Word
Pogoda była okropna, nie było słońca.
Meaning
The weather was terrible, there was no sun.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Pogoda była okropna, nie było słońca.
Why do we use two different forms of "was" (była and było) in the same sentence?
In the past tense, the verb być (to be) has to match the gender of the subject. In the first half, the subject is pogoda (weather), which is feminine, so we use the feminine form była. In the second half, the phrase nie było (there was not) is an impersonal phrase. These impersonal phrases in the past tense always use the neuter form było.
Where is the word for "there" in "there was no sun"?
Polish doesn't use a literal equivalent for the English word "there" in phrases like "there is" or "there was". The verb itself does all the work. Było alone means "there was", and nie było means "there was not".
I know the basic word for "sun" is "słońce". Why is it "słońca" here?
This happens because of the phrase nie było (there was not). Just like how the present tense nie ma (there is no) forces the following noun into the Genitive case, its past tense form nie było does exactly the same thing. The neuter noun słońce drops the -e and takes the -a ending to become słońca in the Genitive case.
Why does the adjective for terrible (okropna) end in -a instead of -y or -e?