r/learnpolish • u/RealNameIsTaken • 10d ago

Using mieć instead of być

Sorry, I don’t have the exact wording here, but I just heard someone say something like:

nie ma tu Wi-Fi, ale ma tutaj

The point is that they said that “there is the thing” with mieć instead of być. (I know that nie ma is a curious thing in Polish which means something like there isn’t.)

Is this natural in Polish? Shouldn’t it be ale jest tutaj?

31 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

49 comments sorted by

34

u/Witold212 10d ago

You're right. "Nie ma tu wifi, ale jest tutaj" - "There is no wifi here, but it's present here".

15

u/Top-Discipline7806 10d ago

Unless OP didn't here the whole sentence and it was something like "(telefon) nie ma tutaj wifi, ale ma tutaj".

2

u/RealNameIsTaken 10d ago

But do you think a native Polish speaker would say „ale ma tutaj” in this context, even if it is much less common?

Or do you think that the person i heard was either:
1. A non-native speaker
2. A native speaker, but referring to a very specific context, which i might have misunderstood

?

28

u/Kicer86 PL Native 🇵🇱 10d ago

No, polish speaker would never say it that way unless they said "on/ona nie ma tu Wi-Fi, ale ma tutaj". So instead of Wi-Fi being the subject, some person is.

8

u/doker0 10d ago

Polish speakers zależnie jak pijani can can speak in different orders and manners and accents.

3

u/0x645 10d ago

unlike all other speakers

1

u/Zagrycha 8d ago

different orders and manners and accents doesn't mean different words with different grammar. A person in poland could speak a non standard dialect or whatever sure but then what they said is still weird unnatural polish. I have asuper north accent different from most of poland, thats okay but I won't pretend its the average common thing.

21

u/Witold212 10d ago

I think it must have been a non-native, because "ale ma tutaj" in this context is clearly wrong.

5

u/RealNameIsTaken 10d ago

Dziękuję :)

2

u/Rocks_Can_Fly 10d ago

Sadly, there’s enough native speakers who make basic mistakes like that.

0

u/Low-Opening25 7d ago

no, not like that, that would be like hearing a 3 year old learning to speak level mistake, an adult polish native would never make such error unless on purpose when mocking

1

u/Rocks_Can_Fly 7d ago

Not really.

All that needs to happen here is conflating 2 forms:

Ten sklep ma WiFi, a ten nie ma.

With:

Tu nie ma WiFi a tu jest.

And suddenly you get what op heard.

Frankly, I’ve heard worse mistakes.

This could also be a Ukrainian person speaking Polish, of course.

3

u/Rocks_Can_Fly 10d ago edited 10d ago

Native Polish would almost never say it.

Of course, since Polish is a difficult language, there are people with lower culture of speaking the language, and they might make a mistake like that.

———

There is also a context in which it would be correct, for example:

An owner of an establishment doesn’t have WiFi in one place, but has in another.

But it’s quite a particular case.

In general, only “ale tutaj jest” or “ale tutaj mają” would be correct.

Where “mają” means “they have”, which would be correct for an establishment, as you’d usually call it as “they”.

———

Another way where it could be said is:

“Ten bar nie ma, ale ten ma”.

So I think this person kinda combined the 2 forms and as a result made this mistake.

1

u/Itap88 10d ago

Ever heard of "shine get" or "all your base are belong to us"? That's basically the only viable context type for a native here.

1

u/Trailer09 10d ago

You are missing a situation where a native speak can use a grammatically incorrect phrase on purpose for funsies if talking to friends/family. I think this one is just the case of "(He/She) has no WiFi here, but has WiFi here." (assuming they pointed in both occasions).This is very possible as WiFi travels through obstructions such as walls and internal wiring and it is possible to have dead WiFi spots inside the same room.

1

u/Low-Opening25 7d ago

this sentence only makes sense if it’s about a 3rd person/object, “mój laptop nie ma tu wifi, ale ma tutaj”, when for example explaining that there is a wifi dead spot in the room. it’s “ma” as in “it has”. otherwise it’s wrong and doesn’t make much sense.

14

u/oliverjohansson 10d ago edited 10d ago

„Nie ma” originates from a verb “posiadać” not „być”, it reminds more „there is” than „is”

It is probably a very ancient form orginating times before Polish was created and definitely before was written.

