In Polish, you get used to changing the ending of adjectives to suit the gender of their associated noun. Numbers are similar, but fortunately only the first two, which makes life simpler! In the table below you can see that for one and two, the word changes for a Masculine, Neuter & Feminine noun. Whereas for three and greater, the word for the number is the same for all.
| Masculine | Neuter | Feminine |
| jeden kot | jedno jabłko | jedna kobieta |
| dwa koty | dwa jabłka | dwie kobiety |
| trzy koty | trzy jabłka | trzy kobiety |
| cztery koty | cztery jabłka | cztery kobiety |
| pięć kotów | pięć jabłek | pięć kobiet |
| sześć kotów | sześć jabłek | sześć kobiet |
| siedem kotów | siedem jabłek | siedem kobiet |
| osiem kotów | osiem jabłek | osiem kobiet |
| dziewięć kotów | dziewięć jabłek | dziewięć kobiet |
| dziesięć kotów | dziesięć jabłek | dziesięć kobiet |
The other thing you might have noticed if you were paying attention, was that from five, the nouns change too. This is one of the rules for the Genitive (Dopełniacz) case coming in to play, where a quantity of five or more changes the case to Genitive. Well, mostly. Except where the number ends with the word dwa, trzy or cztery (ie, 22, 23, 24, 32, 33, 34, 42…). But that wasn’t the focus of this post and I’ll cover the rules for Genitive another day.
Polish Lingo 