"When was this book written?"
Translation:Kiedy została napisana ta książka?
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1854
I left out the "została", but the correct answer was given as "Kiedy napisano tę książkę?" Is that an acceptable alternative?
It's quite different grammatically, but perfectly correct.
Generally, you can't leave out "została", because then you arrive at "Kiedy ta książka napisana" which would be like "When this book written".
"Kiedy napisano tę książkę" uses a completely impersonal form, so there is no real subject, but it's quite a common construction. It just works like "When X happened"... only that X is not the subject.
We accept it because there seems to not be enough consistency in the way the native speakers use it, but we'd recommend using "została" with perfective verbs and "była" with imperfective ones.
Why is "kiedy została ta książka napisana" not accepted? I believe it makes grammatical sense.
- 1051
honestly? If i had three translations to choose: "kiedy została napisana ta książka", "kiedy ta książka została napisana", and "kiedy została ta książka napisana" the last translation would be the third one :) I don't say that this is gramatically incorrect, or this translation shouldn't be accepted, but ... (of course everything before "but" is irrelevant as Tyrion Lanister said xD) ... but the third option is the least natural :)
Oh, sorry, but this one doesn't make sense... "napisać" is an infinitive. An infinitive may be an option in the Future Compound tense ("będę pisać/pisał/pisała" = "I will be writing"), but not here. The form needs to match "książka", so it needs to be feminine: "napisana".
As for "była", we accept it, but "została" sounds a lot better to me... because it kinda 'became written', at some point the book 'became a whole book'... I hope it makes some sense :D
From my comment above:
As for "była", we accept it, but "została" sounds a lot better to me... because it kinda 'became written', at some point the book 'became a whole book'...