Breakdown of Chociaż ściany się zawaliły, kobiety nie zemdlały.
nie
no / not
kobieta
woman
ściana
wall
chociaż
although
zemdleć
to faint
zawalić się
to collapse
Questions & Answers about Chociaż ściany się zawaliły, kobiety nie zemdlały.
Why do both verbs (zawaliły and zemdlały) end in -ły here?
Both subjects (ściany and kobiety) are plural, and neither group includes a male person. Therefore, both verbs take the non-masculine-personal (non-virile) plural ending -ły in the past tense.
Could I use mimo że instead of chociaż in this sentence?
Yes! Mimo że and chociaż both mean "although" or "even though" and can be used interchangeably here without changing the rest of the grammar. Just remember that mimo że is written as two words and you never put a comma between them.
Why does zawaliły need the reflexive pronoun się?
The verb zawalić on its own means to collapse, clutter, or ruin something else. To say that a structure itself collapsed or caved in (an intransitive action), you must use the reflexive zawalić się.
What is the imperfective equivalent of zemdlały, and why is the perfective used here?
The imperfective form is mdlały (from the infinitive mdleć). You would use the imperfective if they were in the process of fainting, feeling faint over time, or fainting repeatedly. Here, zemdlały (perfective) is used because the sentence refers to a single, complete event that simply did not occur.
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