Word
Nie wiem, czy mogli to zbudować w tysiąc dziewięćset czterdziestym czwartym roku.
Meaning
I do not know if they were able to build this in nineteen forty-four.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Nie wiem, czy mogli to zbudować w tysiąc dziewięćset czterdziestym czwartym roku.
to
this
czy
[question particle]
nie
no / not
wiedzieć
to know
Questions & Answers about Nie wiem, czy mogli to zbudować w tysiąc dziewięćset czterdziestym czwartym roku.
Why are only the last two parts of the year, czterdziestym czwartym, changed into the Locative case?
When saying a year in Polish, only the tens and units (the last parts) are treated as ordinal numbers (like '44th') and change their endings. The thousands and hundreds (tysiąc dziewięćset) stay as normal cardinal numbers and don't change. Because we use w (in) for years, the changing numbers and the word roku take the Locative case.
The English translation says 'if', so why is the word czy used instead of jeśli?
Czy is used for yes/no questions and indirect questions, meaning 'whether'. You use jeśli for conditions, like 'If it rains, we will stay home.' Since this sentence is an indirect question ('I do not know whether they were able...'), czy is the correct choice here.
Why is the verb form mogli used instead of mogły?
Mogli is the past tense of móc (to be able to) for the masculine personal 'they'. This implies the group of builders included at least one man. If the group was entirely made of women, or if the speaker was referring to machines, you would use the non-masculine form mogły.
Why do we use the perfective verb zbudować instead of the imperfective budować?