Breakdown of Kiedy muszę to oszacować, mówię, że to ponad tysiąc złotych.
mówić
to speak
to
is (linking copula)
musieć
to have to
że
that
kiedy
when
złoty
zloty
tysiąc
thousand
ponad
over
oszacować
to estimate (perfective)
Questions & Answers about Kiedy muszę to oszacować, mówię, że to ponad tysiąc złotych.
How does the approximation word ponad affect the grammatical case of tysiąc in this sentence?
It actually doesn't! Unlike prepositions, approximation particles like ponad (over/more than) and około (around) do not force the following number into a specific case. The numeral tysiąc is in the Nominative case here simply because it follows to (it is).
Why is the currency in the form złotych instead of złote?
As a B2 refresher: in Polish, numerals from five upwards (including large round numbers like tysiąc, milion, etc.) require the noun being counted to take the Genitive plural case. Therefore, the base word złoty becomes złotych.
Why use the perfective verb oszacować instead of the imperfective szacować after muszę?
Modal verbs like muszę (I must) can take either aspect, so the choice depends entirely on the context. Here, the speaker is focusing on the result: completing the action of coming up with a final number. If they wanted to emphasize the ongoing, tedious process of calculating the estimate, they would use the imperfective szacować.
In the phrase że to ponad tysiąc złotych, where is the verb for "is"?
It is implied by the word to. In Polish, to often acts as both the pronoun ("it/this") and the verb ("is") when making simple statements of identity or quantity in the present tense. You could say że to jest ponad tysiąc złotych, but dropping jest is very common and sounds perfectly natural here.
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