Word
Ponieważ zaspała, musi teraz wyjaśnić tę sytuację.
Meaning
Since she overslept, she must explain this situation now.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Ponieważ zaspała, musi teraz wyjaśnić tę sytuację.
ten
this (m)
teraz
now
musieć
to have to
wyjaśnić
to explain
Questions & Answers about Ponieważ zaspała, musi teraz wyjaśnić tę sytuację.
Can I use bo instead of ponieważ to start this sentence?
It is much better to use ponieważ here. In Polish, ponieważ works perfectly at the beginning of a sentence to mean "Since..." or "Because...". The shorter word bo (because) is almost exclusively used in the middle of a sentence to connect two thoughts, such as: Musi teraz wyjaśnić tę sytuację, bo zaspała.
How do we know the subject is "she" if there is no pronoun like ona in the sentence?
The past tense verb zaspała (overslept) gives it away! In the past tense, Polish verbs change their endings based on the gender of the subject, and the -ła ending is strictly feminine. Even though the present tense verb in the second half, musi (must), doesn't show gender, the subject simply carries over from the first clause.
Why is it tę sytuację and not tą sytuację?
The phrase is the direct object of the verb wyjaśnić (to explain), so it must be in the Accusative case. The noun sytuacja changes its feminine -a ending to -ę. The grammatically correct Accusative form of the word ta (this) is tę. Note: In casual everyday speech, you will hear many native speakers say tą sytuację, but tę is the correct form you should use in writing and careful speech.
Why is wyjaśnić used in its infinitive (dictionary) form here?