Each example below has three parts: the original text, a literal gloss describing how every word works, and a natural translation. The glosses use a few shorthand labels so they stay short. Don't worry about memorising them — this is a reference you can come back to. Person and number · 1sg / 2sg / 3sg — first / second / third person singular (I, you, he/she/it) · 1pl / 2pl / 3pl — first / second / third person plural (we, you-all, they) Gender and case · m / f / n — masculine / feminine / neuter · sg / pl — singular / plural · m.sg — combined: masculine singular (and similarly f.pl, n.sg, etc.) · NOM / ACC / GEN / DAT / INS / LOC — grammatical cases (nominative/accusative/genitive/dative/instrumental/locative) — which role the word plays in the sentence Tense and aspect · PRES — present · PRET — preterite (a finished past event) · IMPF — imperfect (an ongoing or habitual past situation) · FUT — future · PERF — perfect (an action completed with present relevance) · PROG — progressive (action in progress, e.g. am eating) · COND — conditional (would…) Mood · IND — indicative (regular statement) · SUBJ — subjunctive (uncertainty, wishes, doubts) · IMP — imperative (commands) · INF — infinitive (dictionary form: to go, to eat) Other · REFL — reflexive (action on oneself: myself, yourself) · PERS — personal a (Spanish only — marks a human direct object) · HON — honorific (extra-polite form, common in Japanese/Korean) · TOP / SUB / OBJ — topic / subject / object markers (Japanese, Korean) · CL — classifier (Chinese, Japanese, Korean — a counter word for nouns) · NEG — negation
The default order is Subject-Verb-Object, just like English. However, because Polish marks the grammatical role of each noun with case endings, word order is much more flexible than in English: you can move pieces around to shift emphasis without changing the basic meaning. The element placed first usually carries the topic, and the element placed last often carries new or stressed information. In neutral sentences, stick with SVO until you internalize the cases. Adjectives normally precede the noun they describe (a 'classifying' adjective may follow). Subject pronouns are usually dropped because the verb ending already shows the person.
Polish has no equivalent of 'a/an' or 'the'. A bare noun can be definite or indefinite depending on context. Definiteness is signalled, when needed, by word order (known information tends to come first, new information last), by demonstratives like 'ten/ta/to' (this), 'tamten/tamta/tamto' (that), or by indefinite words like 'jakiś/jakaś/jakieś' (some, a certain). When translating from English, simply drop the article. When translating into English, supply 'a' or 'the' based on whether the noun has been mentioned before or is unique in context.
Every noun has a grammatical gender that controls adjective and past-tense endings. Beginners learn three: masculine, feminine, and neuter. You can usually tell from the ending of the nominative singular: most masculine nouns end in a consonant (stół, kot, pan), most feminine nouns end in -a (kobieta, książka), most neuter nouns end in -o, -e, -ę, or -um (okno, morze, imię, muzeum). Advanced learners later split masculine into three subgenders (masculine-personal for male humans, masculine-animate for animals, masculine-inanimate for objects), which matters mainly in the accusative singular and in the plural.
Polish nouns, adjectives, and pronouns change endings according to seven cases. Nominative (mianownik) marks the subject and the dictionary form. Accusative (biernik) marks the direct object of most verbs. Genitive (dopełniacz) marks possession, 'of', the object of negation, and most quantities. Dative (celownik) marks the indirect object ('to/for someone'). Instrumental (narzędnik) marks the means or instrument ('with/by'), and follows 'być' with a profession. Locative (miejscownik) is used only after certain prepositions of location ('in, on, at'). Vocative (wołacz) is used to address someone directly. Cases replace much of what English does with prepositions and word order.
Personal pronouns in the nominative are ja (I), ty (you sg.), on/ona/ono (he/she/it), my (we), wy (you pl.), oni (they, masc. personal) / one (they, all other groups). They are usually dropped because the verb ending shows the person; use them only for emphasis or contrast. In other cases, common forms include: me - mnie/mi, you - ciebie/cię/tobie/ci, him - jego/go/jemu/mu, her - jej/ją, us - nas/nam, you-pl. - was/wam, them - ich/im/je. Polite address uses pan (sir) / pani (madam) / państwo (ladies and gentlemen) plus a third-person verb, not 'ty'.
Like Russian, Polish verbs come in aspectual pairs: imperfective and perfective. The imperfective describes an action as ongoing, repeated, or habitual, with no implied endpoint (pisać - to write/be writing). The perfective describes the action as a single completed whole, often with a result (napisać - to write and finish). Both members of a pair share a basic meaning but differ in aspect. Perfectives are usually formed by adding a prefix (pisać → napisać, robić → zrobić) or by a stem change (kupować → kupić). Choosing the right aspect is one of the hardest parts of Polish: think 'process' (imperfective) vs 'achievement' (perfective).
