Breakdown of Widzę rolnika pracującego w polu.
pracować
to work
widzieć
to see
w
in / on (a day)
rolnik
the farmer
Questions & Answers about Widzę rolnika pracującego w polu.
How do we form the participle pracującego from the verb pracować?
To form the active adjectival participle, take the 3rd person plural present tense of the verb (they work = pracują) and add -cy. That gives the base dictionary form pracujący (working). Then you decline it like an adjective to fit the rest of the sentence.
Why does it end in -ego here instead of the base form pracujący?
Because this participle acts exactly like an adjective, it must match the noun it describes in gender, number, and case. It describes rolnika, which is in the masculine animate accusative case. Just like a standard adjective, the ending becomes -ego, resulting in pracującego.
As a refresher, why is the word for farmer rolnika and not rolnik?
The verb widzieć (to see) takes a direct object, which requires the accusative case. For masculine animate nouns (people and animals) like rolnik, the accusative case form is identical to the genitive case form, which takes the -a ending.
Could I say na polu instead of w polu for in the field?
Yes, both w polu and na polu are correct and take the locative case, but they carry slight differences. W polu emphasizes being within the crops or actively doing agricultural work, which perfectly fits a farmer here. Na polu can mean out in the open field broadly, and in southern Poland (like Kraków), it is famously used to just mean outside.