Word
On ma czterdzieści cztery lata.
Meaning
He is forty-four years old.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about On ma czterdzieści cztery lata.
Why does this sentence use ma (has) instead of jest (is)?
In Polish, you do not say that someone "is" a certain age. Instead, you say that they "have" a certain number of years. That is why we use ma (he/she/it has) from the verb mieć (to have).
Why is the word for "years" lata here instead of lat?
In Polish, the word for "years" changes depending on the last digit of the number. For numbers ending in 2, 3, or 4 (like 22, 34, or czterdzieści cztery), we use lata. For numbers ending in 5-9, 0, and the teens (11-19), we use lat.
How do compound numbers like czterdzieści cztery work in Polish?
They work just like in English! You simply state the tens word (czterdzieści for forty) followed by the ones word (cztery for four). There is no "and" or hyphen between them.
Wait, isn't lata also the word for "summers"?
Yes, good catch! Lato means "summer", and its plural (lata) means "summers". Historically, Slavic people counted age by the number of summers a person had lived through, which is why lata became the standard plural word for "years".