Oni wyrzucają śmieci dopiero wieczorem.

They throw away the trash only in the evening.

Breakdown of Oni wyrzucają śmieci dopiero wieczorem.

• oni: they
• wieczorem: in the evening
• dopiero: only
• wyrzucać: to throw away
• śmieci: the trash

Questions & Answers about Oni wyrzucają śmieci dopiero wieczorem.

Why do we need oni here? Can we just say Wyrzucają śmieci dopiero wieczorem?

You can absolutely drop oni and say:

• Wyrzucają śmieci dopiero wieczorem.

In Polish, subject pronouns (like ja, ty, on, ona, oni) are often omitted, because the verb ending (-ają) already shows the person and number (here: they).

You typically keep oni when you want to:

• emphasize the subject (they as opposed to someone else):
  To nie my, to oni wyrzucają śmieci dopiero wieczorem. – Not us, they take the trash out only in the evening.
• make the subject very clear (e.g. when starting a story or in learner materials).

So both are correct; the version without oni is just more neutral and more typical in everyday speech.

What is the difference between oni and one?

Both mean they, but they are used with different kinds of groups:

• oni – groups of people that include at least one adult male

  • men only: Oni są zmęczeni. – They (men) are tired.
  • mixed group (men + women): Oni mieszkają blisko.

• one –

  • groups of all women / girls: One są zmęczone. – They (women) are tired.
  • groups of things or animals: One są ciężkie. – They (e.g. boxes) are heavy.

In your sentence, we assume people, and at least one male, so Oni wyrzucają śmieci… is used. If you wanted to talk explicitly about a group of women, you’d say:

• One wyrzucają śmieci dopiero wieczorem.

What tense and aspect is wyrzucają? It looks like present – can it also mean future?

Wyrzucają is:

• present tense
• imperfective aspect
• 3rd person plural of wyrzucać (to throw out, to be throwing out).

In this sentence it most naturally means a regular / habitual action in the present:

• Oni wyrzucają śmieci dopiero wieczorem.
  → They (usually) take the trash out only in the evening.

Polish separates aspect (imperfective vs perfective):

• imperfective (wyrzucać) – ongoing or repeated actions
  
  • present: wyrzucają – they throw out / they are throwing out
• perfective (wyrzucić) – a single, completed action
  
  • future: wyrzucą – they will throw out (once / as a whole event)

So:

• Oni wyrzucają śmieci dopiero wieczorem. – generally / regularly.
• Oni wyrzucą śmieci dopiero wieczorem. – on this particular occasion they will only do it in the evening.

What is the infinitive of wyrzucają and what does it literally mean?

The infinitive is wyrzucać.

It is built from:

• rzucać – to throw
• prefix wy- – often means out or outwards

So wyrzucać literally means “to throw out”, and by extension “to throw away / to discard”.

A related perfective verb is wyrzucić:

• wyrzucać śmieci – to be throwing away trash / to throw trash away (habitually)
• wyrzucić śmieci – to throw the trash away (once, to complete the action)

How do you pronounce wyrzucają, especially rz and ą?

Approximate pronunciation (for English speakers): vih-zhoo-TSAI-ong.

Piece by piece:

• wy – like the vi in vivid, but with a very short i, closer to a quick ih.
• rz – pronounced like ż, similar to the s in vision or measure.
• u – like oo in food.
• ca – tsa, like the end of pizza, but stressed: TSA.
• ją – nasal vowel. At the end of the word it sounds roughly like yon or yong.

In IPA: [vɨʐuˈt͡sajɔ̃].

Key points:

• rz = ż sound (voiced zh sound).
• ą is always nasal, never like English a in cat. Here it’s similar to a nasal -ong / -on at the end.

Why is śmieci in that form? Is it plural? Which case is it? And why is there no word for the?

