Ona prosi, żebyśmy wybaczyli mu jego kłamstwa.

She asks that we forgive him for his lies.

Breakdown of Ona prosi, żebyśmy wybaczyli mu jego kłamstwa.

• ona: she
• żeby: so that
• jego: his
• mu: him

Questions & Answers about Ona prosi, żebyśmy wybaczyli mu jego kłamstwa.

Why is there a comma after prosi in Ona prosi, żebyśmy wybaczyli mu jego kłamstwa?

In Polish, a comma is normally used before conjunctions that introduce subordinate clauses, such as że, żeby, bo, chociaż, etc.

Here żebyśmy wybaczyli mu jego kłamstwa is a subordinate clause expressing what she is asking for, so Polish spelling rules require a comma:

• Ona prosi, żebyśmy wybaczyli mu jego kłamstwa.
  = She asks that we forgive him his lies.

Without the comma, the sentence would be considered incorrect in standard written Polish.

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What exactly does żebyśmy mean, and why is it one word?

Żebyśmy is actually two elements fused into one word:

• żeby – a conjunction roughly meaning so that / (in order) that / that
• śmy – the clitic form of the 1st person plural pronoun ending, marking “we” in this subordinate clause

So żebyśmy wybaczyli ≈ so that we (would) forgive or that we forgive.

Polish often attaches these little person-marking particles (-śmy, -ście) to conjunctions or auxiliary verbs:

• żebyśmy poszli – so that we would go
• gdybyśmy mieli czas – if we had time
• byśmy poszli – we would go

English expresses the subject with a separate word (“we”), but Polish can “bake it into” the verb or the conjunction like this.

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