Breakdown of Chyba zrobię sobie nowy tatuaż na ramieniu.
nowy
new
na
on, at / to (motion toward) / for (a meal) / for (waiting for)
zrobić
to do / to make (someone something)
sobie
to oneself / oneself (after a preposition)
chyba
probably, I think
ramię
arm, shoulder
tatuaż
the tattoo
Questions & Answers about Chyba zrobię sobie nowy tatuaż na ramieniu.
Why does the sentence start with 'chyba' here, and doesn't it mean 'unless'?
Why do we use zrobię sobie (I will make for myself) instead of a verb for 'getting' a tattoo?
In Polish, you do not typically 'get' a tattoo in the English sense. The natural phrasing is zrobić sobie tatuaż (literally 'to make a tattoo for oneself'). Here, zrobię is the future tense of the perfective verb zrobić, expressing that you will have the action completed for yourself.
Is nowy tatuaż in the accusative case here? Why didn't the ending change?
Yes, it is in the accusative case because it is the direct object of the verb zrobię. However, because tatuaż is an inanimate masculine noun, its accusative form looks exactly the same as its nominative (dictionary) form.
The word for shoulder is ramię. Why does it change so much to become ramieniu?
Ramię is a neuter noun ending in -ę. These types of nouns have a unique declension pattern where their stem changes and expands in other cases (often adding -eni-). Because we are using the preposition na (on) to talk about a location, we need the locative case, which turns ramię into ramieniu.
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