Breakdown of Chociaż byliśmy zmęczeni, pokonaliśmy te trudności.
być
to be
ten
this (m)
zmęczony
tired
chociaż
although
trudność
difficulty
pokonać
to overcome
Questions & Answers about Chociaż byliśmy zmęczeni, pokonaliśmy te trudności.
Does chociaż change the word order in the sentence?
No, chociaż (although) doesn't force any special word order in Polish. Just like in English, it introduces the dependent clause, followed by a comma, and then the main clause. You could also flip the sentence halves and say Pokonaliśmy te trudności, chociaż byliśmy zmęczeni.
Why are we using byliśmy and zmęczeni instead of byłyśmy and zmęczone?
The forms byliśmy, zmęczeni, and pokonaliśmy all use the masculine personal plural. This tells us the group of people saying 'we' includes at least one male. If a group of only women were speaking, they would use the non-masculine personal forms: byłyśmy, zmęczone, and pokonałyśmy.
What gender is the singular form of trudności, and why is the pronoun te used here?
The singular is trudność (difficulty), which is a feminine noun. In Polish, most abstract nouns ending in -ść are feminine. Because it is feminine, its plural falls into the non-masculine personal category, so 'these' translates to te. Since it is the direct object of the verb, it is in the accusative case, which looks exactly like the basic nominative form: te trudności.
Why use the perfective verb pokonaliśmy instead of an imperfective one?
Pokonaliśmy comes from the perfective verb pokonać. It is used here because the speakers successfully completed the action of overcoming the difficulties. If they were still in the process of fighting them but hadn't finished, they would use the imperfective form pokonywaliśmy.
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