Questions & Answers about Teraz nie ma śniegu i wiatru.
Why do the words for snow and wind end in '-u' here (śniegu and wiatru)?
Because of the phrase nie ma (there is no / there is not). Whenever you say that something is missing or doesn't exist using nie ma, the thing that is missing must be in the Genitive case. The basic dictionary words are śnieg and wiatr, and their Genitive forms take the -u ending.
How do I know whether a masculine word takes '-u' or '-a' in the Genitive case?
It can be a bit tricky! For inanimate masculine objects (things, not people or animals), the Genitive ending can be either -a or -u. As a helpful rule, weather phenomena and uncountable substances like śnieg (snow), wiatr (wind), and deszcz (rain) take the -u ending.
Does nie ma mean 'it does not have' or 'there is no'?
It can mean both depending on the context. If you were talking about a specific person, nie ma would mean 'he or she does not have'. But here, used as a standalone phrase with no subject, it acts as an impersonal phrase that simply means 'there is no' or 'there is not'.
In English the translation says 'no snow and no wind'. Why doesn't Polish repeat the negative word?
In Polish, the single phrase nie ma applies to everything grouped together by i (and). You are structurally saying 'now there is no [snow and wind]'. Repeating nie ma before wiatru is completely unnecessary and would sound unnatural.
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