Breakdown of Gdyby zainwestowała swój cały majątek, miałaby jeszcze więcej pieniędzy.
mieć
to have
pieniądze
money
cały
whole, entire
swój
one's own
jeszcze
still, yet
więcej
more
gdyby
if (hypothetical)
zainwestować
to invest
majątek
fortune
Questions & Answers about Gdyby zainwestowała swój cały majątek, miałaby jeszcze więcej pieniędzy.
Why does the sentence use the past tense zainwestowała if this is about a hypothetical situation?
In Polish, you form conditional sentences (hypothetical situations) by combining the past-tense form of the verb with the particle by. The word gdyby means "if" in a hypothetical sense, and since it already contains that by particle, the verb that follows it just needs to be in the past tense (zainwestowała). Together, gdyby zainwestowała means "if she invested" or "if she had invested".
Why is "by" attached to "gdy" in the first half of the sentence, but attached to the verb in "miałaby"?
The conditional particle -by is highly mobile. It acts like a magnet, naturally attaching itself to the first stressed word in a clause. In the first clause, the conjunction gdy pulls it in to create gdyby. In the second clause, the verb miała is the first word, so the particle attaches directly to it, creating miałaby.
Why does it use "swój" (her own) instead of "jej" (her)?
Swój is a reflexive possessive pronoun used when the object belongs to the subject of the sentence. Since "she" is the one doing the investing, it is her own fortune, making swój the grammatically correct choice here. If you used jej instead, a Polish speaker would assume she was investing some other woman's fortune!
Why is the word for money in the form "pieniędzy"?
It is in the genitive plural case. In Polish, adverbs of quantity like dużo (a lot), trochę (a little), and their comparatives like więcej (more) force the noun that follows them into the genitive case. Because the word for money (pieniądze) is always plural in Polish, it takes the genitive plural form: pieniędzy.
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