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Powiedziałem to wczoraj w biurze.

Powiedziałem to wczoraj w biurze.
I said that yesterday in the office.
FromLesson 14inHardcore Polish
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Breakdown of Powiedziałem to wczoraj w biurze.

ja
I
w
in
biuro
the office
wczoraj
yesterday
powiedzieć
to say
to
that

Questions & Answers about Powiedziałem to wczoraj w biurze.

What’s the difference between powiedziałem and mówiłem?

powiedziałem is the past tense of the perfective verb powiedzieć (“to say/utter once”), so it describes a completed action (“I said it”).
mówiłem is the past tense of the imperfective verb mówić (“to be speaking/talking over a period of time”), used for ongoing or repeated actions (“I was saying” or “I used to say”).

Why does powiedziałem end in -em?

The ending -em marks first-person singular (I) in the masculine past tense of perfective verbs.
If the speaker were female, it would be powiedziałam (ending -am).

How would a female speaker say this sentence?

A woman would change the verb ending to feminine:
Powiedziałam to wczoraj w biurze.

What does to mean here, and why is it used?
to is the neuter singular direct-object pronoun “it.” It stands for whatever “thing” was said. In Polish, the accusative neuter form of to is the same as the nominative, so it stays to.
What case is w biurze, and why is it used?
The noun biuro (“office”) appears in the locative case biurze because of the preposition w (“in/at”). In Polish, w + locative means “inside” or “at” a place.
How does biuro change to biurze in the locative?

Declension of biuro (neuter) in singular: • Nominative: biuro
• Genitive: biura
• Dative: biuru
• Accusative: biuro
• Instrumental: biurem
• Locative: biurze
• Vocative: biuro

Why isn’t there a preposition before wczoraj?
wczoraj is an adverb of time (“yesterday”) and does not take a preposition. Polish uses simple adverbs for many time expressions.
Can I change the word order, for example move wczoraj to the front?

Yes. Polish is relatively flexible. You can say:
• Wczoraj powiedziałem to w biurze. (emphasizes time)
• W biurze powiedziałem to wczoraj. (emphasizes place)
• To powiedziałem wczoraj w biurze. (emphasizes the object)
Word-order changes shift the focus or nuance but keep the same basic meaning.

Where is the stress in powiedziałem, and how do I pronounce it?

The primary stress in Polish generally falls on the penultimate (second-to-last) syllable. So powieDZIałem is stressed on -dzia-:
po-VIE-DZI-a-łem (approx. pɔ-vʲɪ-ˈd͡ʑa-wɛm).

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