Breakdown of Jakiś detektyw pyta, kto to zrobił.
to
this
kto
who
zrobić
to do / to make (someone something)
pytać
to ask (a question)
jakiś
some, a certain
detektyw
detective
Questions & Answers about Jakiś detektyw pyta, kto to zrobił.
Why use jakiś here instead of ktoś? They both translate to words with "some".
Jakiś acts like an adjective meaning "some" or "some kind of" and always attaches to a noun, like detektyw in this sentence. Ktoś means "someone" and stands completely on its own as a noun. Saying ktoś detektyw would literally mean "someone detective," which sounds just as strange in Polish as it does in English.
Does jakiś change its ending like an adjective?
Yes! Because it describes detektyw (a masculine noun acting as the subject), it takes the masculine nominative form jakiś. If it were a feminine noun, it would be jakaś, and if it were the object of the sentence, the ending would change to match the case (like jakiegoś).
Why does the second part of the sentence use the masculine past tense zrobił if the detective doesn't know who did it?
Why is to placed before the verb (zrobił) instead of after it?
In Polish, short pronouns like to (meaning "it" or "this") usually prefer to sit in the middle of a phrase rather than at the very end. While kto zrobił to is understandable, kto to zrobił sounds much more natural and is the standard way to structure this question.
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