Breakdown of Ta ryba jest dziwnej wielkości i waży gramów trzysta.
być
to be
i
and
ta
this (f)
ryba
fish (f)
trzysta
three hundred
dziwny
strange
gram
gram
ważyć
to weigh
wielkość
size
Questions & Answers about Ta ryba jest dziwnej wielkości i waży gramów trzysta.
Why is it gramów trzysta instead of trzysta gramów?
Reversing the normal order of a noun and a numeral is a natural Polish trick to express approximation. While trzysta gramów means exactly 300 grams, putting the noun first as gramów trzysta changes the meaning to 'about 300 grams.' This is known as syntactic numeral approximation.
Does reversing the word order change the grammatical case of the noun?
No, the grammatical relationship stays exactly the same. The numeral trzysta (300) always requires the counted noun to be in the genitive plural. That is why we use the genitive plural gramów whether it comes before or after the number.
Why do we say jest dziwnej wielkości in the genitive case instead of using the nominative?
Polish uses the genitive case after the verb być (to be) to describe intrinsic physical properties like size, age, or color. This is called the genitive of quality. You can think of it as literally translating to 'is OF a strange size.'
What case is the numeral trzysta in here?
It is in the accusative case. The verb ważyć (to weigh) takes an accusative object when stating a weight. For numerals that are 5 and above (including hundreds like 300), the accusative form happens to look identical to the nominative form (trzysta).
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