At least 50 million people worldwide speak Polish, a language that joins with Czech and Slovak to comprise the West-Slavic group of Indo-European languages. In addition to serving as Poland's official means of communication, it is also a commonly spoken second tongue in Belarus, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine. Natives of these countries join the large number of people worldwide who understand the shaded nuances of this distinctive vernacular.
Polish Nouns and Adjectives
Those who begin a study of the Polish language will also find that many Polish vocabulary words have Latin roots that make them immediately recognizable. They will also quickly see that there is no need to match the gender of an article to a noun. That's because the Polish language contains no articles whatsoever, relying instead on inflection to clarify the meaning of a sentence.
The Polish language designates every noun and adjective as either masculine, feminine or neuter. With the exception of nouns referring to male or female animals, the gender of these words normally has little to do with their specific attributes. An adjective will vary in gender to match that of the noun it modifies.
Polish Vocabulary: Word Order and Dropped Words
The Polish language places somewhat less importance on the precise order of words within a sentence than it does on the meaning of the words themselves. Nevertheless, the order of Polish words will usually follow a standard sequence of subject, predicate and object. In addition, adjectives will normally precede the nouns they modify.
In Polish, the practice of dropping words is common. Speakers will nearly always leave out the words "you," "my" and "your." It is also more customary to drop the subject of a sentence than the object. While a Polish declaration will always tell you the recipient of an action, it may leave to your imagination a definitive sense of who or what performed it.
Learning Polish Vocabulary the Babbel Way
Some call Babbel the best-available way to learn a language on the go. The Polish vocabulary lists and speech recognition capability offered by our affordable interactive lessons make learning Polish words easy and fun. Our ad-free interface reduces distractions, and our wide array of IOS, Android and Win8 Apps makes our method ideal for mobile learning.
Babbel Offers a Simple Interface: Our origins as a social media site lend to Babbel an uncomplicated interface with a strong community component that continues to this day. In this way, we make it simple to chat with others who are also immersing themselves in the Polish language.
Babbel Brings You Back to the Basics: Unlike other learning sites, we believe that an emphasis on writing and grammar skills will help to ground you in Polish vocabulary basics. Our offering of engaging games and multimedia exercises enables you to make quick work of learning Polish words while deepening your skills in listening, speaking and writing.