Introduction

Introduction

These Tips & Notes contain an overview of the concepts introduced in the skill. Studying them will give you a better understanding of the way Polish language works.

Before starting, please know one crucial thing. Despite what you may have heard, Polish DOES NOT have a free word order. It has a relatively free word order. That means that some word orders will be correct and natural, some will be 'technically not wrong, but weird', some will only suit poetry and songs, and some will simply be wrong.

In general, the new and most important piece of information lands at the end of the Polish sentence. This makes certain word orders 'technically not wrong, but weird' - some things are just a lot less likely to be stressed than others.

Another thing that the beginners often get wrong: the special character ł (capital: Ł) is a variant of L, not of T. We highly recommend using all special characters, as they are simply different letters with different pronunciation, but if you decide to not do that, please don't try writing "chtopiec" or "jabtko" with a T.

Nouns: Grammatical cases

Being an inflected language, Polish has seven grammatical cases. Pronouns, nouns and their accompanying adjectives take different forms that indicate their role in the sentence.

Most of the nouns you are going to encounter in this skill are in the Nominative case (shortened as Nom.) This “basic” case is used when the noun is the subject of the sentence – the entity that is doing something. A noun in the Nominative does not have any special ending, as it is the most basic form of the word.

Polish cases are so essential that it is often impossible to form a simple phrase without the use of cases other than the Nominative. Still, Polish people should still be able to understand you even if you happen to use a word in the incorrect case. Do not get discouraged and remember that practice makes perfect – the more you interact with the language, the better your grammar will be.

In these initial lessons you may sometimes stumble upon nouns in the Instrumental or Accusative. For now, you should be able to form basic sentences with the help of the hints attached to particular words. In the following skills we will gradually introduce you to the rules governing Polish declension.

Verbs: Present Tense

Polish verbs have three basic tenses for indicating past, present and future. There are some quirks to this, but we will deal with them much later. At first, you will be only using Present Tense verb forms.

Polish verbs conjugate – they take various forms depending on the person performing the action. The first few skills will teach you the basic rules of Polish conjugation.

Unlike in English, there is no distinction between Present Simple and Present Continuous verbs at the basic level (He drinks. vs. He is drinking.). Both English variants are translated into Polish exactly the same way (in this case: On pije.)

When translating from English, please remember not to make the relatively common mistake of treating the Present Continuous construction as two separate verbs. "He is drinking" has just one verb, you cannot translate it as "On jest pije", which would basically mean the same as "He is he drinks".

There are some exceptions (Present Simple and Present Continuous being translated into completely different Polish verbs), but almost all of them are Verbs of Motion and will be discussed later in this course.

Articles

Polish does not have any articles. Nonetheless, when translating from Polish, you have to remember to form correct English sentences. It is not acceptable to skip articles if it results in the English sentence being ungrammatical – “He is boy” is not going to be accepted.

Pronouns and Conjugation

Here is a table containing all Polish pronouns, along with examples of their use:

English Pronoun	Polish Pronoun	Example
I	ja	Ja lubię mleko — I like milk.	jestem
you (singular)	ty	Ty lubisz mleko.— You like milk.	jesteś
he	on	On lubi mleko. — He likes milk.	jest
she	ona	Ona lubi mleko. — She likes milk.	jest
it	ono	Ono lubi mleko. — It likes milk.
we	my	My lubimy mleko.— We like milk.	jesteśmy
you (plural)	wy	Wy lubicie mleko— You like milk.	jesteście
they (only groups of people including a male)	oni	Oni lubią mleko.— They like milk.
they (all other groups)	one	One lubią mleko.— They like milk.	są

Note how verbs conjugate when the pronoun changes. Present tense verb forms for on, ona and ono are always identical.

ono is really rarely used – mostly when referring to children when their gender is not specified, but even then it may be easier to just say "to dziecko" (this child). It does not work like "it" in a sentence "It is a child".

oni and one

oni and one are both translated as they. However, they are used in different contexts.

oni is used to refer to groups that contain at least one male person. In other words, both all-male and mixed male and female groups are referred to as oni.

one is used to refer to groups that do not contain any male persons. As personal pronouns are relatively rarely used in Polish to denote anything else than people, that means that almost always one will be used for all-female groups.

ty vs wy

Unlike standard English, Polish has a clear distinction between singular 'you' (when talking/referring to one person) and plural 'you' (when talking/referring to two or more people). What is important to remember is that unlike such languages like Russian or French, "wy" CANNOT be used as a formal way of addressing one person.

There are five possible ways of addressing someone formally: pan (sir), pani (ma'am), panowie (gentlemen), panie (ladies) and państwo (to a mixed couple/group). They use 3rd person verbs, singular or plural respectively.

Those forms are taught later in the Formal You skill, but it is advisable to be aware of them from the beginning, as addressing strangers informally is pretty rude in Polish - although they will likely be more forgiving to a foreigner who learns to speak their language.

Omitting pronouns

In Polish, a sentence where the subject pronoun has been omitted is still perfectly grammatical and in fact often more natural.

