Breakdown of Ten trudny okres trwał całą dekadę.
ten
this (m)
cały
whole, entire
trudny
difficult
okres
the period
trwać
to last
dekada
the decade
Questions & Answers about Ten trudny okres trwał całą dekadę.
The lesson is about time spans with od... do..., so why aren't we using those words here?
The structure od ... do ... means "from [start point] to [end point]" (like "from 1990 to 2000"). This sentence expresses a total duration ("a whole decade"). To say how long something lasted in total, Polish skips prepositions and just puts the time phrase directly into the Accusative case.
Why does cała dekada (a whole decade) change to całą dekadę?
In Polish, when you state how long an action lasts (the duration), the time phrase must be in the Accusative case. Since dekada is a feminine noun, its Accusative form is dekadę, and the adjective cała changes to match it as całą.
Why is the verb trwał imperfective? Didn't the period of time finish?
Even though the decade is over, the verb trwać (to last) naturally focuses on the continuous, unbroken stretch of time passing. When you emphasize the duration of an ongoing state or action, you use the imperfective aspect.
What gender is the noun okres?
It is a masculine inanimate noun. You can see this reflected in the words before it: it takes the masculine pronoun ten (this) and the masculine adjective trudny (difficult) in the Nominative case here.
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