Breakdown of Zależało jej na twojej obecności podczas operacji.
ona
she / it (f)
twój
your
na
on, at / to (motion toward) / for (a meal) / for (waiting for)
podczas
during
operacja
surgery (f)
zależeć
to matter (to someone), to depend
obecność
presence
Questions & Answers about Zależało jej na twojej obecności podczas operacji.
Why is the sentence constructed as "Zależało jej" instead of "Ona zależała"?
The verb zależeć (to care about / to matter) is used impersonally to express that something is important to someone. The person who cares is put in the Dative case (jej - to her), and the verb takes the neuter third-person singular form in the past tense (zależało). A more literal translation would be "It mattered to her."
What case is "twojej obecności" in, and what triggers it?
It is in the Locative case. The fixed phrase zależeć na always requires the Locative case to express what someone cares about. Here, we use the Locative form of the feminine noun obecność (presence) and its modifying pronoun twoja.
How could we use the "bez + Genitive" structure from this lesson to say "Without your presence, she wouldn't have cared"?
You would say: Bez twojej obecności nie zależałoby jej. The phrase bez twojej obecności acts as a hidden condition (meaning "If you weren't present..."). Conveniently, feminine nouns ending in -ość like obecność have the exact same form in the Genitive (after bez) as they do in the Locative (after na).
Why does the word "operacja" become "operacji" at the end of the sentence?
The word podczas (during) is a preposition that strictly requires the following noun to be in the Genitive case. For feminine nouns ending in -cja like operacja, the Genitive singular form always ends in -cji.
Learn Zależało jej na twojej obecności podczas operacji and more in Polish
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free