Polish grammar
Polish grammar explained in plain words. No articles, and the cases and verb aspects work the way their English glosses suggest once you have seen one example. What is harder: seven cases with endings that never match English prepositions, and aspect pairs like zakładać i założyć that have to be learned together.
Notes
- 📐Cześć and dzień dobry: friends and strangersCześć is the hi you say to your own people, and it works at any time of day. The same word is used to say goodbye, so…
- 📐Proszę and przepraszam: one word for three jobsProszę literally means I ask, and it works in three roles. Please in a request: Proszę mówić powoli. Please when…
- 📐To be: jestem, jesteś, jest — the verb is never droppedThe verb to be is not dropped in the present tense. Even where English gets by without it, the sentence demands it…
- 📐They: oni and one — people counted apartEnglish they covers two words here. Oni is for people with at least one man among them: Oni pracują w banku. One is for…
- 📐A question starts with czy — or just with intonationA yes-no question starts with czy: Czy to daleko?, Czy macie wodę? English moves do or is to the front; Polish just…
- 📐The present tense: -m, -sz, -my, -cie, -ąThe present-tense endings are short and recognizable: -m for I, -sz for you, and he has no ending at all.
- 📐False friends: list is a letter, recepta is a prescriptionA few Polish words look like English ones and mean something else. list is a letter; a list is lista. recepta is a…
- 📐Negation is simply nie before the verbTo say no, put nie in front of the verb as a separate word: nie rozumiem, nie idę. There is no helper like English…
- 📐Drożej, taniej, lepiej: the comparative degreeTo say cheaper or older, add -szy or -ejszy to the adjective: drogi → droższy, tani → tańszy, stary → starszy. It works…
- 📐Two chairs and two men: how this language countsPolish has no special form for two things: after two the noun is simply plural. But the word two itself changes with…
- 📐The at-form: w aptece, na targu — where it ends in -e and -uTo say where something is, Polish uses the at-form of the noun. It appears only after w, na, po, o and przy.
- 📐The past tense: robiłem, robiłam — gender in every formThe past tense is one word ending in -łem or -łam. A man says robiłem, a woman says robiłam, and both mean I did.
- 📐Requests: proszę + infinitive settles everythingThe imperative exists here too: czekaj — wait, pij — drink, jedz — eat. But a bare command sounds harsher than in…
- 📐The future: zrobię or będę robił — two pathsEnglish has one future, with will. Polish has two, and the choice depends on the kind of verb.
- 📐pływać or płynąć: two verbs of motionEnglish swim covers what Polish splits into two verbs. Pływać is swimming in general: as a skill, a habit or for fun.…
- 📐Two verbs for one deed: zakładać and założyćMost Polish verbs come in pairs: one for the process, one for the finished result. Zakładać is to be putting on…
- 📐Kocham cię: the short pronounsSome pronouns have two shapes, a long one and a short one. The long one is for emphasis and after prepositions: Kocham…
- 📐Must, can, not allowed: musisz, możesz, trzeba, wolnoFour words cover almost all modality, and mixing them up is expensive. Musieć is obligation: Muszę gotować — I must…
- 📐Ten, ta, to: this — and tamten: thatPolish has two pointing words: ten — this, close by, and tamten — that, further away. Both change with the gender of…
- 📐No subject: jest zimno, trzeba, wolno, mówiąA huge share of everyday phrases get by without a subject — without anyone acting. The predicate stands in the neuter…
- 📐Bardzo, dość, za — and judgement: może, chyba, niestetyThe degree of a quality is measured with a short ruler: trochę — a little, dość — quite, bardzo — very, za — too. They…
- 📐Że, bo, jeśli, kiedy: two thoughts in one sentenceFour conjunctions sew short phrases into connected speech: że — that, bo — because, jeśli — if, kiedy — when. That is…
- 📐Mój, twój, swój: the ending says whose it isPossessives work like adjectives and change not with the owner but with the thing: mój brat, moja siostra, moje dzieci…
- 📐Który: which — and the comma English does not writeKtóry adds a second half to a sentence to describe a noun, like English who, which and that. Znam studenta, który…
