Action at the playground
To describe a lively playground, you need verbs of motion and noise. The game of "tag" is called berek (played as grać w berka). When playing, children will jump (skakać), shout (krzyczeć), run away (uciekać), and chase (gonić) each other.
| The children are playing tag, jumping and running away. | Dzieci grają w berka, skaczą i uciekają. |
| When they play tag, one boy chases, and the girl runs away and screams. | Kiedy grają w berka, jeden chłopiec goni, a dziewczynka ucieka i krzyczy. |
Going around: dookoła + Genitive
To describe circular movement or being positioned entirely around something, use the word dookoła (around). Like many prepositions of spatial relation, dookoła requires the noun that follows it to be in the Genitive case.
Here is how the feminine nouns for playground equipment change in the Genitive case. They drop their final -a and take -y (or -i after soft consonants or k / g):
| Nominative | Genitive (after dookoła) | English |
|---|---|---|
| piaskownica | piaskownicy | sandbox |
| huśtawka | huśtawki | swing |
| karuzela | karuzeli | merry-go-round |
| zjeżdżalnia | zjeżdżalni | slide |
| She is running away around the sandbox. | Ona ucieka dookoła piaskownicy. |
| These children are running around the swing and chasing each other. | Te dzieci biegają dookoła huśtawki i się gonią. |
| Are these dogs also running around the merry-go-round and the slide? | Czy te psy też biegają dookoła karuzeli i zjeżdżalni? |
Next to and catching
To finally end a game of tag, someone has to catch (złapać) the runner. Often, this happens next to the equipment rather than around it. The preposition obok (next to) conveniently also requires the Genitive case, so you can use the exact same noun endings you learned for dookoła.
| I think that he will catch her next to the merry-go-round. | Myślę, że on ją złapie obok karuzeli. |
| These girls are jumping next to the slide and shouting loudly. | Te dziewczynki skaczą obok zjeżdżalni i głośno krzyczą. |
| They are chasing each other around the merry-go-round, but he cannot catch her. | Oni gonią się dookoła karuzeli, ale on nie może jej złapać. |
