Breakdown of Zgubiłam oczko, ale mimo to jestem dumna ze swetra.
być
to be
ale
but
z
from (+ Genitive)
zgubić
to lose
sweter
jumper, sweater
mimo to
despite that, nevertheless
dumny
proud
oczko
stitch
Questions & Answers about Zgubiłam oczko, ale mimo to jestem dumna ze swetra.
Why is it mimo to instead of mimo tego, since mimo usually takes the Genitive?
This is a special exception. While the prepositions mimo and pomimo (despite) generally require the Genitive case, they take the Accusative case when followed by the pronouns to (this/it) or wszystko (everything). Therefore, we use the Accusative to here, giving us the fixed phrase mimo to (despite this).
I learned that oczko means 'little eye'. How does it mean 'stitch' in this sentence?
Polish uses oczko for several mesh-like or loop-like things, including a run in tights, a ring in a chain, or a stitch in knitting. Zgubić oczko is the exact idiomatic equivalent of the English knitting phrase 'to drop a stitch'.
Why do we use the form ze instead of z before swetra?
The preposition z changes to ze to make pronunciation easier when the next word starts with certain consonant clusters, especially those beginning with sibilants like 's', 'z', 'sz', or 'rz' followed by another consonant. Because swetra starts with 'sw-', we say ze swetra.
What case is swetra in, and why did the 'e' from sweter disappear?
It is in the Genitive case, because the adjective dumny (proud) paired with z requires the Genitive. The noun sweter features a 'mobile e', meaning the final 'e' in the dictionary form drops out when suffixes are added in other cases, making it swetra rather than swetera.
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