Word
On nie pije kawy przed snem.
Meaning
He does not drink coffee before sleep.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Questions & Answers about On nie pije kawy przed snem.
Why does the word for sleep change to snem here?
The preposition przed (before) requires the following noun to be in the Instrumental case. The base word for sleep is sen, and its Instrumental form is snem.
Why is the Instrumental form snem and not "senem"? Where did the "e" go?
The word sen has what is called a fleeting "e". When you add a case ending to it, such as the Instrumental ending -em, the original "e" drops out. This is a common pattern in short Polish nouns!
Why is coffee in the form kawy instead of kawę?
This is because of the negative verb. Normally, drinking coffee takes the Accusative case (On pije kawę). But when you add nie (not) to the verb, the direct object must change to the Genitive case, which makes it kawy.
Since sen can mean both sleep and dream, how do we know which one it is here?
Context! While sen translates to both sleep and a dream, the common phrase przed snem is used just like "before bed" or "before sleep" in English.