Breakdown of Ten pan jest z Ameryki, a ta pani z Ukrainy.
być
to be
pan
sir / Mr.
pani
madam / Mrs.
ten
this (m)
ta
this (f)
a
and / whereas (contrast)
z
from (+ Genitive)
Ukraina
Ukraine
Ameryka
America
Questions & Answers about Ten pan jest z Ameryki, a ta pani z Ukrainy.
I thought 'pan' and 'pani' meant 'Mr.' and 'Mrs.' or formal 'you'. Why do they mean 'gentleman' and 'lady' here?
In Polish, pan and pani are very versatile. Besides meaning 'Mr./Ms.' or the formal 'you', they are also the standard, polite ways to refer to an adult man or woman you don't know. It sounds much more natural and polite here than using the basic words for man (mężczyzna) and woman (kobieta).
Why is a used for 'and' instead of i?
Polish has two common words for 'and'. You use i simply to add things together, like joining two items in a list. You use a to show a contrast or a shift in focus between two different subjects, which is often translated as 'and' or 'while'. Since we are comparing the man's country to the woman's country, a is the correct choice.
Why do the country names end in '-i' and '-y' (Ameryki, Ukrainy) instead of '-a'?
The word z (meaning 'from') requires the following noun to change its ending. This is a grammar rule called the Genitive case. For feminine nouns ending in -a (like Ameryka and Ukraina), the -a changes to -i or -y when you say you are 'from' there.
Why does the word for 'this' change from ten to ta?
Is it okay that the second half of the sentence doesn't have a verb?
Yes! Just like in English, if the verb is exactly the same in both parts of the sentence, you can drop it to avoid repeating yourself. The full thought is ...a ta pani jest z Ukrainy, but leaving out the second jest sounds perfectly natural.
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