Polish is, on the whole, not considered one of the easier languages to learn. Actually, we classify it as one of the hardest for English speakers to conquer. While the alphabet looks similar to the English one, there are many tricky topics in Polish that contribute to this difficulty. There’s the conjugation of nouns, the numerals with grammatical gender, the tenses and the cases, to name just a few.
While you won’t master Polish by reading a single article, we put together a brief guide to introduce you to some of these aspects of the language. It should give you a good starting point for learning Polish.
Polish Nouns
The first thing to know is that Polish nouns have seven possible cases. A case is the role that the noun plays in a sentence. The nominative case, for example, is for when a noun is the subject of a sentence. In English, nouns are the same no matter what case they’re in, but in Polish you have to conjugate the nouns. While it may be difficult at first, you can usually figure out what case a word is in by reformulating a sentence into a question. Here are the seven cases, the questions those cases answer and an example of a noun being conjugated.
Mianownik (Nominative)
Answers The Questions: Kto? (“Who?”) and Co? (“What?”)
Example: Kto jest przede mną? Mała dziewczynka. (“Who is in front of me? The little girl.”)
Dopełniacz (Genitive)
Answers The Questions: Kogo? (“Whom?”) and Czego? (“What?”)
Example: Kogo nie ma? Małej dziewczynki. (“Who is not there? A little girl.”)
Celownik (Dative)
Answers The Questions: Komu? (“Whom?”) and Czemu? (“Why?”)
Example: Komu się przyglądam? Małej dziewczynce. (“Whom am I looking at? A little girl.”)
Biernik (Accusative)
Answers The Questions: Kogo? (“Whom?”) and Co? (“What?”)
Example: Kogo widzę? Małą dziewczynkę. (“Whom do I see? A little girl.”)
Narzędnik (Instrumental)
Answers The Questions: Z kim? (“With whom?”) and Z czym? (“With what?”)
Example: Z kim idę? Z małą dziewczynką. (“With whom am I going? With a little girl.”)
Miejscownik (Locative)
Answers The Questions: O kim? (“About whom?”) and O czym? (“About what?”)
Example: O kim opowiadam? O małej dziewczynce. (“Who am I talking about? A little girl.”)
Wołacz (Vocative)
Answers The Questions: Unlike the other cases, this one doesn’t really answer a question. The vocative case is used in exclamations, like when you’re calling to someone.
Example: Mała dziewczynko! (“Little girl!”)
In addition to cases, a Polish noun has one of three genders. There’s męskim (“masculine,” e.g. tata “dad”), żeńskim (“feminine,” e.g. dziewczynka “little girl”) and nijakim (“neuter,” e.g. dziecko “child”).
Polish Verbs
Polish verbs are also conjugated, though this is slightly less surprising because the same thing happens in English. As with English, Polish verbs are conjugated based on their tense and mode. To start, the three tenses are czas przeszły (“past tense”), czas teraźniejszy (“present tense”) and czas przyszły (“future tense”). For the future tense, you have two options: simple and compound, the latter of which uses an auxiliary verb to express the future tense. English doesn’t have a future tense conjugation, so always uses a compound future form.
- Past Tense — Tata zrobił zakupy. (“Dad did the shopping.”)
- Present Tense — Tata robi zakupy. (“Dad is doing the shopping.”)
- Future Tense (Simple) — Tata zrobi zakupy. (“Dad will do the shopping.”)
- Future Tense (Compound) — Tata będzie robił zakupy. (“Dad will do the shopping.”)
In addition to those three tenses, there are also modes. Polish has oznajmujący (“indicative”), przypuszczający (“conditional”) and rozkazujący (“imperative”) modes.
- Indicative — Ty gotujesz obiad. (“You are cooking dinner.”)
- Conditional — Ty ugotowałbyś/ugotowałabyś obiad. (“You would cook dinner.”)
- Imperative — Ugotuj obiad! (“Cook dinner!”)
One more way that verbs can differ in Polish depends on whether they’re in an active, passive or reflexive sentence.
- Active — Mama myje małą dziewczynkę. (“The mother washes the girl.”)
- Passive — Mała dziewczynka jest myta przez mamę. (“The girl is being washed by the mother.”)
- Reflexive — Mała dziewczynka się myje. (“The girl is washing herself.”)
Polish Adjectives
Adjectives, like nouns, are also conjugated based on case. Fortunately, they’re not really a particularly tricky topic in Polish. Here are a few adjectives presented with their opposites.
- mały, duży — small, big
- niski, wysoki — low, high
- lekki, ciężki — light, heavy
- tani, drogi — cheap, expensive
- dobry, zły — good, bad
- gorący, zimny — hot, cold
- szczęśliwy, nieszczęśliwy — happy, unhappy
- miły, niemiły — nice, not nice
- mądry, głupi — clever, stupid
- zdrowy, chory — healthy, ill
- młody, stary — young, old
As seen in a few of the examples above, you can negate and adjective by adding the prefix nie- to it, so that it becomes its opposite.
Polish Numbers
Lastly, we have the Polish numbers. While the numbers (one, two, three) work the same as in English — and find our lengthier guide to counting in Polish here — the ordinals (first, second, third) are conjugated based on grammatical gender. Below, we have the number followed by the masculine and then the feminine in parentheses.
1 — jeden (pierwszy, pierwsza)
2 — dwa (drugi, druga)
3 — trzy (trzeci, trzecia)
4 — cztery (czwarty, czwarta)
5 — pięć (piąty, piąta)
6 — sześć (szósty, szósta)
7 — siedem (siódmy, siódma)
8 — osiem (ósmy, ósma)
9 — dziewięć (dziewiąty, dziewiąta)
10 — dziesięć (dziesiąty, dziesiąta)
11 — jedenaście (jedenasty, jedenasta)
12 — dwanaście (dwunasty, dwunasta)
13 — trzynaście (trzynasty, trzynasta)
14 — czternaście (czternasty, czternasta)
15 — piętnaście (piętnasty, piętnasta)
16 — szesnaście (szesnasty, szesnasta)
17 — siedemnaście (siedemnasty, siedemnasta)
18 — osiemnaście (osiemnasty, osiemnasta)
19 — dziewiętnaście (dziewiętnasty, dziewiętnasta)
20 — dwadzieścia (dwudziesty, dwudziesta)
21 — dwadzieścia jeden (dwudziesty pierwszy, dwudziesta pierwsza)
100 — sto (setny, setna)
1,000 — tysiąc (tysięczny, tysięczna)
10,000 — dziesięć tysięcy (dziesięć tysięczny, dziesięć tysięczna)
100,000 — sto tysięcy (stutysięczny, stutysięczna)
1,000,000 — milion (milionowy, milionowa)