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Questions & Answers about Jej dom jest piękny.
What part of speech is jej and what does it mean?
jej is the third-person singular feminine possessive pronoun, meaning her. It shows that something belongs to a female person.
Does jej change form for gender, number or case of the noun it modifies?
No. When used as a possessive pronoun, jej is indeclinable. It stays jej regardless of the gender, number or case of the noun that follows.
What case is dom in, and why?
dom is in the nominative case because it functions as the subject of the verb jest. Polish uses the nominative for subjects.
What gender is dom, and how do you know?
dom is a masculine inanimate noun. In Polish, most nouns ending in a consonant are masculine (unless they denote female beings), and adjectives agree with that gender.
Why does the adjective piękny end in -y?
Adjectives must agree in gender, number and case with their nouns. Since dom is masculine singular nominative, piękny takes the masculine singular nominative ending -y.
Why isn’t there an article like a or the in Polish?
Polish has no articles. Definite or indefinite sense comes from context or optional words like ten (this) or jakiś (some).
Can you omit jest and simply say jej dom piękny?
Yes, in poetic or very informal contexts you can drop the copula in the present tense: jej dom piękny. In standard spoken or written Polish, you’d normally keep jest.
Is it possible to change the word order?
Absolutely. Polish word order is flexible. For example:
- Piękny jest jej dom (emphasizes piękny)
- Dom jej jest piękny (a bit more formal or poetic)
Could you use swój instead of jej here?
No. swój is reflexive and always refers back to the subject of its clause. In jej dom jest piękny, the possessor is not the grammatical subject, so you must use jej.
How do you pronounce the nasal vowel ę in piękny?
ę is a nasalized e sound, similar to the French nasal in in bien. Phonetically piękny is approximately [pjɛ̃k-nɨ].