Breakdown of Ten wynalazek był wielkim przełomem w dwudziestym wieku.
być
to be
ten
this (m)
w
in / on (a day)
wiek
century
dwudziesty
twentieth
wielki
great (large, grand)
wynalazek
the invention
przełom
the breakthrough
Questions & Answers about Ten wynalazek był wielkim przełomem w dwudziestym wieku.
Why do we say w dwudziestym wieku instead of w dwudziesty wiek?
To express "in the [ordinal number] century", Polish uses the preposition w followed by the Locative case. The basic dictionary form is dwudziesty wiek, but because it follows w to describe a period of time, the adjective changes to the Locative dwudziestym and the noun changes to the Locative wieku.
Why does the Locative form of wiek end in -u rather than -e?
While many masculine inanimate nouns take an -e ending in the Locative case, nouns ending in the consonants -k, -g, or -ch are exceptions. To avoid complicated spelling and pronunciation changes, they take the -u ending instead. Because wiek ends in -k, its Locative form is wieku.
Why does the sentence use wielkim przełomem instead of the dictionary form wielki przełom?
This is a refresher on the Instrumental case. When you use a form of the verb być (here as był, meaning was) to define what the subject is or was using a noun phrase, that noun phrase must take the Instrumental case. Therefore, the Nominative wielki przełom changes to the Instrumental wielkim przełomem.
Is there a logical connection between the Polish word przełom and the English word breakthrough?
Yes, they are structured exactly the same way! The noun przełom is built from the prefix prze- (which means through or across) and the root of the verb łamać (to break).
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