Learn Polish: Tutaj jest dużo koszy. - There are a lot of baskets here.

Quantity words in Polish, like dużo (a lot), mało (few), and trochę (some), are treated grammatically as singular concepts. Because of this, they always take a third-person singular verb like jest, even though the English translation uses the plural "are".

Why is the word for baskets in the genitive case (koszy)?

Whenever you express an amount using words like dużo (a lot/many), the noun that follows must be in the genitive case. You can think of it like saying "a lot OF baskets" in English.

The base word is kosz (basket). Why does its genitive plural end in -y instead of the usual -ów?

While -ów is the standard genitive plural ending for most masculine nouns, words that end in "hissing" or "soft" sounds (like sz, cz, rz, ż, c, and dz) are an exception. Since kosz ends in the hissing sound sz, it takes the ending -y to become koszy.

Could I use tu instead of tutaj in this sentence?