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Questions & Answers about Próbowała otworzyć okno.
How do we know it means "she" tried if there is no word for "she" in the sentence?
Polish often leaves out subject pronouns like ona because the verb ending tells you who is doing the action. The -ła ending in próbowała specifically means a female was doing it in the past tense. If it were a man, it would be próbował.
For verbs ending in -ować, how do we build this past tense form?
Why is the second verb otworzyć used here instead of otwierać?
In Polish, verbs come in pairs based on whether an action is completed (perfective) or ongoing (imperfective). She was trying to achieve a completed result: getting the window open. Because the goal was to successfully finish the action, we use the perfective verb otworzyć.
The word okno is the direct object here. Why doesn't its ending change?
Because it is the direct object, it is in the accusative case. However, okno is a neuter noun. In Polish, all neuter nouns look exactly the same in the accusative case as they do in their basic dictionary form, so it stays okno.