Breakdown of Ten dystans jest dłuższy i zbyt trudny, żeby go przepłynąć w nocy.
być
to be
i
and
ten
this (m)
w
in / on (a day)
go
him / it
długi
long
żeby
so that, in order to
noc
night
trudny
difficult
zbyt
too / excessively
przepłynąć
to swim across
dystans
distance (sports, abstract)
Questions & Answers about Ten dystans jest dłuższy i zbyt trudny, żeby go przepłynąć w nocy.
Why is there a go in żeby go przepłynąć? Doesn't the English translation just say 'to swim'?
In English, we can say 'too difficult to swim,' leaving the object implied. In Polish, the zbyt... żeby construction acts more like 'too difficult for one to swim it.' Because przepłynąć (to swim across) is a transitive verb here, it requires the direct object go to tell us what is being swum (referring back to ten dystans).
Could I say za trudny instead of zbyt trudny in this sentence?
Yes, absolutely! Both za trudny and zbyt trudny mean 'too difficult' and both pair perfectly with the żeby clause. Zbyt sounds slightly more formal or written, while za is extremely common in everyday conversational speech.
Why use the perfective verb przepłynąć here instead of the imperfective pływać?
We are talking about completing a specific, measurable route (ten dystans). The perfective przepłynąć implies successfully swimming across or finishing that exact distance from start to finish, whereas pływać just means swimming around generally without a set endpoint.
Does the comparative dłuższy also trigger the żeby clause, meaning it's 'longer to swim'?
Grammatically, the żeby result clause attaches specifically to the word modified by zbyt (or za). So the sentence strictly means the distance is 'longer' (than an implied alternative) and 'too difficult to swim.' The extra length is just an additional fact provided before the result clause.
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