Breakdown of Chcę, żeby on ofiarował tę darowiznę piętnastu ubogim rodzinom.
on
he / it (m)
ten
this (m)
chcieć
to want
rodzina
the family
piętnaście
fifteen
żeby
so that, in order to
ofiarować
to offer
darowizna
the donation
ubogi
poor
Questions & Answers about Chcę, żeby on ofiarował tę darowiznę piętnastu ubogim rodzinom.
Why do we use piętnastu instead of piętnaście here?
The verb ofiarować (to offer) takes the Dative case for the recipient (offering something to someone). For numbers 5 and above, the Dative form always ends in -u. Therefore, piętnaście becomes piętnastu.
Do the words after the number also take the Dative case, or does the number force them into the Genitive?
They take the Dative case. You might remember that in the Nominative or Accusative cases, numbers 5 and above force the following noun into the Genitive plural. However, in oblique cases like the Dative, Instrumental, or Locative, that rule disappears. The number, adjective, and noun all agree and take the same case, so piętnastu, ubogim, and rodzinom are all Dative plural.
Why is the verb ofiarował in the past tense if the translation says "to offer"?
In Polish, expressing that you want someone else to do something uses the structure chcę, żeby (I want that). The conjunction żeby requires the following verb to be in the past tense form, regardless of whether the action is meant to happen in the present or future.
Why is the pronoun tę used before darowiznę instead of tą?
The word darowiznę is the direct object being offered, so it is in the Accusative case. The correct Accusative form of the feminine word ta (this) is tę. You will frequently hear native speakers use tą in everyday spoken Polish, but tę is the strictly correct form for writing.
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