Questions & Answers about Ta mała dziewczynka ma rok.
Why does the Polish sentence use ma instead of a word for 'is'?
In Polish, you do not say someone is a certain age; you say they have years. The verb mieć (to have) is used for age, so ma literally means 'has'. The sentence translates word-for-word as 'This little girl has a year.'
Where is the word for 'one' in ma rok?
When expressing the age of exactly one year, Polish speakers usually drop the number and just say ma rok (has a year) instead of ma jeden rok. It sounds much more natural this way.
Why are we using Ta mała instead of Ten mały or To małe?
Dziewczynka (girl) is a feminine noun. In Polish, words that point out or describe a noun must match its gender. Therefore, we use the feminine forms Ta (this) and mała (little) to match the girl.
Does the verb mieć (to have) change the word rok here?
Grammatically, yes, but you cannot see the change. The verb mieć always forces its object into the accusative case. However, rok is a non-living masculine noun, and for those nouns, the accusative form is identical to the basic dictionary form.
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