Only imperfective verbs have a present tense; perfective 'present-form' conjugations always refer to the future. The infinitive typically ends in -ć. Verbs fall into conjugation classes by their endings; the most common patterns are -m/-sz (mam, masz, ma, mamy, macie, mają), -ę/-isz/-ysz (mówię, mówisz, mówi, mówimy, mówicie, mówią), and -ę/-esz (piszę, piszesz, pisze, piszemy, piszecie, piszą). The endings encode person and number, so the subject pronoun is normally omitted. There is no separate progressive: 'piszę' covers both 'I write' and 'I am writing'.
The Polish past tense is built from the infinitive stem (drop -ć) plus an ending that agrees with the subject in number, person, AND gender. Singular masculine adds -łem/-łeś/-ł, feminine -łam/-łaś/-ła, neuter -ło. Plural splits into masculine-personal (-liśmy/-liście/-li) and 'all other' (-łyśmy/-łyście/-ły). So 'I wrote' is 'pisałem' if you are male, 'pisałam' if you are female. The same applies to perfective verbs: napisałem (m.) / napisałam (f.). The personal endings (-(e)m, -(e)ś, etc.) can detach and 'float' to another stressed word in the sentence, especially after question words.
Polish builds the future in two ways, chosen by aspect. Imperfective verbs use a compound future: a conjugated form of 'być' (będę, będziesz, będzie, będziemy, będziecie, będą) plus either the infinitive or the gendered past-tense participle (będę pisać or będę pisał/pisała). Perfective verbs have no present tense; their present-looking conjugation is in fact a simple future, expressing a completed action to come (napiszę = 'I will write (and finish)'). So a learner picks aspect first, then conjugates: imperfective process = 'będę' + infinitive; perfective result = present-form endings on the perfective verb.
Negate a verb by placing 'nie' directly before it; the two are pronounced as a single unit. Polish uses double (or multiple) negation as standard: 'nikt nic nie wie' = 'nobody knows anything' (literally 'nobody nothing not knows'). A crucial rule: when a transitive verb is negated, its direct object switches from accusative to genitive ('mam czas' → 'nie mam czasu'). For 'there isn't / there aren't', use 'nie ma' (singular form, third person) followed by a genitive noun: 'nie ma chleba' = 'there's no bread'. The positive counterpart 'jest / są' takes the nominative.
Yes/no questions are formed by putting the particle 'czy' at the start of an otherwise normal statement; in casual speech 'czy' is often omitted and only rising intonation marks the question. Wh-questions begin with a question word: co (what), kto (who), gdzie (where), kiedy (when), dlaczego (why), jak (how), ile (how many/much), który/która/które (which). The question word is followed by the verb, with the subject (if expressed) coming after. Question words decline like other pronouns or adjectives: 'kogo' = whom (acc/gen), 'komu' = to whom (dat).
Plural endings depend on gender and, for masculine nouns, on animacy. Feminine and neuter plurals are simpler: feminines in -a usually take -y or -i (kobieta → kobiety, książka → książki); neuters in -o or -e take -a (okno → okna, morze → morza). Masculine plural splits: masculine-personal (groups containing at least one male human) uses -i or -y with consonant changes (student → studenci, Polak → Polacy); masculine non-personal (animals + objects) and all feminines/neuters use a common 'non-virile' plural for verb and adjective agreement. This animacy split also affects adjectives, demonstratives, and the past tense ending.
Adjectives agree with their noun in gender, number, and case. The nominative singular endings are -y/-i for masculine (dobry, tani), -a for feminine (dobra), -e for neuter (dobre). In the plural, masculine-personal takes -i or -y with softening (dobrzy studenci), while everything else takes -e (dobre książki, dobre psy, dobre dzieci). When the noun changes case, the adjective changes too, following its own parallel set of endings (e.g. nowego studenta - genitive masc. sing.). Adjectives normally come before the noun; classificatory adjectives that form a fixed term may follow (język polski = the Polish language).
'Być' is irregular but essential. Present: jestem, jesteś, jest, jesteśmy, jesteście, są. Unlike Russian, Polish does NOT drop the copula in the present: you must say 'Jestem studentem', never 'Jestem student' or 'Ja student'. When 'być' links a subject to a noun that identifies a category or profession, that noun goes in the INSTRUMENTAL case: 'Jestem nauczycielem' (I am a teacher). But when linking with 'to' (this/it) as subject, the noun stays nominative: 'To jest stół' (This is a table). Past tense uses the gendered past forms (byłem/byłam, etc.); future uses będę/będziesz/będzie...
Polish uses nine special letters: ą, ę, ć, ł, ń, ó, ś, ź, ż. Quick reading guide: ą is a nasal 'on' (as in French 'bon'); ę is a nasal 'en' but usually loses nasality at the end of a word; ć is a soft 'ch' (like the 'tch' in 'kitchen', but lighter); ł is pronounced like English 'w' (mleko sounds like 'mweko'); ń is 'ny' as in 'canyon'; ó sounds identical to 'u' ('oo' in 'food'); ś is a soft 'sh'; ź is a soft 'zh'; ż (and the digraph 'rz') is a harder 'zh' as in 'measure'. The digraphs 'sz', 'cz', 'dż', 'dz', 'dź', 'ch' also matter; 'ch' = 'h'.