Learn Polish: Wczoraj nie mieliśmy talerzy. - We didn't have plates yesterday.

The verb mieć (to have) usually takes the accusative case for its object. However, there is a strict rule in Polish: when you negate a verb that normally takes the accusative, the object switches to the genitive case. Because of the word nie, we need the genitive plural form talerzy.

How do you form the genitive plural for a word like talerz?

Talerz is a masculine noun. While many masculine nouns take the ending -ów in the genitive plural, nouns that end in a "soft" or "historically soft" consonant (like -rz, -sz, -cz, or -ż) usually take the ending -y or -i. That is why talerz becomes talerzy.

Does the word mieliśmy tell us anything about who "we" are?

Yes! The past tense ending -liśmy is the masculine personal form. This tells us that the group of "we" includes at least one man. If the group consisted only of women, you would use the non-masculine personal form miałyśmy instead.

Can I put wczoraj at the end of the sentence instead of the beginning?