Breakdown of My nie jesteśmy ani w pracy, ani w domu.
być
to be
dom
house
nie
no / not
my
we
w
in / on (a day)
praca
work
ani
neither / nor
Questions & Answers about My nie jesteśmy ani w pracy, ani w domu.
In English we say 'We are neither...', so why does the Polish sentence add nie before the verb?
Polish uses 'negative concord', meaning you must negate the main verb even when using negative words like ani (neither/nor). Literally, the sentence says 'We are not neither at work, nor at home'. If you drop the nie, the sentence becomes grammatically incorrect.
Why is there a comma before the second ani?
In Polish, when you repeat a conjunction like ani ... ani (neither ... nor) or albo ... albo (either ... or) in a list, you must always place a comma before the second one.
Since jesteśmy already means 'we are', is the word My at the beginning necessary?
It is not strictly necessary. Because the verb jesteśmy clearly points to 'we', you can simply say Nie jesteśmy ani w pracy.... Including My adds emphasis, as if pointing out 'As for us, we are neither...'.
Both pracy and domu follow the preposition w. Why do their noun endings change in different ways?
The preposition w (in/at) requires the Locative case here to show a location. Praca (work) is a feminine noun ending in -a, which changes to -y to become pracy. Dom (home) is a masculine inanimate noun, and its Locative form takes the -u ending to become domu.
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