Question 1

Why do we use both Ci and te for the word "these" in the same sentence?

Accepted Answer

In the plural, Polish splits nouns into two groups: masculine personal (groups including at least one man) and everything else. Since wolontariusze (volunteers) refers to people, we use the masculine personal pronoun ci. Bilety (tickets) are inanimate objects, so they fall into the "everything else" category, which uses te.

Question 2

Are both Ci wolontariusze and te bilety in the Nominative case here?

Accepted Answer

No, they are in different cases! Ci wolontariusze is the subject performing the action, so it is in the Nominative case. Te bilety is the direct object receiving the action, so it is in the Accusative case. For non-masculine-personal words like bilety, the Accusative plural looks exactly the same as the Nominative plural, so it stays te.

Question 3

I thought masculine nouns usually end in -y or -i in the plural. Why is it wolontariusze?

Accepted Answer

That is a great rule of thumb, but masculine nouns that end in "soft" or "historically soft" consonants (like sz, cz, rz) often take an -e in the Nominative plural. Since the singular is wolontariusz, the plural becomes wolontariusze.

Question 4

Why use sprawdzić instead of sprawdzać after muszą?

Accepted Answer

Muszą (they must) is followed by an infinitive verb, but you still have to choose between perfective and imperfective aspects. Here, sprawdzić (perfective) is used because the focus is on the completion of the action—getting the tickets successfully checked. If you used the imperfective sprawdzać, it would imply an ongoing or habitual action.

Ci wolontariusze muszą sprawdzić te bilety.

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