Questions & Answers about Ten stary budynek zawali się lada dzień.
What exactly does lada mean here, and what case does the noun after it take?
The word lada indicates that an event is imminent, translating well to "any... now." It is followed by a noun in the nominative case. Here, lada dzień means "any day now." You will also frequently hear lada chwila (any moment) and lada moment (any minute).
Can I use lada to mean "any" in a sentence like "I will read any book"?
No, you cannot. In modern Polish, lada is almost restricted to these specific time expressions showing something is about to happen soon. To say "any book" in the sense of "it doesn't matter which one," you would use a word like jakakolwiek (for example, przeczytam jakąkolwiek książkę).
Why is the verb zawali się perfective here?
The perfective form zawali się is used because the collapse is viewed as a single, completed future event. If you used the imperfective future form, like będzie się zawalać, it would imply a continuous, slow process of the building falling apart over time, which contradicts the suddenness of lada dzień.
What happens if I forget the word się and just say zawali?