Kot woli nowy drapak niż kanapę w salonie.

Because kanapę is the accusative singular form of kanapa.

The verb woleć means to prefer, and here it takes a direct object:

• Kot woli nowy drapak = The cat prefers a new scratching post
• and then compares it with kanapę = the couch

For feminine nouns ending in -a, the accusative singular usually changes -a to -ę:

• kanapa → kanapę
• kobieta → kobietę

So kanapę is required here.

Because drapak is a masculine inanimate noun, and in the accusative singular, masculine inanimate nouns usually look the same as the nominative.

So:

• nominative: nowy drapak
• accusative: nowy drapak

That is different from masculine animate nouns, where the accusative usually matches the genitive:

• widzę kota = I see the cat

But drapak is inanimate, so it stays drapak.

W salonie is in the locative case.

The preposition w often means in and, when it describes a location, it normally requires the locative:

• w domu = in the house
• w szkole = at school / in the school
• w salonie = in the living room

So:

• salon = living room
• w salonie = in the living room

Niż means than.

In this sentence, it introduces the second part of a comparison:

• Kot woli nowy drapak niż kanapę w salonie.
• The cat prefers the new scratching post rather than the couch in the living room.

With woleć, Polish often uses either:

• coś niż coś
  or
• coś od czegoś

For example:

• Wolę kawę niż herbatę.
• Wolę kawę od herbaty.

Both mean I prefer coffee to tea, but the grammar after them differs.

Because in the pattern woleć coś niż coś, both nouns are commonly treated as parallel objects of comparison.

So:

• wolę kawę niż herbatę
• kot woli drapak niż kanapę

Both kawę / herbatę and drapak / kanapę are in the forms expected by the verb woleć.

If you use od instead of niż, the second noun changes case:

• Wolę kawę od herbaty.
• Kot woli nowy drapak od kanapy w salonie.

Here kanapy would be genitive.

Woli is the 3rd person singular present tense of woleć.

So:

• ja wolę = I prefer
• ty wolisz = you prefer
• on/ona/ono woli = he/she/it prefers

Since kot is singular, the verb must also be singular:

• Kot woli = The cat prefers

Polish does not have articles like English a and the.

So kot can mean:

• a cat
• the cat

And nowy drapak can mean:

• a new scratching post
• the new scratching post

Context tells you which meaning is intended. This is very normal in Polish.

Because that is the most normal, neutral word order in Polish: adjective + noun.

So:

• nowy drapak = new scratching post
• duży dom = big house
• czarna kawa = black coffee

You can sometimes put the adjective after the noun, but that usually sounds more stylistic, formal, poetic, or changes the emphasis. For everyday speech, nowy drapak is the standard order.

In this sentence, the most natural reading is that w salonie describes kanapę:

• the couch in the living room

That is because it comes right after kanapę, so listeners usually attach it to the nearest suitable noun.

So the sentence most naturally means:

• The cat prefers the new scratching post to the couch in the living room.

If you wanted to make it clearer that the cat is in the living room, you could say something like:

• Kot w salonie woli nowy drapak niż kanapę.

Yes. Polish word order is more flexible than English word order, because case endings show grammatical relationships.

For example, you could rearrange parts of the sentence for emphasis. But the exact emphasis would change.

The original:

• Kot woli nowy drapak niż kanapę w salonie.

is a neutral, natural sentence.

If you move elements around, you may highlight a different part:

• Nowy drapak kot woli bardziej niż kanapę w salonie.
• W salonie kot woli nowy drapak niż kanapę.

These are possible, but the original is simpler and more standard for a learner.

The nouns are:

• kot — masculine animate
• drapak — masculine inanimate
• kanapa — feminine
• salon — masculine inanimate

This matters because adjectives and some noun forms change depending on gender and case.

For example:

• nowy drapak: nowy matches the masculine noun drapak
• kanapę: feminine accusative singular
• w salonie: masculine locative singular

So a lot of the sentence shape comes from gender + case working together.

Because after w meaning in, you need the locative, not the genitive.

For salon, the locative singular is:

• salonie

So:

• w salonie = in the living room

By contrast, salonu is a different case form, most commonly genitive singular:

• nie ma salonu = there is no living room
• do salonu = to the living room

So w salonie is correct here because the sentence describes location.

Not exactly.

• lubić = to like
• woleć = to prefer

So:

• Kot lubi kanapę. = The cat likes the couch.
• Kot woli nowy drapak niż kanapę. = The cat prefers the new scratching post to the couch.

Woleć implies a comparison or choice between options, while lubić does not have to.