Counting Men: Numbers 2 to 4
When counting small groups of men (or mixed groups of men and women), Polish uses special "masculine personal" forms for numbers 2, 3, and 4: dwóch (two), trzech (three), and czterech (four).
Unlike normal numbers 2 to 4, these special forms act just like the number 5: they force the noun that follows into the Genitive plural.
Additionally, just like with numbers 5 and above, when one of these phrases is the subject of a sentence, the verb takes a singular form (e.g., gotuje instead of gotują).
Asking "How Many?"
To ask "how many?" about masculine personal nouns, use the special question word ilu. Just like the numbers above, ilu requires the following noun to be in the Genitive plural and takes a singular verb if it is the subject.
Subjects and Objects
Because the Accusative case is identical to the Genitive case for masculine personal nouns, these phrases (dwóch, trzech, czterech, and ilu) look exactly the same whether they are performing the action as the subject, or receiving the action as a direct object.