- 📐Dużo, mało, kilka: after a quantity comes the of-formAfter words of quantity the noun takes the of-form, the shape it has where English says of: dużo pieniędzy — a lot of…
- 📐By: condition and politeness — zrobiłbym, chciałabymTo say would, Polish adds the little word by to a past-tense verb. The two fuse into one word: zrobił + by + m =…
- 📐The most: the prefix naj- on top of the comparativeYou have already built the comparative: dobry → lepszy, drogi → droższy. The superlative is made from it by one move…
- 📐Za drogi, tak samo miękki, dwa razy większy: words around the adjectiveToo here is za right before the adjective: za drogi, za mały, za zimno. It is not the same as bardzo: bardzo drogi is…
- 📐Pojechać, przyjechać, wyjechać: motion with a prefixPolish has two basic verbs of going: iść — on foot, and jechać — by any vehicle. English go covers both, so first ask…
- 📐Reported speech: powiedział, że... — and the tense never shiftsThe tense in someone else's words does not change. What the person said stays in the tense it was said in: Powiedział…
- 📐The passive: został rozpatrzony — the language of institutionsOfficial Polish often leaves out who did it. Letters from an office and police reports are full of such sentences…
- 📐Cause, purpose, concession: dlatego, przez, żeby, chociażPolish has short words for why, what for and despite what.
- 📐Się: where to put it — and why it cannot be the first wordsię always sits close to a verb and never starts a sentence. Mylę się — I'm wrong. Się mylę is simply impossible, and a…
- 📐Pracowity, cierpliwy, porywczy: what character adjectives are made ofAlmost all character adjectives are assembled from a familiar stem and a short tail. The tail is not decoration: it…
- 📐Wstyd mi, żal mi, mam dość: feelings in the dativeSome feelings in Polish need no verb. You take a noun and add a to-whom pronoun: Wstyd mi — literally shame to me, I'm…
- 📐Ciastko, cukierek, ogóreczek: diminutives and why there are so manyThe local kitchen speaks in diminutives more than English ever does, and it is not baby talk. Half of them are separate…
- 📐Z wełny, wełniany, nożem: made of, made how, made withEnglish uses of, -en words and with for material and tools. Polish splits them into three patterns.
- 📐Pisać → napisać, podpisać, przepisać: the prefix makes aspect and meaningOne stem yields half a dozen verbs, and only the prefix tells them apart. pisać — to write; napisać — to write down…
- 📐Pada, grzmi, jest pochmurno: the weather without a subjectAbout the weather a Pole speaks three ways, and the borders between them do not run where English would put them. The…
- 📐Na or w, do or za: the preposition and the ending decide where and where toSeveral prepositions of place do double duty: with one ending they mean where to, with another they mean where. English…
- 📐Udało mi się, idzie mi, niezręcznie mi: to-me instead of IWhere English says I, Polish often says to me: udało mi się, idzie mi słabo, niezręcznie mi. There is no subject in…
- 📐Pamiętać, zapamiętać, przypomnieć sobie: the verbs of memoryEnglish splits memory into remember, memorise, recall and remind. Polish makes the same splits with verbs from one old…
- 📐Niestety, obawiam się, może innym razem: how a soft refusal is builtA refusal is built in three steps here, and a bare nie is the lowest and rudest rung of that ladder. Learning the steps…
- 📐What is your job: -nik, -arz, -ec, -ca and the obligatory feminineA job title here is almost always derived from an object or a verb. Once you take apart a few tails, you will start…
- 📐Dopełniacz: the of-form you need to buy breadPolish grammar books call it dopełniacz. Here it is the of-form: the shape a noun takes where English would often say…
- 📐Plural about people: człowiek → ludzie, dziecko → dzieciPlurals of words for people are where Polish gets irregular. There is no rule to learn here, just a handful of very…
- 📐From a verb — a noun: the odsłownik in -anie, -enie, -cieNouns are made from verbs here more readily than in English, and one tail with three shapes is prepared for the job. It…
- 📐Grać w, grać na, uprawiać, chodzić na: what you do and which case it takesEnglish says play football, play the guitar, do sport and go to the gym. Polish uses a different pattern for each, and…
- 📐Dwa metry, pięć metrów: the noun after the numberAfter a number the noun changes shape. English only adds -s; Polish has three patterns.
