Word
Kiedy powstał ten stary budynek?
Meaning
When was this old building built?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Kiedy powstał ten stary budynek?
Why is the translation "was built" when the verb is powstał rather than a form of budować (to build)?
The perfective verb powstać literally means "to come into existence," "to be created," or "to arise." While you could use a passive phrase like "został zbudowany" (was built), Polish speakers much prefer the active verb powstać when talking about when buildings, institutions, or cities were founded or created.
Why does the verb end in -ł (powstał)?
In the past tense, the verb must agree with the gender of the subject. The subject is budynek (building), which is a masculine noun. Therefore, the verb takes the masculine past tense ending -ł. If the subject were a feminine noun, like szkoła (school), it would be powstała.
Since this lesson is about years, how would I answer this question by saying "in 1998"?
You would use the preposition w (in) followed by the year in the Locative case. In Polish, only the tens and units change into ordinal numbers (like "98th") in the Locative, while thousands and hundreds stay as regular numbers. You would answer: w tysiąc dziewięćset dziewięćdziesiątym ósmym roku.
Why is it ten stary budynek and not in another case like the Accusative?