Silesian/Lesson 3

Lesson 3 - What is that?
This lesson's goals are to show the third person of verbs' conjugation (in singular and plural) as well as of personal pronouns. Read your first text in Silesian, please.

Note: Read the text and then the vocabulary. There's also the translation, which is available when you click the title of the dialogue, but try not to use it.  TEXT 3.1 To je dům. Důma sům synek a dźouška. Synek mo na mjano Adam a dźouška mo na mjano Ana. Adam a Ana sům důma. Uůńi sům důma. A kaj je tyn dům? Uůn je sam. A tam, co to je? To je šula. Šula tyž je sam? Ńy, šula ńy je sam. Uůna je tam. Ta šula je fest daleko. Co ješče je daleko? Daleko je ješče mjasto, nale uůno ńy je fest daleko. To mjasto je za winklym.

Sentence structure
A typical sentence structure is SVO, but any modifications are also possible and do not change the meaning, eg. Adam je důma. Adam is at home. Adam důma je. Adam at home is. Důma je Adam. At home is Adam. Důma Adam je. At home Adam is. Je Adam důma. Is Adam at home. Je důma Adam. Is at home Adam.

At this level learn to construct only SVO sentences. Unlike Polish (which is by the way very similar to Silesian) questions are formed only by adding the question mark at the end (and no inversion!), eg. Adam je důma? (Is Adam at home?). When we ask with an interrogative pronoun (we already know 3 of them - co, jak and kaj) it stands at the beginning, eg. Co to je? (What's that?).

Gender of nouns
Nouns in Silesian are divided into three groups: masculine, feminine and neuter. The generalized rule is that:


 * Masculine nouns are ended with a consonant, eg. dům (a house).
 * Feminine nouns are ended with -a, eg. dźouška ( a girl).
 * Neuter nouns are ended with -o or -e, eg. mjasto (a city).

Unlike in English, speaking e.g. about a school (šula) we use a pronoun uůna (she).

Pay attention that in Silesian there are no articles like a, an, the. So "the school" and "a school" is just šula.

The third person - personal pronouns and conjugation of verb "to be"
Let's sum up the information from the text in this small chart.

The pronoun uůńi is used also for mixed-sex group.

Tyn, ta, to
In this lesson you have learned three demonstrative pronouns: tyn, ta and to. The first one is used only before the masculine nouns and precise the subject. The same thing is with ta, but this pronouns works before the feminine noun. To can function similarly before the neuter noun or... be a subject. Saying To je sam (This is here) we may speak about something masculine, feminine, neutral or even about a group of things.

Exercises
1. Which of these nouns is macsculine, which is feminine and which is neuter?

2. Complete with the demonstrative pronouns. a) ... synek b) ... šula c) ... půńi d) ... Ślůnsk e) ... mjasto f) ... je daleko. g) ... godka h) ... państwo 3. Translate into Silesian.

 Mr. Nowak is at home and Mrs. Nowak isn't. This house is very far away. It is in a city. And where is this city? It's there. Is there a school? Yes, but the school is also here, at the corner. Answers to the exercises

Additional vocabulary
- To the lesson 2  To the lesson 4