Breakdown of Oni czekają cierpliwie na pociąg.
oni
they
na
for
pociąg
the train
czekać
to wait
cierpliwie
patiently
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Questions & Answers about Oni czekają cierpliwie na pociąg.
What is the role of oni in this sentence, and can it be omitted?
Oni is the third-person plural pronoun “they.” In Polish you often drop the pronoun because the verb ending -ją already tells you it’s “they.” So Czekają cierpliwie na pociąg is equally correct; oni is included here for emphasis or clarity.
Why is the verb czekają used, and what does its ending mean?
Czekają is the present-tense form of the imperfective verb czekać (“to wait”). The ending -ją marks third person plural (“they wait”). Imperfective means it describes an ongoing or habitual action.
What does cierpliwie express, and how is this adverb formed?
Cierpliwie means “patiently” and tells us how they are waiting (manner). It’s formed from the adjective cierpliwy by replacing -wy with -wie, a common pattern for creating adverbs from certain adjectives.
Why is the preposition na used here, and what case does pociąg take?
The verb czekać requires na + the accusative case to indicate what you are waiting for. Pociąg is an inanimate masculine noun whose accusative form is identical to its nominative, so it remains pociąg.
Could the word order be changed in this sentence without altering the meaning?
Yes. Polish has flexible word order for emphasis. For example:
- Cierpliwie oni czekają na pociąg (focus on how they wait)
- Na pociąg czekają oni (focus on what they wait for)
But the neutral S-Adv-PrepObj order is Oni czekają cierpliwie na pociąg.
Where is the stress in czekają and cierpliwie?
Polish stress almost always falls on the penultimate (second-to-last) syllable.
- czekAją: stress on ka
- cierPLIwіe: stress on pli
What’s the difference between the imperfective czekać and its perfective counterpart poczekać?
- Czekać (imperfective) emphasizes the ongoing action: “They are waiting.”
- Poczekać (perfective) emphasizes completion: “They will wait (for a while or until something happens).”
Use the imperfective for describing an action in progress; use the perfective to signal a one-time, completed action.
Could the case ending of pociąg ever look different after na, and why isn’t it here?
If pociąg were animate or feminine, the accusative would differ. But pociąg is inanimate masculine, so nominative = accusative (pociąg). With animate masculine, you’d often see a different form (e.g., Widzę psa – “I see a dog,” but na psa in accusative still looks like psa).