Breakdown of Oni widzieli nas, kiedy siedzieli w parku.
siedzieć
to sit
oni
they (masculine personal)
widzieć
to see
w
in / on (a day)
park
park
nas
us
kiedy
when
Questions & Answers about Oni widzieli nas, kiedy siedzieli w parku.
Why is it widzieli with an "e" instead of an "a" like in widział?
This is a vowel change that happens in the past tense for some verbs ending in -eć, like widzieć (to see). When talking about a group of men or a mixed group (masculine personal oni), the "a" from the singular form (on widział) changes back to an "e", giving us oni widzieli.
Does siedzieli follow the exact same rule?
Yes! The dictionary form is siedzieć (to sit). If one man sat, it is on siedział (with an "a"). But because our subject is oni, the vowel changes to "e", making it oni siedzieli. If it were a group of women (one), it would keep the "a" and be one siedziały.
Why do we say w parku with a "-u" at the end instead of "-e"?
The preposition w (in) requires the Locative case here. For most masculine inanimate nouns, the ending is -e, but words ending in k, g, or ch take -u instead to make them easier to pronounce. Since park ends in k, it becomes w parku.
Why did we use the pronoun oni at the beginning, but not before siedzieli?
In Polish, you usually drop subject pronouns because the verb ending already tells you who is doing the action. Here, oni is used at the start to establish who we are talking about, but repeating it before siedzieli is unnecessary and would sound unnatural.
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