Learn Polish: Znam gospodynię tego domu. - I know the landlady of this house.

In Polish, there are two common verbs for "to know". We use znać (conjugated here as znam) when talking about being acquainted with a person, place, or thing. We use wiedzieć when we know a fact or piece of information. Since we are talking about knowing a person (the landlady), znam is the correct choice.

The dictionary word for landlady is gospodyni. Why does it end in -ę in this sentence?

The verb znać requires its direct object to be in the accusative case. Even though gospodyni is a feminine noun that ends in -i instead of the typical -a, its accusative form still takes the standard feminine ending -ę, becoming gospodynię.

Why is "this house" translated as tego domu instead of ten dom?

To express "of this house", Polish uses the genitive case. The masculine noun dom changes to domu, and the pronoun ten (this) changes to tego to match it. The genitive case is used here to show possession or relationship, doing the job of the English word "of".

Why does the genitive form of dom end in -u (domu) rather than -a?