Word
Ten zabytkowy samochód należy do mojego ojca.
Meaning
This vintage car belongs to my father.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Ten zabytkowy samochód należy do mojego ojca.
Why do we use do + Genitive here instead of the Dative case, since the English translation uses 'to'?
In Polish, the verb należeć (to belong) requires the preposition do followed by the Genitive case. While English says 'belongs to someone', Polish structures it more like 'belongs into someone's possession'. You cannot use the Dative case here.
The word for father is ojciec. Why does it change to ojca here?
The noun ojciec has a fleeting vowel. When adding case endings, the -ie- in the final syllable drops out. The stem becomes ojc-, and then we add the standard Genitive masculine ending -a to get ojca.
Why does mój become mojego in this sentence?
Since the preposition do forces the Genitive case, all words describing the father must also take Genitive endings. For masculine nouns, the possessive pronoun mój takes the Genitive ending -ego, resulting in do mojego ojca.
Can zabytkowy be used for anything old, like an old t-shirt?