# Pięć psów jest brązowych.



## bramo

I have just started working on Polish. I intended to write, "Five dogs are brown," and wrote "pięć psów są brązowe." I was told that the correct version was "pięć psów jest brązowych," which confused me because I thought that "są" was the plural form of "jest" and had to be used if the subject (pięć psów) was plural, which it is in this case. Could somebody explain why it has to be "jest brązowych"?


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## Thomas1

Hello, Bramo, and welcome!

Polish has this funny thing that you use a verb in singular with numbers 1 and from 5 up and with numbers 2-4 in plural.
For example:
One dog is brown. -- Jeden pies jest brązowy.
Two ogs are brown. -- Dwa psy są brązowe.
Ten dogs are brown. -- Dziesięc psów jest brązowych.

 In cases like: Twenty five dogs are brown. the rule still applies, so: Dwadzieścia pięć psów jest brązowych. So you have to pay attention to the last digit in a number.

All the best with your Polish.


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## bramo

Thomas 1,

Thank you very much. This greatly clarifies things.


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## Ben Jamin

Thomas1 said:


> Hello, Bramo, and welcome!
> 
> Polish has this funny thing that you use a verb in singular with numbers 1 and from 5 up and with numbers 2-4 in plural.
> For example:
> One dog is brown. -- Jeden pies jest brązowy.
> Two ogs are brown. -- Dwa psy są brązowe.
> Ten dogs are brown. -- Dziesięc psów jest brązowych.
> 
> In cases like: Twenty five dogs are brown. the rule still applies, so: Dwadzieścia pięć psów jest brązowych. So you have to pay attention to the last digit in a number.
> 
> All the best with your Polish.


It is also important to notice that the adjective is in genitive, not in nominative as in numbers 2 to 4. 
There also remains the question "why singular verb with a plural subject?".
One explanation is that "Jest" is here an equivalent of English "there are". For instance: "tu jest dużo ludzi" = "there are many people here". 
The genetive is actually used in a partitive meaning.
This reminds of French "il y a beaucoup de gents ici", with the verb in singular and a plural subject in a genetive partitive construction with "de".


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## bramo

Ben Jamin,

Thanks for the nominative vs. genitive information. By the way, it's not "gents," it's "gens."


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## bibax

> There also remains the question "why singular verb with a plural subject?".


The correct explanation is that the subject is NOT in plural. Formally the subject is *pięć* which is paradoxically singular (and neuter). "Pięć psów jest ..." is something like "a lot of dogs are ..." in English. The formal subject is "a lot" which is in singular, but English uses "are" and not "is". The Polish (generally Slavic) grammar is more formal in this respect.

There are two agreements in the example:

1)  Pięć - jest (było) (agree in the number and gender - singular, neuter),

2)  psów - brązowych (agree in the number, case and gender: plural, genitive, masculine).


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## Wiatrak

So, when I understand correctly, it would be possible to leave the dogs out of the equation and say: "Pięć było brązowych." 

For those who speak Dutch: "Een vijftal was bruin." Where 'vijftal' is singular and neuter.


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## bramo

"Było" is a form of "być," right? What tense is it?


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## Wiatrak

Było is the 3rd person singular neuter, past tense. You translate it with "it was". So in the example with the dogs, it shows you have to use the *neuter* gender.


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## bibax

*Jeden pies był czarny, pięć (psów) było brązowych.*

_One dog was black, five (dogs) were brown._

Agreements:

pies - był (singular, nominative, masculine - 3rd person, singular, masculine, past tense)

jeden - pies - czarny (singular, nominative, masculine)

pięć - było (singular, nominative, neuter - 3rd person, singular, neuter, past tense)

(psów) - brązowych (plural, genitive, masculine)

For English speakers it is quite difficult to pay attention to all formal agreements, namely subject-predicate and noun-attribute.


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## BezierCurve

> So, when I understand correctly, it would be possible to leave the dogs out of the equation and say: "Pięć było brązowych."


 
Yes, provided that _dogs_ were mentioned before.

As for the last digit: that rule won't apply for -teens (11, 12, etc. will be treated with genitive as >4). 

Same for all numbers ending with 1 - 21, 31, 41 etc.

So:

1 pies jest/był brązowy

2-4 psy są/były brązowe
5-21 (!) psów jest/było brązowych

22-24 psy są/były brązowe
25-31 psów jest było brązowych

32-34 psy są/były brązowe
35-41 psów jest/było brązowych

etc.


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## myk

as you see numbers entail a noun, a verb & an adjective :
1 - pies - jest  - ...-y
2-4 - psy - są  - ...-e
5-21 - psów - jest - ...ych
& do.


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