za wszelką cenę
“za wszelką cenę” — at any cost in Polish. Phrase, level B1. Literally "for any price": at any cost. After za comes the object form. The negative — for no price at all — is exactly how a refusal sounds. In a live sentence: “Chciał wygrać za wszelką cenę” — He wanted to win at any cost. A word from the everyday Polish course, level B1.
In short
| Written in Polish | za wszelką cenę |
| Translation | at any cost |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | B1 |
Why it looks that way
Literally "for any price": at any cost. After za comes the object form. The negative — for no price at all — is exactly how a refusal sounds.
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.
- Chciał wygrać za wszelką cenęHe wanted to win at any cost
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 “at any cost” in Polish?
«za wszelką cenę». In a live sentence: “Chciał wygrać za wszelką cenę” — He wanted to win at any cost. Phrase, level B1.
Why does this word look the way it does?
Literally "for any price": at any cost. After za comes the object form. The negative — for no price at all — is exactly how a refusal sounds. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.