# Chcieć coś i chcieć czegoś



## Lorenc

The verb _chcieć_ (to want) may be followed either by the wanted thing in the accusative or in the genitive. I couldn't find on my references any explanation as to the difference in meaning (if any) between the two forms.
Can anybody help me out here?
Thanks!
L.


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## SkyScout

*chcieć coś - ACCUSATIVE
chcieć czegoś - GENITIVE*
*Which case to use - ACCUSATIVE or GENITIVE?*
Good question; not an easy answer - especially for the words *coś and czegoś*

Generally, verbs of need, want, desire and demand will use the genitive case for their objective nouns:
*to need - potrzebować 
to want - chcieć
to wish - życzyć
to desire - pragnąć
to demand - wymagać
to demand - żądać*

However, what Polish and other Slavic languages have done (I think) is to divide the noun in question into two kinds of nouns:
*1. UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS
2. COUNTABLE NOUNS*

*UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS* are items like "sugar", "milk" - *GENITIVE*
*COUNTABLE NOUNS* are items that you can absolutely define (or grasp in your hands!) individually - like a "tree", a "book" or an "automobile" - *ACCUSATIVE*

But, the GENITIVE CASE is also used for COUNTABLE NOUNS *if they are a part of a set of COUNTABLE OBJECTS* - like *"some apples"*
In fact, if in English one uses the word _"some"_ the noun in Polish will usually be in the GENITIVE - *"some apples"*,
but if the word _"the"_ is used - *"the apple(s)"* - then the ACCUSTIVE would be used.

*EXAMPLES:*
a. Kupiłem cukier - ACCUSATIVE. b. Kupiłem cukru - GENITIVE
a. I bought (the) sugar - ACCUSATIVE b. I bought some sugar - GENITIVE

a. Zjadłem zup*ę* - ACCUSATIVE b. Zjadłem zupy - GENITIVE
a. I've eaten the soup - ACCUSATIVE b. I've eaten some soup - GENITIVE

a. Kupiłem jabłka - ACCUSATIVE b. Kupiłem jabłek  - GENITIVE
a. I bought (the) apples - ACCUSATIVE b. I bought some apples  - GENITIVE

a. Przyniosłem jajka - ACCUSATIVE b. Przyniosłem jajek  - GENITIVE
a. I brought (the) eggs  - ACCUSATIVE b. I brought some eggs  - GENITIVE 

For the words *coś and czegoś*, this is not as clear, because both words mean _"something"_ - that is, they both have the English word "some".
Although they could also mean *"what"* in certain instances.

Depending upon the sentence and its connotation, either word could be used.
Perhaps another Polish speaker here can offer further comment.
I would also explore how *Russian* handles this - but that is another topic in a different thread.
Thank you.  

*Thank you for the edit, Thomas1!*


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## Thomas1

Well done, SkyScout. 

I'd add a little correction:





> a. Zjadłem zupę - ACCUSATIVE b. Zjadłem zupy - GENITIVE


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## Rusak963

Thomas1 said:


> Well done, SkyScout.
> 
> I'd add a little correction:



I'd go on and say you don't normally say: _zjadłem zupy_. You need some numeral with that. It sounds odd without one. This applies to all of the examples, in my opinion at least.


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## arturolczykowski

I second that.


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## majlo

"Zjadłem zupy" i "zjadłem zupę" differ in meaning. The first one means that one ate a little soup, and the second one means that one ate the whole plate. 

I also second that "zjadłem zupy" alone sounds odd. I can't think of a context in which I would use this wording without "trochę" (a little) in between.

EDIT:

It just dawned on me that "zjadłem zupy" can also be read as plural, meaning "I ate a few plates of soup". However, we would also need something in between, like "kilka talerzy".


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## arturolczykowski

> It just dawned on me that "zjadłem zupy" can also be read as plural, meaning "I ate a few plates of soup".



It's not plural of 'zupa'. 'A few plates of' or 'a little' is amount of 'zupa' someone ate......in both cases it will be '....zupy'


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## Rusak963

arturolczykowski said:


> It's not plural of 'zupa'. 'A few plates of' or 'a little' is amount of 'zupa' someone ate......in both cases it will be '....zupy'



What if you ate different kinds of soup? Wouldn't that apply?


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## Lorenc

Thank you SkyScout!
This is something more general than I expected then, it isn't a particularity of chcieć.

I found an explanation in Swan's "A grammar of contemporary Polish", pag. 333 "Partitive genitive":
"The genitive is often used with substances instead of the accusative to indicate ``a little'' of the substance, as though *trochę *were present before the noun."

