tam
“tam” — there in Polish. Adverb, level A1, topic — asking the way. The partner of tutaj. Direction is a separate word: tam idę — "I am going over there". Place and direction get different words. In a live sentence: “Tam na rogu jest apteka” — The pharmacy is there, on the corner. One of 18 words in the set “asking the way” in the Polish course.
In short
| Written in Polish | tam |
| Translation | there |
| Part of speech | adverb |
| Level | A1 |
Why it looks that way
The partner of tutaj. Direction is a separate word: tam idę — "I am going over there". Place and direction get different words.
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.
- Tam na rogu jest aptekaThe pharmacy is there, on the corner
Nearby words: asking the way
Right, left, straight on, how far. You ask the way rarely — and always at the moment when there is no time to work it out.
- gdzie jest?where is?Gdzie is "where", dokąd is "where to" — and Polish keeps them apart as strictly as English keeps "where" and "whither": gdzie idziesz? is simply wrong.
- tutajhereIn speech it shrinks to tu: Tu mieszkam — "this is where I live".
- w prawoto the rightLiterally "into [the] right". Place and direction are kept strictly apart: po prawej — "on the right", w prawo — "to the right".
- w lewoto the leftThe partner of w prawo: w lewo — to the left, po lewej — on the left. One letter decides half the street signs.
- prostostraight aheadLooks like the word for "simple" and means "straight". The stress sits on the first syllable — the one word in the phrase where it moves.
- bliskocloseSaid the way it looks. The place after it takes the of-form: blisko dworca — "close to the station". Very close is całkiem blisko.
- dalekofarSaid the way it looks. Czy to daleko? is the traveler's first question, and the answer nie, blisko is the best one going.
- jak dojść dohow to get to (on foot)Literally "how to walk up to": on foot it is dojść, and do puts the place into its of-form — do dworca. In a car you would ask about dojechać.
- dotrzećto get toTo reach a destination, usually with effort: dotrzeć do domu, but dotrzeć na lotnisko. In the past: dotarliśmy późno.
- po drugiej stronieon the other sideStrona is "side"; after po both words change their ending, the way they do after w and na: po drugiej stronie ulicy.
Test yourself
Five questions from the same set — “asking the way”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.
- How do you say “there” in Polish?
The partner of tutaj. Direction is a separate word: tam idę — "I am going over there". Place and direction get different words.
- How do you say “far” in Polish?
Said the way it looks. Czy to daleko? is the traveler's first question, and the answer nie, blisko is the best one going.
- How do you say “to the right” in Polish?
Literally "into [the] right". Place and direction are kept strictly apart: po prawej — "on the right", w prawo — "to the right".
- How do you say “on the other side” in Polish?
Strona is "side"; after po both words change their ending, the way they do after w and na: po drugiej stronie ulicy.
- How do you say “close” in Polish?
Said the way it looks. The place after it takes the of-form: blisko dworca — "close to the station". Very close is całkiem blisko.
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 “there” in Polish?
«tam». In a live sentence: “Tam na rogu jest apteka” — The pharmacy is there, on the corner. Adverb, level A1, from the set “asking the way”.
Why does this word look the way it does?
The partner of tutaj. Direction is a separate word: tam idę — "I am going over there". Place and direction get different words. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.