Breakdown of Ta dziewczynka dostała wczoraj misia.
ta
this (f)
wczoraj
yesterday
dziewczynka
little girl
dostać
to get
miś
teddy bear
Questions & Answers about Ta dziewczynka dostała wczoraj misia.
Why is it misia instead of miś?
Misia is the direct object of the verb dostała (she got), so it needs to be in the accusative case. The basic word for teddy bear is miś. Even though a teddy bear is a toy, Polish treats it grammatically as a 'living' masculine thing (masculine animate). This means its accusative form takes an -a at the end.
Why does the verb dostała end in -ła?
In Polish, past tense verbs change their endings based on the gender of the subject. Because the subject doing the action is ta dziewczynka (this girl), which is feminine, the verb dostać (to get) takes the feminine past tense ending -ła. If a boy had received the toy, it would be dostał.
I learned that 'to' means 'this'. Why is it ta dziewczynka here?
When you want to say 'this' directly in front of a noun, the word for 'this' must match the gender of that noun. Since dziewczynka is feminine, you have to use the feminine form ta. To is used for neuter nouns (like to dziecko - this child) or when making a general statement like 'This is a girl' (To jest dziewczynka).
Does wczoraj have to go between the verb and the object?
No, Polish word order is quite flexible. You could also say Ta dziewczynka dostała misia wczoraj (putting it at the end) or Wczoraj ta dziewczynka dostała misia (putting it at the beginning). The order shown here just sounds very natural and balanced.
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