Questions & Answers about Wczorajszy obiad był dobry.
Why is it wczorajszy obiad and not wczoraj obiad?
Wczorajszy is an adjective meaning yesterday’s, built from wczoraj (yesterday).
- wczorajszy obiad = yesterday’s dinner / the dinner from yesterday
- wczoraj obiad by itself is ungrammatical; you’d need a verb:
- Wczoraj obiad był dobry. = Yesterday, the dinner was good.
So:
- Wczorajszy obiad był dobry. focuses on the meal itself as “yesterday’s dinner”.
- Wczoraj obiad był dobry. focuses more on the time (yesterday) when the dinner was good.
Both are correct, but they’re structured differently: adjective + noun vs. adverb of time + noun.
What is the grammatical gender of obiad, and how does it affect the rest of the sentence?
Obiad is masculine singular (inanimate). Because of that:
- The adjective before it must be masculine singular: wczorajszy (not wczorajsza, wczorajsze)
- The adjective after był must also be masculine singular: dobry (not dobra, dobre)
- The past tense of być must be masculine singular: był (not była, było)
So you get:
- Wczorajszy (masc.) obiad (masc.) (masc.) (masc.)