The examples you quoted are all immediatly clear to me when we insert "trochę" or "kilka", so I think they fall in this "partitive genitive" category (brr... this name arises long-buried memories of latin classes...).

However, there seem to be some more idiomatic uses, in particular this "co checesz" vs "czego chcesz" thing. I found the following examples in the wielki słownik PWN-Oxford:

_co/cóż chcesz?_ pot. what do you expect?; 
_czego tu chcesz?_ pot. what are you doing here?, what do you want (here)?; 
_“czego tu chcesz? zabieraj się stąd!”_ ‘what are you doing here? clear off!’

And these in the Nowy Słownik Fundacji Kościuszkowskiej:
_masz, czego chciałeś_ you got what you wanted, you got what you asked for; 
_sam tego chciał _he asked for it; 
_sam nie wie, czego chce_ even he himself doesn't know what he wants;

It seems that the genitive is the preferred case in this idiomatic examples... comments?
Would the accusative be possible? E.g. _sam nie wie, co chce_ 

Thank you! 
L.


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## SkyScout

arturolczykowski said:


> It's not plural of 'zupa'. 'A few plates of' or 'a little' is amount of 'zupa' someone ate......in both cases it will be '....zupy'



"soup" and "sugar" are both "uncountable nouns" - neither can be grasped individually in one's hands - like an apple or an egg.
And so it is no surprise that they do not follow the "text book" rules.

Polish has some unique "exceptions" for using the genitive that do not necessarily make "sense"
(for example: verbs prefixed with "do-" will have their object in the Genitive:
"Dodal matce serca - he cheered up his mother"
"Dokończyła ciężkiego zadania - she finished the hard task" )

Who knows why this evolved over the millenia.
It would be interesting to compare these with the other Slavic NatLangs'.


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## Thomas1

Rusak963 said:


> I'd go on and say you don't normally say: _zjadłem zupy_. You need some numeral with that. It sounds odd without one. This applies to all of the examples, in my opinion at least.


It works to me, technically, at least. I don't know if I use it, but it is acceptable to me. _Cf._ 'najadł się zupy'. 



Lorenc said:


> [...]
> However, there seem to be some more idiomatic uses, in particular this "co checesz" vs "czego chcesz" thing. I found the following examples in the wielki słownik PWN-Oxford:
> 
> _co/cóż chcesz?_ pot. what do you expect?;
> _czego tu chcesz?_ pot. what are you doing here?, what do you want (here)?;
> _“czego tu chcesz? zabieraj się stąd!”_ ‘what are you doing here? clear off!’
> 
> And these in the Nowy Słownik Fundacji Kościuszkowskiej:
> _masz, czego chciałeś_ you got what you wanted, you got what you asked for;
> _sam tego chciał _he asked for it;
> _sam nie wie, czego chce_ even he himself doesn't know what he wants;
> 
> It seems that the genitive is the preferred case in this idiomatic examples... comments?
> Would the accusative be possible? E.g. _sam nie wie, co chce_
> This one is also used and heard.
> 
> Thank you!
> L.


You have to be careful with 'czego'. For example 'czego chcesz?' is most often used as a rude question to someone you don't want to make a favour to. With this effect, 'czego' is by far more often.



			
				Nowy słownik poprawnej polszczyzny PWN © Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN  SA said:
			
		

> ktoś chce coś(z rzeczownikiem konkretnym oznaczającym całość) (od kogoś): Chcę tę, a nie tamtą książkę. Chce od niej płytę.   ktoś chce czegoś (nie: coś)(z rzeczownikiem konkretnym oznaczającym część czegoś lub z rzeczownikiem abstrakcyjnym) (od kogoś): Chciał chleba. Bezrobotni chcą pracy (nie: pracę). Chcesz ode mnie zapłaty? Ale: Czego a. co chcesz ode mnie?   ktoś chce czegoś   dla kogoś, dla czegoś: Matka chce szczęścia dla córki. Chciał powodzenia dla swojego przedsięwzięcia.   ktoś chce + bezokolicznik: Chciał pić. Chciała być dobrą nauczycielką.





SkyScout said:


> "soup" and "sugar" are both "uncountable nouns" - neither can be grasped individually in one's hands - like an apple or an egg.
> And so it is no surprise that they do not follow the "text book" rules.


Soup can also be countable in Polish.
Kupiłem dwie zupy i dwa kompoty.
Zjadłem dwie zupy [pomidorowe] w barze na dole.



