Breakdown of To było wielkie zaskoczenie, że wczoraj nam się to zdarzyło.
to
this
być
to be
że
that
wczoraj
yesterday
nam
us (dative)
wielki
great (large, grand)
zdarzyć się
to happen (perfective)
zaskoczenie
the surprise
Questions & Answers about To było wielkie zaskoczenie, że wczoraj nam się to zdarzyło.
How does the phrase "nam się to zdarzyło" work grammatically?
The verb zdarzyć się means "to happen". When you want to say who it happened to, you use the Dative case (the "experiencer"). Here, nam is the Dative form of my (we). The pronoun to (it/this) is the subject of the clause, so altogether to nam się zdarzyło means "it happened to us".
Why are the short words nam, się, and to clustered together like that?
Polish prefers to group short, unstressed pronouns and the reflexive word się together in the middle of a sentence. They usually tuck themselves right after the first stressed word or phrase in the clause. Here, they huddle together after wczoraj to avoid being at the very beginning or the very end of the phrase.
Why is the perfective verb zdarzyło used here instead of the imperfective zdarzało?
Zdarzyć się is perfective, meaning it describes a completed, one-time event. Because this event happened specifically wczoraj (yesterday) as a single surprising incident, the perfective aspect is required. If you used zdarzało się, it would mean "it used to happen" or "it kept happening".
Why do both było and zdarzyło end in -o?
They are both past tense verbs agreeing with neuter subjects. In the first half of the sentence, było matches the neuter pronoun to (which points to the neuter noun zaskoczenie). In the second half, the subject of zdarzyło is also the neuter pronoun to.
Why is there a comma before że? We don't usually use one before "that" in English.
In Polish punctuation, subordinate clauses must always be separated by a comma. Conjunctions that introduce these clauses, such as że (that), bo (because), or jeśli (if), will almost always have a comma right in front of them.
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