Breakdown of Kto zabił tego człowieka?
ten
this (m)
kto
who
człowiek
person, human
zabić
to kill (perfective)
Questions & Answers about Kto zabił tego człowieka?
Why is it tego człowieka instead of ten człowiek?
Because "that man" is the direct object of the verb zabił (killed), so it needs to be in the accusative case. For masculine living things, the accusative case uses the exact same endings as the genitive case. That is why ten becomes tego and człowiek adds an "-a" at the end.
Does tego mean "this" or "that"?
It can mean both! Polish often uses the base word ten (which becomes tego here) for both "this" and "that". If you need to point out "that man over there" to distinguish him from a man right next to you, you use tamtego, but usually tego works perfectly for both.
Why do we use the masculine past tense zabił with kto? What if the killer was a woman?
Why does the English translation say "that man" if człowiek means "human" or "person"?
While człowiek strictly translates to "human" or "person", Polish speakers very often use it to mean "man" in a broad sense. If you wanted to specifically emphasize that the victim was male, you would use the word mężczyzna, making the phrase tego mężczyznę.
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