Breakdown of Ci chłopcy chodzą po placu.
ten
this (m)
chłopiec
boy
chodzić
to walk
po
along, on (a surface)
plac
the square
Questions & Answers about Ci chłopcy chodzą po placu.
Why does po mean around here instead of after?
While po often means after (which also uses the Locative case, like po pracy), it is also used for spatial movement. With verbs of motion, po + Locative describes moving around, along, or all over a surface.
In this lesson we learned iść po means to fetch something. Why doesn't this mean fetching the square?
The meaning changes depending on the grammatical case! Fetching requires po + the Accusative case (like po chleb). Moving around a space requires po + the Locative case. Since placu is Locative, we know it describes where they are walking, not what they are going to get.
Why is the word for these ci instead of te?
Chłopcy (boys) belongs to the masculine personal gender, which is used for groups containing at least one male person. In the plural Nominative case, these nouns must use the special pronoun ci. All other plural nouns use te.
Since po takes the Locative case here, why does placu end in -u instead of -e?
While many masculine nouns take the -e ending in the Locative case, nouns that end in a soft or historically soft consonant (like the c in plac) always take the -u ending instead.
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