Breakdown of Jutro będę liczyć cztery duże samochody.
być
to be
samochód
car
duży
big
cztery
four
jutro
tomorrow
liczyć
to count
Questions & Answers about Jutro będę liczyć cztery duże samochody.
Why does samochody just use the normal plural ending here? Doesn't Polish use a special case for numbers?
Numbers 2, 3, and 4 are special! They just take the standard Nominative or Accusative plural of the noun and adjective, which here is duże samochody. You only switch to the Genitive case (the "of" case) when you hit 5 or more (like pięć dużych samochodów).
Wait, if I am counting the cars, aren't they the direct object? Shouldn't they be in the Accusative case?
They are in the Accusative case! For masculine inanimate nouns like samochód (car) as well as feminine and neuter nouns, the Accusative plural looks exactly the same as the Nominative plural. The phrase cztery duże samochody acts as the Accusative object here.
Why is the future tense built with będę liczyć instead of just one word?
Because liczyć (to count) is an imperfective verb, meaning it focuses on the ongoing process of counting. To make the future tense of an imperfective verb, you combine the future form of "to be" (będę) with the infinitive of the action verb (liczyć).
The singular word for car is samochód. What happened to the ó in the plural?
It is very common in Polish for the vowel ó in the last syllable of a root word to change to a regular o when you add an ending. You will see this exact same vowel shift in other common words, like stół (table) becoming stoły.
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