Śmieci is:

• plural
• accusative case
• direct object of the verb wyrzucają

The base noun is śmieć, but in practice trash / garbage is almost always used as plural only:

• śmieci – trash, garbage (grammatically plural: rubbish items).

In Polish, the accusative plural of inanimate masculine nouns often looks the same as the nominative plural, and that’s the case with śmieci. So the form doesn’t change here.

About “the trash” vs “trash”:

• Polish has no articles (a, an, the).
• Context tells you whether you mean some trash, the trash, this trash, etc.

So śmieci can mean:

• trash
• the trash
• some trash

depending on the situation. If you really want to stress the specific trash, you might add a determiner:

• oni wyrzucają te śmieci dopiero wieczorem – they throw out these particular pieces of trash only in the evening.

What exactly does dopiero add? How is it different from tylko or późno?

Dopiero has a strong nuance of “not until (and that feels late / later than expected)”.

In your sentence:

• Oni wyrzucają śmieci dopiero wieczorem.
  → They only take the trash out in the evening, and that’s understood as late / later than one might expect.

Compare:

• tylko wieczorem – only in the evening (neutral “only”)
  
  • simply restricts it to evenings; doesn’t say if that’s late or surprising.
• dopiero wieczorem – not until evening / only in the evening (so late)
  
  • implies some expectation they might / should do it earlier.

And późno means late:

• Oni wyrzucają śmieci późno. – They take out the trash late.
  (but it doesn’t say when exactly; it could be late at night, for example)

So for the idea of “only in the evening, not earlier (and that feels late)”, dopiero wieczorem is the natural choice.

What case is wieczorem, and why does that form mean “in the evening”?

Wieczorem is:

• instrumental case, singular
• from the noun wieczór – evening

Many time expressions in Polish use instrumental to mean “at / in (a certain part of the day or season)”, for example:

• rano – in the morning (irregular adverb form)
• wieczorem – in the evening
• nocą – at night
• latem – in summer
• zimą – in winter

So wieczór → wieczorem follows this pattern: instrumental case used adverbially to say “in the evening”.

Can we move the words around? For example, can I say Dopiero wieczorem oni wyrzucają śmieci or Oni dopiero wieczorem wyrzucają śmieci?

Yes, Polish word order is quite flexible. All of these are grammatical; they just have different emphases:

1. Oni wyrzucają śmieci dopiero wieczorem.
   – neutral-ish: focus at the end on dopiero wieczorem.

2. Oni dopiero wieczorem wyrzucają śmieci.
   – stronger emphasis on dopiero wieczorem (“it’s only in the evening that they do it”), then wyrzucają śmieci is background information.

3. Dopiero wieczorem oni wyrzucają śmieci.
   – strong contrastive focus:
   It’s not earlier in the day – *only in the evening that they take out the trash*
   This could contrast with what others do, or with some expectation.

4. Śmieci oni wyrzucają dopiero wieczorem.
   – marked, stressing śmieci – e.g. contrasting trash with something else they do:
   As for the trash, they only throw it out in the evening.

For a learner, the safest and most neutral is close to the original:

• Oni wyrzucają śmieci dopiero wieczorem.
• or (more natural in everyday speech): Wyrzucają śmieci dopiero wieczorem.

Does dopiero wieczorem already mean “not until the evening”, or do I need nie somewhere to make it negative?

Dopiero wieczorem on its own already carries the idea of “not before evening / not until evening”, but the sentence is grammatically positive.

So:

• Oni wyrzucają śmieci dopiero wieczorem.
  literally: They throw out trash only in the evening,
  but it naturally implies: They don’t do it before evening.

If you want an explicit negative, you can say, for example:

• Oni nie wyrzucają śmieci wcześniej niż wieczorem.
  – They don’t take out the trash earlier than in the evening.
• Oni nie wyrzucają śmieci aż do wieczora.
  – They don’t take out the trash until evening.

In everyday Polish, though, dopiero wieczorem is usually enough to express what English would say with “not until the evening”.