Breakdown of Nawet jeśli jesteś cały w pocie, musisz biegać dalej.
być
to be
biegać
to run
w
in / on (a day)
musieć
to have to
cały
whole, entire
jeśli
if
nawet
even
dalej
further; go on (as in "keep talking", "and so on")
pot
sweat
Questions & Answers about Nawet jeśli jesteś cały w pocie, musisz biegać dalej.
Why do we use nawet jeśli here instead of nawet gdyby?
We use nawet jeśli because it sets up a realistic or actual situation, taking the standard indicative mood (jesteś). If you wanted to talk about a purely hypothetical scenario (Even if you were covered in sweat), you would use nawet gdyby with the conditional mood: Nawet gdybyś był cały w pocie...
If I am speaking to a woman, does this sentence stay exactly the same?
Why is it translated as covered in sweat when cały w pocie literally means all in sweat?
While you could technically use the passive participle pokryty potem (covered with sweat), być całym w czymś (to be all in something) is the most natural Polish idiom for being completely covered in a substance, such as sweat, mud, or blood. Notice that w pocie is in the locative case.
How does the word dalej mean keep running?
The word dalej literally translates to further. However, when you place it directly after an imperfective verb like biegać, it acts as an adverb of continuation. Therefore, biegać dalej is the standard way to express continuing an action.
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