Breakdown of O której godzinie zaczynasz dyżur w szpitalu?
w
in / on (a day)
szpital
hospital
o
at (time)
który
which, who (relative)
Questions & Answers about O której godzinie zaczynasz dyżur w szpitalu?
The current lesson teaches that zaczynać pairs with imperfective verbs. Why is there no second verb here?
When you pair "to start" with another action, that second verb must be an imperfective infinitive (like zaczynasz pracować - "you start working"). But you don't have to use a second verb! Just like in English, you can simply start a "thing" by following zaczynać directly with a noun, which is what happens here with dyżur (a shift).
Why use the imperfective zaczynasz here instead of the perfective zaczniesz?
This sentence asks about a regular, ongoing routine ("At what time do you [usually] start..."), so we need the imperfective verb zaczynać. If you were asking about a single, specific shift in the future ("At what time will you start [tomorrow's shift]..."), you would use the perfective form zaczniesz.
Why is the phrase for "at what time" in the Locative case (o której godzinie)?
To ask "at what time" in Polish, you literally ask "at which hour". The preposition o, when used to pinpoint a specific time on the clock, always requires the Locative case. This changes the basic words która godzina into której godzinie.
Why doesn't dyżur change its ending, since it's the direct object of the sentence?