Learn Polish: To była jego wina, ale mówił, że miał pecha i nie mógł pomóc. - It was his fault, but he said that he had bad luck and couldn't help.

In the past tense, the verb móc (to be able to) has an irregular stem. For a masculine subject like 'he' here, we use mógł. If the subject was feminine, the ó would change to an o, making it mogła. For a mixed group of people, it changes to mogli.

The sentence starts with To była. Since to is neuter, shouldn't it be To było?

When we use to to point at something ('this was' or 'it was') followed by a noun, the past tense of the verb być (to be) must match the gender of that noun. Since wina (fault) is a feminine word, the verb takes the feminine form była.

Why is it miał pecha instead of miał pech?

The phrase for 'to have bad luck' is mieć pecha. Even though pech (bad luck) is an inanimate concept and not a living thing, it acts like an animate masculine noun in this expression, taking the -a ending in the accusative case (which is used for direct objects).

Are móc and pomóc related, and do they both work the same way in the past tense?