Breakdown of Moje siostry siedziały w czytelni i uczyły się całą noc.
i
and
siedzieć
to sit
uczyć się
to learn
siostra
sister
mój
my
w
in / on (a day)
cały
whole, entire
noc
night
czytelnia
the reading room
Questions & Answers about Moje siostry siedziały w czytelni i uczyły się całą noc.
Why is całą noc in the accusative case if there is no preposition or direct object here?
This is the bare accusative of continuous extent. In Polish, to show that an action lasted for an entire, uninterrupted period of time (like "all night", "a whole year", or "five minutes"), you use the accusative case without any prepositions.
Could I use perfective verbs here since the night of studying is already finished and in the past?
No, because the phrase całą noc emphasizes the continuous duration of the action. When you focus on a process lasting a specific amount of time, you must use imperfective verbs like siedziały (were sitting) and uczyły się (were studying).
Why do siedziały and uczyły się end in -ły instead of -li?
The subject is moje siostry (my sisters). Since this is a group with no men in it, Polish requires the non-virile (non-masculine-personal) plural ending -ły in the past tense. If there were even one brother studying with them, the verbs would change to the virile -li ending (siedzieli, uczyli się).
I often mix up the feminine locative endings. Why does czytelnia become czytelni here?
For feminine nouns ending in -nia, the locative case (used here after w to show location) simply takes an -i. If it were a hard consonant ending, it would usually take -e (like szkoła becoming w szkole), but soft endings like -nia require -i.
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