Breakdown of On nie dotyka niczego na swoim koncie.
on
he / it (m)
nie
no / not
na
on, at / to (motion toward) / for (a meal) / for (waiting for)
nic
nothing
swój
one's own
dotykać
to touch
konto
account
Questions & Answers about On nie dotyka niczego na swoim koncie.
Why is it niczego instead of nic?
The word niczego is the Genitive form of nic (nothing). There are two reasons it takes the Genitive here: first, the verb dotykać (to touch) naturally requires the Genitive case. Second, when a verb is negated with nie, its direct object always switches to the Genitive case.
Wait, doesn't niczego mean 'nothing'? Why is it translated as 'anything'?
Polish requires double negatives! When you have a negative pronoun like niczego, you must also negate the verb with nie. A literal translation is 'He does not touch nothing.' In English, we change 'nothing' to 'anything' to avoid the double negative, but Polish needs both parts.
Why use swoim instead of jego for 'his'?
The word swoim comes from swój, which means 'one's own'. Whenever the subject of the sentence (in this case, 'On' / 'He') owns the object being talked about (the account), Polish prefers swój. If you said na jego koncie, it would strongly imply he is touching some other man's account.
What case is koncie in, and why does the spelling change so much from konto?
It is in the Locative case, triggered by the preposition na (on) when describing a location. The base word is konto (account). In the Locative case, the ending -o changes to -ie. This ending forces the previous consonant to soften, so the t changes to a c, resulting in koncie.
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