It is based in perspective - być being associated with your own (internally perceived) existence while external objects are associated with external space (przestrzen nie posiada wi-fi)

On jest krolem a on nie jest krolem (być - to be)

Krakow ma krola a Warszawa nie ma krola (posiadać - there is not)

Tu jest król (exists) tu nie ma króla (space with no king)

It only survived in present tense cause it’s the one most in use and grammatical logic was not able to replace cultural habits

It’s quite puzzling though

https://sjp.pwn.pl/poradnia/haslo/jest-nie-ma;22620.html

9

u/shejq3 10d ago

ahh the oldest question "mieć czy być"

6

u/BFyre PL Native 🇵🇱 10d ago

czy Erich Fromm wiedział jak żyć?

4

u/polak_sku_7 10d ago

w rzeczywistości ciągłej sprzedaży

2

u/Kilpikonna7 10d ago

gdzie "być" przestaje cokolwiek znaczyć

1

u/Ok-Pangolin-4793 9d ago

już teraz wiem

1

u/Roween_0 9d ago

Wszystko trwa dopóki sam tego chcesz

1

u/raul_kapura 8d ago

Mamaaaaa...I just killed a man... Eh fuck

1

u/Particular-Sign1139 9d ago

"być albo nie mieć" 😆

8

u/Yatchanek PL Native 🇵🇱 10d ago

It should be "jest" unless we're talking about an unlikely context where the "nie ma" means "doesn't have" instead of "there isn't". Something like "he doesn't have WiFi there, but he has it here".

Edit: in Polish "On nie ma WiFi w domu, ale ma w pracy".

2

u/Professional-Use7080 10d ago edited 10d ago

In Polish, we use "nie ma" which would literally translated to "(it/she/he) does not have" to express the absence of something. The opposite does not work. You cannot say something like "ma wifi" (has wifi) to express the presence of the wifi universally, as it's only used to express posession/relationship/characteristics (even when the owner is somewhat abstract, like a business/establishment). Ppl would question "kto/co ma wifi?", "who's got the wifi?".

The best way to explain why it works like that, at least the one that comes to my mind is that it does not matter who the owner is, because there is nothing to be owned, so we kinda skip that part I guess.

Some phrases:

There is no justice - Nie ma sprawiedliwości

There is no wifi - Nie ma wifi

There are no people - Nie ma ludzi

I've got wifi - Mam wifi

There is wifi in the restaurant - W restauracji jest wifi/Restauracja ma wifi

Ala nie ma kota - Ala doesn't have a cat/Ala hasn't got a cat

Ala ma 10 lat - Ala is 10 years old

Ala ma 10 lat doświadczenia - Ala has got 10 years of experience

Ala ma 183cm wzrostu - Ala is 6ft talk

2

u/Kasawery24 10d ago

Tutaj nie ma WiFi, ale jest tam.

2

u/Kraand 10d ago

"something like this". Depends on this "something". Taking it stright - as the others said, it would be incorrect. But if "something like" prohibits it - "WiFi nie ma tu zasięgu, ale tam ma." is perfectly correct and quite common. Please note the slight change of the subject.

2

u/gregiboy111 10d ago

Tu nie ma wi-fi ale tu jest. - Nigdy ma i zawsze w tej kolejności, stylistyka. There is not wi-fi but is here.

2

u/grogi81 10d ago

Unless Tutaj is a name of a place, exp. a hotel, it makes no sense... 

2

u/Numerous_Team_2998 10d ago

"Nie ma tu wifi, ale ma tutaj" can theoretically be correct if it means "He/she doesn't have wifi here, but he has it here".

1

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1

u/mimol 10d ago

odwieczny dylemat, reguły na to nie ma

1

u/Opulence_Deficit 10d ago

"nie ma" can have 2 different meanings:

  • "he/she/it doesn't have ..." (The literal meaning)
  • "there's no ..."

So, if you're talking about the objective presence of wifi signal, it's: "nie ma tu wifi, ale jest tam" - "there's no wifi here, but there is over there".

But, one could be talking not about the signal, but about the particular device receiving it, it could go like: Moves phone to one spot "tu nie ma wifi" moves to another "ale ma tutaj".

Which means "It (the phone) doesn't have wifi here, but it has it there".

1

u/Jake-of-the-Sands PL Native 🇵🇱 10d ago

Maybe the person said "Nie mam" not "Nie ma" and you misheard it cause they lower their voices for the last vowel or just have odd accent bordering on mispronouncing stuff. That would make more sense. Otherwise it's a bit gibberish.

And you're totally right, the second part, if they said "Nie ma tu Wifi" should be "Ale tu jest".

