Breakdown of Postanowiliśmy adoptować szczeniaka, kiedy nasz ogród był już bezpieczny.
być
to be
kiedy
when
my
we
nasz
our
ogród
the garden
bezpieczny
safe
postanowić
to decide
adoptować
to adopt
szczeniak
the puppy
już
already
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Questions & Answers about Postanowiliśmy adoptować szczeniaka, kiedy nasz ogród był już bezpieczny.
Why is szczeniaka used instead of szczeniak?
Polish marks direct objects with the accusative case. Because szczeniak is an animate masculine noun, its accusative form matches the genitive, so you get szczeniaka rather than szczeniak.
What case and grammatical role does nasz ogród have in the subordinate clause?
nasz ogród is in the nominative case because it’s the subject of the verb był (“was”). In Polish, subjects of finite verbs always appear in the nominative.
Why is the adjective bezpieczny in its short (base) form after był, rather than another ending?
In predicate position with być (“to be”), adjectives take the nominative short form to agree with the subject. Here ogród is masculine singular, so the correct adjective form is bezpieczny.
What is the function of już in był już bezpieczny?
już means “already.” It tells us that by the time of their decision, the garden was already in a safe state, emphasizing that the safety was completed beforehand.
How does kiedy function here, and could you use gdy instead?
kiedy introduces a time clause (“when our garden was already safe”). You can often substitute gdy without changing the meaning:
Postanowiliśmy adoptować szczeniaka, gdy nasz ogród był już bezpieczny.
Why is there a comma before kiedy?
In Polish, subordinate clauses (like time clauses introduced by kiedy) are set off by commas from the main clause. That comma marks the boundary between the two clauses.
Why do we say postanowiliśmy adoptować instead of something like zdecydowaliśmy się adoptować?
Both are correct, but give slightly different nuances.
- postanowiliśmy adoptować uses postanowić (perfective “to decide/resolve”) plus an infinitive, stressing the resolution itself.
- zdecydowaliśmy się adoptować uses the reflexive zdecydować się (“to make up one’s mind”), which can sound a bit more colloquial or emphasize the personal choice.
Polish doesn’t have a past-perfect tense equivalent to English “had been safe.” How does this sentence show that the garden was already safe before the decision?
Polish expresses anteriority with the simple past plus adverbs like już. Here, był już conveys “it was already” in the past, so no separate pluperfect form is needed.
Can you move the kiedy-clause to the beginning of the sentence?
Yes. You can say:
Kiedy nasz ogród był już bezpieczny, postanowiliśmy adoptować szczeniaka.
The comma still separates the subordinate time clause from the main clause, but word order in Polish is quite flexible.