Breakdown of Możemy zacząć spotkanie kwadrans po dziewiątej.
móc
to be able to
spotkanie
meeting (n)
po
after; for (to fetch)
dziewiąty
ninth
Questions & Answers about Możemy zacząć spotkanie kwadrans po dziewiątej.
How does telling time with po work in this sentence?
When saying it is minutes past the hour, we use the preposition po. This preposition requires the Locative case for the hour. The base word for "nine o'clock" is the feminine adjective dziewiąta, and its Locative form is dziewiątej.
Can I say piętnaście instead of kwadrans?
Yes! Kwadrans specifically means "a quarter of an hour" (15 minutes). You can say piętnaście po dziewiątej (fifteen past nine) just as easily, but kwadrans is very natural and commonly used, exactly like "a quarter past" in English.
Why didn't the ending of spotkanie (meeting) change here?
The verb zacząć (to start) needs a direct object in the Accusative case. Because spotkanie is a neuter noun, its Accusative form looks exactly the same as its basic dictionary form.
Why is it zacząć and not zaczynać?
Both mean "to start", but zacząć is perfective, meaning it focuses on a single, completed action. We use it here because we are talking about starting one specific meeting. Zaczynać is imperfective and would be used for routines, like if you wanted to say "we usually start meetings at nine".