rachunek, proszę
“rachunek, proszę” — the bill, please in Polish. Phrase, level A1, topic — at a café and a restaurant. Rachunek is literally "a reckoning": the bill in a café, the bank account, and the receipt in a shop are all one word. In a live sentence: “Rachunek, proszę!” — The bill, please! One of 9 words in the set “at a café and a restaurant” in the Polish course.
In short
| Written in Polish | rachunek, proszę |
| Translation | the bill, please |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | A1 |
Why it looks that way
Rachunek is literally "a reckoning": the bill in a café, the bank account, and the receipt in a shop are all one word.
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.
- Rachunek, proszę!The bill, please!
Nearby words: at a café and a restaurant
Order, ask the price, ask for the bill. A short and entirely predictable conversation — a convenient place to test yourself for the first time.
- kawacoffeeFeminine, and the gender shows: ta kawa. It is brewed weaker than in Italy, and Poland grows plenty of its own kinds: kawa z mlekiem — "coffee with milk".
- herbatateathe h is sounded: "her-BAH-tah"
- piwobeerMatches sound and spelling letter for letter. Beer is measured by size: duże — large, małe — small.
- winowineMatches sound and meaning at once. Poland is not a wine country — beer is the likelier order — but the word earns its keep in shops.
- chcęI wantthe opening chc is no typo — it is pronounced: "khtsen"
- restauracjarestaurantA place with a full dinner and a bill. Cheaper and homier is the bar mleczny, the "milk bar", where soup still costs pennies.
- kawiarniacoffeehouseFrom kawa. A place people sit in for hours by design, not by abuse. The word itself arrived by way of the Italian cave.
- kawiarniacaféYou have met kawiarnia as a coffeehouse: one Polish word serves both, and only context tells them apart. Feminine; "in the café" is w kawiarni, with the ending used after w.
Test yourself
Five questions from the same set — “at a café and a restaurant”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.
- How do you say “the bill, please” in Polish?
Rachunek is literally "a reckoning": the bill in a café, the bank account, and the receipt in a shop are all one word.
- How do you say “coffeehouse” in Polish?
From kawa. A place people sit in for hours by design, not by abuse. The word itself arrived by way of the Italian cave.
- How do you say “I want” in Polish?
Chcę is about wanting, muszę about obligation. After chcę comes an infinitive: Chcę zapłacić — "I want to pay".
- How do you say “beer” in Polish?
Matches sound and spelling letter for letter. Beer is measured by size: duże — large, małe — small.
- How do you say “coffee” in Polish?
Feminine, and the gender shows: ta kawa. It is brewed weaker than in Italy, and Poland grows plenty of its own kinds: kawa z mlekiem — "coffee with milk".
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 “the bill, please” in Polish?
«rachunek, proszę». In a live sentence: “Rachunek, proszę!” — The bill, please! Phrase, level A1, from the set “at a café and a restaurant”.
Why does this word look the way it does?
Rachunek is literally "a reckoning": the bill in a café, the bank account, and the receipt in a shop are all one word. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.