Przyczyny błędów w użyciu rodzajników niemieckich przez Polaków uczących się języka niemieckiego

The aim of this article is to analyse the causes of errors in the usage of articles made by Polish learners of the German language. The causes of such errors made by persons form whom German is not a native language can be divided into linguistic and glottodidactic causes.

A comparison of referential functions of German articles and the equivalent lexical structures in Polish is limited to a comparison on the cognitive level. The question remains whether Polish speakers/ hearers possess in their cognitive structure such categories as 'definite designate of the noun' or 'indefinite designate of the noun', and if they do, how those structures compare to cognitive structures of speakers/hearers of the German language.

The author concludes that within the field of glottodidactics the discussion of the causes of errors in the usage of articles by Polish learners of German has to be limited to the question of con­ceptual differences between the speakers/hearers of German and Polish languages, and consequently to a description of the 'definite/indefinite' category in both languages. The process of developing the language abilities connected with the usage of articles in German must be, therefore, regarded as a process of developing a new 'definite/indefinite' category in the conceptual structure of the Polish learner.