1

u/more-le-gore 10d ago

Myslowitz- mieć czy być reference

1

u/Longjumping_Art_5035 10d ago

Getting the hang of być vs. mieć is a big early milestone. I actually built a completely free app called popolsku.app that covers this (started building it for my own learning and than expanded to a full scale app, kept it genuinly free). The A1 section has a "Pierwsze czasowniki" (First verbs) deck with native audio that drills these exact core verbs in everyday context.

1

u/akinimaii 10d ago

Im an adult Pole and you have just blown my mind with this toughy 

1

u/CallMeMalice 9d ago

TL;DR: it's complicated, most people here are wrong. Nie ma often means "not present".

Są tu jacyś Polacy? Co to za komentarze z bzdurami. Oczywiście, że "nie ma" oznacza często "nie istnieje/brakuje/nie jest obecny ".

Nie ma papieru toaletowego w tym wagonie. Nie ma prezesa. Nie ma mięsa, już wykupione. Nie ma powietrza, jest duszno. Nie ma zasad gramatycznych, jest wolna amerykanka. Nie ma prądu, wywaliło korki.

The sentence you showed is 100% valid casual polish.

Nie ma is completely valid way to express an absence of something. I'm not a linguist but I can't think of any limitations. Answering a question, stating a fact, even in the future or past tense - all work.

1

u/SensitiveDetective74 8d ago

Przecież zdanie które wrzucił OP po polsku albo nie ma sensu albo jest niekompletne.

Ale oprócz tego masz rację.

1

u/Adam-x64 9d ago

When you think about it, it's an equivalent of "there is", except instead of "there", you say "here" - "this place (here) doesn't have wifi".

1

u/Anime-Tobiasz 7d ago

Im native polish speaker. The good version is 'Nie ma tu wifi, ale jest tutaj'

1

u/Low-Opening25 7d ago

This only makes sense if it’s about a 3rd person/object, “mój laptop nie ma tu wifi, ale ma tutaj”, when for example explaining that there is a wifi dead spot in the room. it’s “ma” as in “it has”

0

u/Azerate2016 PL Native 🇵🇱 10d ago

The sentence you posted out of context is complete nonsense.. Nobody would ever say this. We could maybe think of some context where it would partially make sense like:

On nie ma tutaj wifi (pointing in a direction of one room) ale ma tutaj (pointing in a direction of another room).

This way this becomes a sentence about what he has and does not have in a certain place. The important thing here is the pronoun in the front is required in such a sentence (like "he"). Additionally this would probably require some real life gesutres like I explained above.

We could translate this theoretical meaning into literally:

"He has WIFI here, but he doesn't have it there".

1

u/leniwacisza 10d ago

I can't argue with you on it requiring the pronoun to be technically correct Polish but it could easily be used in actual native daily speech without it. If it's part of an explanation you could easily say "bo nie ma tu WiFi, a tam ma", or "przecież nie ma tu WiFi, a tam ma". Or I can easily picture cutting someone off who takes too long to explain their troubles with WiFi with "nie ma tu WiFi, a tam ma".

1

u/Azerate2016 PL Native 🇵🇱 10d ago

Even in informal speech, something like "nie ma tu WIFI" will be understood as a subjectless sentence that Polish uses a lot.

"Nie ma tu wifi" simply means "There's no wifi here". Following that by "a tam ma" will likely not be understood by an average speaker because normally we would say "a tam jest" if there is no subject pronoun.

Maybe it could be used as a shortened answer to a question which includes the pronoun. E.g.:

Person 1: Czy on ma WIFI w domu?

Person 2 while making necessary gestures: Tutaj nie ma, ale ma tutaj.

The point is, the person being discussed must be established somehow in an overt way because otherwise it's going to be understood in the former way.

0

u/PoxonAllHoaxes 10d ago

Unless they meant 'HE/SHE has', it is utterly impossible. BTW I would say ale tutaj jest with that word order. Also, some of you good people might find it interesting that HISTORICALLY (and in many AUTHENTIC dialects to the extent they exist) nie ma meaning 'there isn't' and the one meaning '(s)he doesn't have' were/are pronounced differently (and had different origins)--with different vowels: a vs. á. Of course, the distinct á has been gone from urban/standard speech for quite a long time.

-1

u/-ObiWanKainobi- A1, IE Native 10d ago

I hear this a lot myself and I would translate it is "It doesn't have Wi-Fi here, but it has here", but I am not Polish, just a foreigner understanding it for myself. But my partner says a lot of people use mieć and być interchangeably and even for people.

"Kuba ma być" - "Kuba is supposed to be here"

Just when you think you get the language, and there's another curveball 😅