Breakdown of Wczoraj wieczorem zrobiłem kolację.
wieczorem
in the evening
zrobić
to do / to make (someone something)
wczoraj
yesterday
kolacja
the supper / dinner (evening meal)
Questions & Answers about Wczoraj wieczorem zrobiłem kolację.
How do we know the speaker is male, and how would a female say this?
The verb zrobiłem ends in -łem, which is the regular past tense ending for "I" when a male is speaking. A female speaker would change the ending to -łam and say zrobiłam.
Where is the Polish word for "I" (ja) in this sentence?
It is built right into the verb! In Polish, you usually drop the pronoun ja because the -em ending on zrobiłem already tells us "I" did the action. Leaving it out sounds much more natural.
Why does the word for evening (wieczór) change to wieczorem?
Adding the -em ending to time words like wieczór is how Polish expresses "in the" or "during the". So, wieczorem translates to "in the evening", making the phrase mean "yesterday evening".
Why is the word for supper spelled kolację instead of its dictionary form kolacja?
It changes because supper is the direct object of the sentence (the thing being made). For feminine nouns ending in -a like kolacja, the ending changes to -ę when an action is happening directly to them.