Word
Wczoraj zrobiliśmy dziesięć tysięcy kroków.
Meaning
Yesterday we took ten thousand steps.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Wczoraj zrobiliśmy dziesięć tysięcy kroków.
dziesięć
ten
zrobić
to do / to make (someone something)
wczoraj
yesterday
krok
step
Questions & Answers about Wczoraj zrobiliśmy dziesięć tysięcy kroków.
Why does this sentence use zrobiliśmy for "we took"?
In English, you "take" steps, but in Polish, you "make" or "do" them. The set phrase is zrobić krok (to take a step).
Why do we need the perfective form zrobiliśmy instead of robiliśmy?
You need the perfective verb zrobiliśmy because you are talking about a fully completed action with a specific result: you achieved the count of exactly ten thousand steps. Robiliśmy is imperfective and would just mean you were in the process of walking.
Why does the word for "steps" change to kroków?
This is the rule for numbers 5 and above! They force the noun that follows into the Genitive plural case. The base word is krok (step), and its Genitive plural is kroków. Think of it as saying "thousands OF steps".
Why is tysiąc (thousand) also in the Genitive plural form as tysięcy?
In Polish, words for large numbers like tysiąc (thousand) and milion (million) act like nouns. Because it comes after dziesięć (ten) - which is a number 5 or above - it must change to the Genitive plural tysięcy. You are literally saying "ten of thousands of steps".