Word
Często marzę o tym, żeby mieć więcej czasu.
Meaning
I often dream of having more time.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Często marzę o tym, żeby mieć więcej czasu.
Why does the sentence use o tym, żeby instead of just a verb like "having"?
In Polish, you can't attach a preposition like o (about/of) directly to a verb clause. Instead, you point to a dummy pronoun. The verb marzyć o (to dream about) requires the Locative case, so to (this) becomes tym. You are literally saying "I dream about this, that to have...". Then the conditional word żeby introduces the hypothetical action you desire.
Why is mieć in the infinitive here? Doesn't the conditional mood usually attach endings to by?
Usually, yes! You've likely seen forms like chciałbym (I would like). However, when the person dreaming is the exact same person doing the action (I dream that I have), you simply use żeby followed by the infinitive verb (mieć). You only use conjugated past tense forms after żeby if the subjects are different (for example, "I dream that you have").
Why is the word for time czasu instead of its basic form czas?
The word więcej (more) is a quantity word. In Polish, words that express quantity, such as więcej, dużo (a lot), or mało (a little), force the noun that follows them into the Genitive case. Therefore, the basic word czas becomes czasu.
Can I just say Często marzę żeby mieć więcej czasu and skip the o tym?