- 📐Celownik: the dative after dzięki, przeciwko and verbs like helpThe dative, celownik in Polish, is the to-whom form. You meet it in every thank you.
- 📐Na święta, w sobotę, o ósmej: time and occasion through prepositionsPolish sets out time with prepositions, much as English uses on, at and in. Each one has its own occasions.
- 📐Podobno, rzekomo, miał przyjechać: how to show the words are not yoursEnglish marks other people's words with allegedly, supposedly, they say. Here it is done with an adverb, a phrase and a…
- 📐Lepiej, nie lepszy: degrees of the adverb and the jak naj- patternAn adjective answers what kind, an adverb answers how — and English translates both well and better alike, hence all…
- 📐Gdzie or dokąd: two questions, and the case changes behind themEnglish often uses one little word for place and for motion. The cup is on the table; put it on the table. Polish keeps…
- 📐Zużyty, pomięty, wyblakły: the participle that works as an adjectiveAlmost all the words about the state of a thing are not true adjectives but forms of verbs. Once you see the seam, you…
- 📐Narzędnik: the with-case and its prepositions z, przed, nad, podThe with-form lives two lives here. The instrument stands without a preposition: kroję chleb nożem, piszę długopisem.…
- 📐Robić or zrobić: aspect, and why the prefix changes more than meaningThe verbs of a deed's progress stand in pairs: zaczynać and zacząć, kończyć and skończyć. These are not synonyms but…
- 📐Połowa, jedna trzecia, dwa razy: share, multiple and differenceParts, times and differences each have their own pattern.
- 📐Lód topnieje, plastik się rozkłada: what happens by itselfTalk about nature is full of sentences with no doer at all: ice melts, plastic breaks down, a river gets polluted.…
- 📐Jakość, stabilność, bogactwo: from a quality — a nounMany abstract nouns in Polish are built from words you already know. Learn the pattern and you can decode new ones at a…
- 📐Tymczasem, natomiast, zaś: the switching wordsA story often runs along two lines at once: I was cooking, meanwhile he was cleaning. Polish joins such lines with one…
- 📐Zabawnie czy zabawny: the tails of the adverb of judgementTo judge a story here means to produce an adverb: zabawnie, napinająco, rozwlekle. It is built from an adjective or a…
- 📐Według kogo? Other people's words with an addressTo pass on what someone else says, Polish often names the source: according to whom, in whose opinion.
What works differently from what you know
Politeness in Polish is built into the verb: a stranger is addressed in the third person — Pan wie, “you know” — literally “the sir knows”. The second person in a first conversation sounds overly familiar, and in letters Pan and Pani are capitalized.
Oscar E. Swan, «A Grammar of Contemporary Polish», Slavica, 2002
What is hard about Polish and what comes for free
Hard: seven cases with endings that never match English prepositions, and aspect pairs like zakładać i założyć that have to be learned together.
Easy: no articles, and the cases and verb aspects work the way their English glosses suggest once you have seen one example.
This is not a verdict on the language but a hint on where to spend effort. The hard parts are best taken a little at a time and often; the easy parts — left alone while they work by themselves.
Frequently asked
Is the grammar of Polish complicated?
Seven cases with endings that never match English prepositions, and aspect pairs like zakładać i założyć that have to be learned together is the main difficulty. In return, no articles, and the cases and verb aspects work the way their English glosses suggest once you have seen one example.
Should grammar be learned separately?
Not as a separate course. A rule learned before you need it is forgotten before you meet it. It is more useful to work it out at the moment you stumble over it.