When talking about yourself, you usually skip the ja pronoun, unless you want to emphasize something. The same goes for all 1st and 2nd person pronouns.

This is because of the way conjugation works. The verb forms used with 1st and 2nd person pronouns are unique for these pronouns. Even if you omit the pronoun, the verb still reveals who the person performing the action is, so there is no need to mention it explicitly.

Omitting 3rd person pronouns may be a bit less common.However, as in real life you have context, it often won't be necessary to use the pronoun. A sentence like "Ma jabłko." ([He/She/It] has an apple) will be understood to refer to a subject that is already known from the context.

As there are separate 3rd person pronouns for different genders, they contain information about the gender of the subject that cannot be in any way deduced from the form of the verb.

Consequently, 3rd person pronouns cannot be ommited in sentences where the gender of the pronoun is used to differentiate between subjects, such as On je jabłko, a ona je chleb (He is eating an apple and she is eating bread).

This lesson does not introduce any new grammatical concepts, so let's use this opportunity to have an overview of Polish letters and their corresponding sounds.

Vowels

letter	Polish example	English approximation	IPA
a	tak	cut	[a]
ą	mają	rose	[ɔw̃] / [ɔm] / [ɔn]
e	chleb	bed	[ɛ]
ę	mężczyzna	sense	[ɛw̃] / [ɛm] / [ɛn] / [ɛ]
i	oni	meet	[i]
o	mleko	pore	[ɔ]
u/ó	lubię/córka	boot	[u]
y	ty	roses	[ɨ] / [ɘ̟]

Note that u and ó are used to represent exactly the same sound.

ą and ę are nasal vowels. When ę is the final sound of the word, the majority of native speakers pronounce it just like a normal e.

When u is preceded by a vowel, it makes the same sound as ł ([w]).

Consonants

letter(s)	Polish example	English approximation	IPA
c	dziecko	cats	[ʦ]
ć	być	cheap	[ʨ]
cz	ciasteczka	chip	[t͡ʂ] / [ʧ]
dz	jedzenie	gods	[ʣ]
dź	niedźwiedź	jeans	[ʥ]
dż	dżem	jam	d͡ʐ] / [ʤ]
h/ch	hak/ch	loch	[x]
j	piję	yes	[j]
ł	chłopiec	will	[w]
ń	koń	onion	[ɲ]
ś	cześć	sheep	[ɕ]
sz	proszę	ship	[ʂ] / [ʃ]
w	mówi	vine	[v]
ź	mężczyźni	vision	[ʑ]
ż/rz	mężczyzna/dobrze	treasure	[ʐ] / [ʒ]

Note that some sounds are represented by a combination of two letters. This is a purely orthographical matter – they are not “longer” or “double” in any way.

ż and rz are used to represent exactly the same sound, the same goes for h and ch.

We have omitted some consonants here (b, d, f, g, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, z). Some of them are pronounced exactly as in English, while in case of the others the difference is rather minor – if you pronounce them like in English, your Polish should still be perfectly understandable.

These are very basic and simplified guidelines. There are still other things that you should learn if you want to fully understand why some words are pronounced the way they are, but we will focus on them at a later stage.

If these tables overwhelm you, remember that you will not encounter all of these right away. While making your way through the course, you will probably be able to slowly get accustomed to Polish letters and sounds. Feel free to come back here later if you have any doubts.

Vocabulary: Salutations and farewells

Dzień dobry is the greeting used mainly in formal situations. You say dzień dobry to greet your teacher, a bank clerk or any person you barely know. Literally, it means good day, but is more often translated as good morning or good afternoon.

Cześć is the usual greeting used in informal situations: between friends, co-workers etc. It is roughly equivalent to hello orhi, but is sometimes also used as a way of saying bye.

Do widzenia is the more formal way of saying goodbye. It is generally used in the same situations where you would use dzień dobry, so it is best translated as goodbye.

Pa or pa pa are a lot less formal – roughly the same as bye and bye bye, they can be considered childish by some.

Dobranoc is reserved for saying goodbye just before you go to bed or generally in the evening – similarly to goodnight.

Vocabulary: po polsku, po angielsku

To say that you speak in some language you use the preposition po and a form of the name of the language ending with -u. polskuand angielsku are in fact old Dative forms and they are not to be found anywhere apart from this one construction. po polsku could

W

chelb

melko

chłopiec

dziewczynka je a girl is eating

kobieta

on he

je jem i eat

Ja piję. I drink

Ja mówię. I speak

On pije wodę. he drinks water

On jest mężczyzną. he is a man

Mężczyzna je jabłko. A man is eating an apple.

(Ja) jestem mężczyzną I am a man

Ona jest kobietą she is a woman.

Phrases

Cześć hi/hello/bye!

Dobrze fine alright well

dziękuję.

Tak

Witaj! welcome

Nie, ona pijemleko.

Dzień dobry. gm

Dobranoc. gn

Przepraszam. I am sorry

Do widzenia i dobranoc. goodbye and gn.

Ona mówi dobranoc. she is saying gn

mówisz po polsku (you sg.) speak Polish (you) speak (you) are speaking (you) are talking

Ona mówi po angielsku i po polsku.