Breakdown of Mój pradziadek urodził się drugiego maja tysiąc osiemset osiemdziesiątego roku.
mój
my
rok
year
drugi
second / the other (in 'one another')
maj
May
tysiąc
thousand
urodzić się
to be born
osiemset
eight hundred
osiemdziesiąty
eightieth
pradziadek
great-grandfather
Questions & Answers about Mój pradziadek urodził się drugiego maja tysiąc osiemset osiemdziesiątego roku.
Why is the year tysiąc osiemset osiemdziesiątego roku in the Genitive case here, instead of using w with the Locative?
When you state just the year an event happened, you use the preposition w plus the Locative case (for example, w tysiąc osiemset osiemdziesiątym roku). However, when you give a more specific date that includes the day and month, the entire date phrase shifts into the Genitive case and you drop the w.
Why do only the last parts of the year change to the Genitive in tysiąc osiemset osiemdziesiątego?
In Polish, years are treated as ordinal numbers (like saying 'the 1880th year'). When declining years, only the tens and units (or just the tens, as in this sentence) change their form to match the case. The thousands and hundreds stay in their base, undeclined forms. That is why tysiąc osiemset remains unchanged, while osiemdziesiąty becomes the Genitive osiemdziesiątego.
Is maja also in the Genitive case here?
Yes, maja is in the Genitive. In Polish dates, the month is always in the Genitive because it literally translates to 'of May'. So drugiego maja simply means 'the second day of May'.
Why is the reflexive pronoun się used with urodził?
The base verb urodzić means 'to give birth'. To express the passive idea of 'was born', Polish uses the reflexive form urodzić się (literally 'to give birth to oneself').
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