> Polish has some unique "exceptions" for using the genitive that do not necessarily make "sense"
> (for example: verbs prefixed with "do-" will have their object in the Genitive:
> "Dodał matce serca - he cheered up his mother"
> "Dokończyła ciężkiego zadania - she finished the hard task" )


Dokończyła trudne/ciężkie zadanie. is what we would normally say. Dokończyć czegoś is rare modern spoken Polish.


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## SkyScout

Thomas1 said:


> Soup can also be countable in Polish.
> Kupiłem dwie zupy i dwa kompoty.
> Zjadłem dwie zupy [pomidorowe] w barze na dole.
> 
> Dokończyła trudne/ciężkie zadanie. is what we would normally say. Dokończyć czegoś is rare modern spoken Polish.



He he 
And again this is where the connotation is important.
In your "soup" examples above, are you not really talking about 2 bowls (countable) of soup or, maybe, 2 cans (countable) of soup - not the "soup" (uncountable) itself.

As far as *{trudne/ciężkie}* vs *{ciężkiego}* *zadanie*/*zadania*, I agree that modern spoken Polish does not conform to "book" Polish.
Languages will always simplify themselves over time.


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## Thomas1

SkyScout said:


> He he
> And again this is where the connotation is important.
> In your "soup" examples above, are you not really talking about 2 bowls (countable) of soup or, maybe, 2 cans (countable) of soup - not the "soup" (uncountable) itself.


Errr... I am talking about two bowls of soup.
Anyway, you can say something like:
W tej restauracji mają duży wybór zup. 
where 'zup' is in plural and it's not a metonymy for 'a bowl/can/etc. of soup' (the same phenomenon exists in English, by the way).
Come to think of it, I wouldn't be surprised if producers of sugar had made 'cukier' countable. There are actually different types of sugar: beet and cane. That would be a cant though.



> As far as *{trudne/ciężkie}* vs *{ciężkiego}* *zadanie*/*zadania*, I agree that modern spoken Polish does not conform to "book" Polish.
> Languages will always simplify themselves over time.


In fact, this is also quite often reflected in press. I can't really tell about literature, but if you take an article from a Polish newspaper you will see this tendency too. There are certain phrases that are almost unanimously used with the genitive like 'dokończyć dzieła', but very often you will come across 'dokończyć + accusative'.
Just one more thing that's been bugging me a little. I think that 'dokończyć ciężkie zadanie' doesn't sound too good in Polish; although it may be used, I feel that 'dokończyć trudne zadanie' is a better construction.


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## SkyScout

Thomas1 said:


> Just one more thing that's been bugging me a little. I think that 'dokończyć ciężkie zadanie' doesn't sound too good in Polish; although it may be used, I feel that 'dokończyć trudne zadanie' is a better construction.


 I wonder if any remnant of the remaining dialects may affect this?
My great-grandparents came from different parts of Poland - and I remember their saying things differently - one set from the other sets.  As a young child I had an "ear" for these things, and I would question them on "Why do you speak differently from the other".
_Any thoughts, ideas, comments?_


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## pacadansc

SkyScout said:


> *chcieć coś - ACCUSATIVE
> chcieć czegoś - GENITIVE
> Which case to use - ACCUSATIVE or GENITIVE?*
> Good question; not an easy answer - especially for the words *coś and czegoś*
> /QUOTE]
> 
> What about these two examples :
> 
> Czy pani chciałaby *czegoś *się napić ?
> Chciałabym *coś* zjeść.
> 
> Can someone help me to understand why one sentence uses czegoś and the other coś ?
> 
> Many thanks !


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## Lorenc

pacadansc said:


> What about these two examples :
> 
> Czy pani chciałaby *czegoś *się napić ?
> Chciałabym *coś* zjeść.
> 
> Can someone help me to understand why one sentence uses czegoś and the other coś ?
> 
> Many thanks !



Be careful: in your two sentences czegoś/coś are the objects of the following verbs, not of 'chcieć'. So this is a different situation from the one discussed in the thread so far.
_napić się czegoś _- to have a drink (of something); to have some [tea, coffee, beer]; napić się, like all reflexive verbs, cannot take the accusative and in this case requires the genitive case (napić się kawy, piwa, herbaty).
_zjeść_ - to eat ; zjeść is a transitive verb, i.e. it requires the accusative case (zjeść kanapkę, kolację, kawałek chleba).

I hope that helps


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## pacadansc

Lorenc said:


> I hope that helps



Yes, it's very clear now. Thanks very much !


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