Questions & Answers about Te nowe buty są bardzo wygodne.
Why do we use te for "these" instead of ten or ta?
Ten (masculine) and ta (feminine) mean "this" for singular nouns. For plural nouns, Polish simplifies genders into two categories: "virile" (groups that include at least one man) and "non-virile" (everything else, including objects, animals, and groups of women). Since shoes (buty) are objects, they fall into the non-virile category. The non-virile word for "these" is te.
The singular word for shoe is but. Why does the plural end in -y?
But is a masculine inanimate noun. When forming the plural for non-virile nouns, masculine and feminine words typically take an -y ending. (The main exception is if the noun ends in -k or -g, which take -i to keep the pronunciation soft). Since but ends in a hard -t, it simply adds -y to become buty.
Why do the adjectives nowe (new) and wygodne (comfortable) both end in -e?
In the plural, adjectives that describe non-virile nouns always take the ending -e. If we were talking about just one shoe, we would use the singular masculine forms nowy and wygodny. Here, they change to nowe and wygodne to match the plural non-virile noun buty.