Breakdown of Ona wzięła swoją nową czapkę i szalik.
i
and
ona
she / it (f)
nowy
new
wziąć
to take (perf.)
swój
one's own
czapka
cap
szalik
scarf
Questions & Answers about Ona wzięła swoją nową czapkę i szalik.
Why does the sentence use swoją instead of jej for "her"?
Swoją comes from the reflexive pronoun swój, which means "one's own". Because the subject of the sentence (Ona) is also the owner of the cap, Polish strongly prefers using swój. If you used jej here, it could sound like she took some other woman's cap!
Why do the words swoją and nową end in -ą?
They are in the Accusative case, which is used for the direct object of the verb wzięła (took). The noun they describe is czapka (cap), which is feminine. In the Accusative case, feminine nouns ending in -a change to -ę (czapkę), and their adjectives and pronouns change to end in -ą (swoją nową).
Since she took both items, do the words swoją nową also apply to szalik (scarf)?
Grammatically, they only apply to the cap. Czapka is feminine, but szalik is masculine. The feminine forms swoją nową cannot describe a masculine noun. To strictly say "her new cap and her new scarf", you would have to repeat the pronouns in the masculine Accusative form: swoją nową czapkę i swój nowy szalik. In casual speech, though, the ownership of the scarf is just implied from context.
Why is the verb wzięła used instead of brała?
Wziąć (past tense: wzięła) is a perfective verb, meaning it describes a completed, one-time action. She grabbed the cap and scarf and the action was done. Brać (past tense: brała) is imperfective, which would mean she was in the process of taking them or took them regularly.
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