dopóki nie
“dopóki nie” — until (something happens) in Polish. Phrase, level B1, topic — time, days and hours. The negation is obligatory, as in English: Wait until I come back. And the bare until-word means "while" — while it lasts. In a live sentence: “Czekaj tutaj, dopóki nie wrócę” — Wait here until I come back. One of 136 words in the set “time, days and hours” in the Polish course.
In short
| Written in Polish | dopóki nie |
| Translation | until (something happens) |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | B1 |
Why it looks that way
The negation is obligatory, as in English: Wait until I come back. And the bare until-word means "while" — while it lasts.
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- Czekaj tutaj, dopóki nie wrócęWait here until I come back
Nearby words: time, days and hours
Today, tomorrow, in the morning, at six. You cannot arrange to meet without these — let alone understand the answer.
- godzinahourBoth the unit of time and the time of day: Która godzina? — "what time is it?". The watch on your wrist is zegarek, never godzina.
- dzieńdaySaid with a soft "djen". Partings wish you Dobrego dnia! — "of a good day".
- dzisiajtodayBoth dzisiaj and the shorter dziś — the same thing, both built from dzień: literally "of this day".
- jutrotomorrowThe famous impostor of the language family: in more than one neighbor language jutro means "morning", here it means "tomorrow". The Polish morning is rano.
- wczorajyesterdayw is "v", cz is "ch": "fchorai"
- ranomorningThe trap-pair of jutro: the morning is rano, and jutro is tomorrow. Everyone who came from a neighboring course stumbles here first.
- wieczóreveningó is oo: "VEH-choor"
- nocnightMatches sound and spelling letter for letter; feminine: długa noc. At night is w nocy.
- śniadaniebreakfastThe word the day starts with: jeść śniadanie — "to have breakfast", literally "to eat breakfast". In a hotel śniadanie w cenie — "breakfast included" — is the first line of any booking.
- obiaddinner, main mealThe main meal of the day — and not in the evening, but at midday, about one o'clock. The word is the same as in several neighbors, but the hour it sits at is not.
Test yourself
Five questions from the same set — “time, days and hours”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.
- How do you say “until (something happens)” in Polish?
The negation is obligatory, as in English: Wait until I come back. And the bare until-word means "while" — while it lasts.
- How do you say “evening” in Polish?
Not to be confused with wiele, "much". In the evening is wieczorem — one word doing the whole job.
- How do you say “today” in Polish?
Both dzisiaj and the shorter dziś — the same thing, both built from dzień: literally "of this day".
- How do you say “dinner, main meal” in Polish?
The main meal of the day — and not in the evening, but at midday, about one o'clock. The word is the same as in several neighbors, but the hour it sits at is not.
- How do you say “morning” in Polish?
The trap-pair of jutro: the morning is rano, and jutro is tomorrow. Everyone who came from a neighboring course stumbles here first.
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “until (something happens)” in Polish?
«dopóki nie». In a live sentence: “Czekaj tutaj, dopóki nie wrócę” — Wait here until I come back. Phrase, level B1, from the set “time, days and hours”.
Why does this word look the way it does?
The negation is obligatory, as in English: Wait until I come back. And the bare until-word means "while" — while it lasts. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.