Breakdown of Okazało się, że trauma uczy nas empatii dla siebie nawzajem.
my
we
że
that
siebie
oneself
dla
for
okazać się
to turn out (perf)
uczyć
to teach (uczyć kogoś czegoś)
empatia
empathy
nawzajem
mutually
trauma
trauma
Questions & Answers about Okazało się, że trauma uczy nas empatii dla siebie nawzajem.
Why do we need nawzajem here if siebie already translates to 'each other'?
While siebie can mean 'each other', it is also the standard reflexive pronoun for 'ourselves'. Without nawzajem, the phrase dla siebie could easily be misinterpreted as 'for ourselves'. Adding nawzajem (mutually) explicitly forces the reciprocal meaning, leaving no doubt that you mean 'for one another'.
If I wanted to use the jeden drugiego structure from this lesson, how would it fit into this sentence?
It gets a bit tricky because of the preposition dla. You have to split the phrase and put the preposition in the middle. Assuming 'us' refers to a mixed group, you would use the plural form and say jedni dla drugich. This complexity is exactly why dla siebie nawzajem is so often preferred!
I see empatii is in the genitive case. Doesn't the verb uczyć take a direct object in the accusative?
No, uczyć (to teach) is a classic exception that requires the genitive case for the thing being taught. In fact, it takes the genitive for both the person learning (nas) and the concept being taught (empatii).
Why does the sentence start with the neuter form okazało się?
This is an impersonal construction. Because there is no specific noun acting as the subject before the comma (the English 'It' is just a dummy subject), Polish defaults to the third-person singular neuter form of the past tense.
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