Breakdown of Wszystkim zależy na dobrej współpracy.
dobry
good
wszyscy
everyone / all (the)
zależeć na
to care about
współpraca
cooperation
Questions & Answers about Wszystkim zależy na dobrej współpracy.
Why is it wszystkim instead of wszyscy?
The verb zależeć (to care about / to matter) uses a different structure than English. The person who cares is put in the Dative case. Since the base word for 'everyone' is wszyscy, its Dative form is wszystkim. Literally, the sentence is structured like 'To everyone, it matters...'.
If wszystkim means 'everyone', why isn't the verb plural (zależą)?
Because wszystkim is in the Dative case, it isn't the grammatical subject of the sentence. In Polish, when a sentence doesn't have a standard subject in the Nominative case, the verb defaults to the third-person singular. That is why we use zależy instead of a plural form.
Why do we use na followed by dobrej współpracy?
When you want to express what it is that someone cares about, the verb zależeć requires the preposition na followed by the Locative case. Here, the Nominative phrase dobra współpraca (good cooperation) changes to its Locative form, dobrej współpracy.
How would I say 'I care about good cooperation' using this structure?
You would change the Dative pronoun to match yourself. The word for 'to me' in the short Dative form is mi, so you would say: Zależy mi na dobrej współpracy. The rest of the sentence stays exactly the same.