Breakdown of Gracze przyjechali, więc gramy we trzech.
grać
to play
w
in / on (a day)
trzy
three
więc
so, therefore
przyjechać
to arrive (by vehicle)
gracz
the player
Questions & Answers about Gracze przyjechali, więc gramy we trzech.
Why do we say we trzech to mean "the three of us" instead of just trzej?
To express "the [number] of us/you/them" doing something together, Polish uses the preposition w (or we) plus the Locative case of the number. For masculine personal groups (groups with at least one man), the Locative of 3 is trzech. We know it means "the three of US" here because the verb gramy is in the "we" form.
Why is the preposition we used here instead of the usual w?
The preposition w changes to we before certain tricky consonant combinations to make pronunciation much easier. Trying to say w trzech without a vowel is quite difficult, so Polish adds an -e to smooth it out.
If three women were playing, would they also say we trzech?
No, they would say we trzy. The form trzech is exclusively for masculine personal groups (where there is at least one male). For a group of only women, you must use the non-masculine personal Locative form, which is trzy.
Why does the first verb, przyjechali, end in -li?
It has to match the subject gracze (players). Because gracze is a masculine personal plural noun, the past tense verb takes the -li ending. If the group was entirely female, like dziewczyny (girls), the verb would take the non-masculine -ły ending instead (przyjechały).
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