—a large one—is in the living room”). In everyday speech, adjectives almost always precede their nouns.

How do you pronounce W salonie?

• The letter w is pronounced [v] before a voiced consonant and [f] before a voiceless one. Here s is voiceless, so w sounds like [f].
• salonie is [sa-ˈlɔ-ɲe].
  Altogether: [f sa-ˈlɔ-ɲe].