Questions & Answers about To moja bratowa, której dom bardzo mi się podoba.
Why does the sentence use której to mean 'whose'?
In Polish, 'whose' is expressed by using the Genitive case of the relative pronoun który. Because it refers back to bratowa (sister-in-law), which is a feminine noun, we use the feminine Genitive form której.
Does której match the gender of the sister-in-law (bratowa) or the house (dom)?
It matches bratowa. When using który in the Genitive to mean 'whose', it always takes the gender and number of the owner (the person or thing you are referring back to), not the thing being owned. If you were talking about a brother, you would use the masculine Genitive and say którego dom (whose house).
Why is the verb podoba in the 'he/she/it' form if the English translation says 'I like'?
The Polish verb podobać się literally means 'to be pleasing to'. So the phrase dom bardzo mi się podoba actually means 'the house is very pleasing to me'. The house (dom) is the grammatical subject doing the action, which is why the verb is in the third-person singular form podoba.
Why are the pronouns mi and się placed before the verb rather than after it?