Breakdown of W siedemnastym i osiemnastym wieku nie było internetu.
być
to be
i
and
nie
no / not
w
in / on (a day)
internet
internet
siedemnasty
seventeenth
osiemnasty
eighteenth
wiek
century
Questions & Answers about W siedemnastym i osiemnastym wieku nie było internetu.
Why do the words for "seventeenth" and "eighteenth" end in -ym here?
The dictionary forms for these ordinal numbers are siedemnasty (17th) and osiemnasty (18th). Here, they describe a point in time using the preposition w (in), which requires the Locative case. Because they describe a masculine noun (wiek), they take the masculine Locative adjective ending -ym.
Why does the word for "century" change from wiek to wieku?
Just like the numbers describing it, the noun wiek (century) must be in the Locative case after the preposition w. For many masculine inanimate nouns like wiek, the Locative ending is -u.
Why is the verb było in the neuter form if internet is a masculine word?
Why does the word internet have an -u at the end?
Because of the phrase nie było (there was no). When you express that something doesn't exist or isn't there, the missing thing must take the Genitive case. For the masculine noun internet, the Genitive ending is -u.
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