Breakdown of Mam samochód. Dzięki temu nie muszę jeździć autobusem.
samochód
car
mieć
to have
nie
no / not
musieć
to have to
jeździć
to drive, to go (by vehicle)
autobus
bus
dzięki temu
thanks to that
Questions & Answers about Mam samochód. Dzięki temu nie muszę jeździć autobusem.
Why is it dzięki temu and not dzięki to?
The preposition dzięki (thanks to) always requires the word that follows it to take the Dative case. Temu is the Dative form of the pronoun to (it or that).
Why use jeździć instead of jechać for taking the bus?
Polish has two forms for verbs of motion like going by vehicle. Jechać is for a specific, one-way trip. Jeździć is used for habitual, repeated, or general travel. Since having a car means you generally do not have to take the bus anymore as a routine, we use the habitual verb jeździć.
How does autobusem translate to 'by bus' without a preposition?
In Polish, you do not need a preposition like 'by' when talking about means of transport. Instead, you simply put the vehicle into the Instrumental case. The ending -em is added to the noun autobus to show the method or tool used to perform the action.
Mam takes the Accusative case, so why doesn't samochód change its ending?
You are right that the verb mieć (to have) requires the Accusative case. However, samochód is a masculine inanimate noun. For this specific group of nouns, the Accusative form is identical to the basic dictionary form (Nominative), so it doesn't get a new ending here.
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