Breakdown of Dopiero wczoraj obejrzałem ten thriller, który dostał Oscara.
ten
this (m)
wczoraj
yesterday
obejrzeć
to watch (perfective)
dostać
to get
który
which, who (relative)
dopiero
not until / only just
thriller
the thriller
Oscar
the Oscar
Questions & Answers about Dopiero wczoraj obejrzałem ten thriller, który dostał Oscara.
Why is it Oscara and not Oscar? Isn't an award an inanimate object?
Yes, but in Polish, specific prestigious awards and prizes (like Oscar or Nobel) are treated as masculine animate nouns. Because it is the direct object of the verb dostał (got), it requires the accusative case. For masculine animate nouns, the accusative adds an -a, making it Oscara.
Why doesn't the foreign loanword thriller change its ending here?
Thriller is a masculine inanimate noun. In the accusative case, which is needed here because it is the direct object of obejrzałem (I watched), masculine inanimate nouns look exactly identical to their basic dictionary form. So it simply stays thriller.
The English translation says "I did not watch... until yesterday," but there is no negative word in the Polish sentence. Why?
The Polish word dopiero means "only" or "not until" in the context of time. Dopiero wczoraj translates literally to "only yesterday". Polish uses this affirmative phrasing to show that an event happened later than expected, whereas English often uses a negative verb plus "until".
Why is który in the nominative case if it refers to the thriller, which was just used as an accusative direct object?
The relative pronoun który takes the gender and number of the noun it refers to, but its case is determined by its job in its own part of the sentence. In the clause który dostał Oscara, the thriller is the subject doing the action. Therefore, it must be in the nominative case.
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