Language

Photo by N.Savranska (Adobe Stock #539533312).

Polish is a West Slavic language and is part of the Indo-European language family (check out this article on Culture.pl to see how various terms in Polish and other Indo-European languages share similar roots). It is the official language of Poland and is also spoken by various diaspora communities around the world. With approximately 40 million speakers both at home and abroad, it is the second most widely spoken Slavic language and is ranked sixth among languages spoken in the European Union (Ethnologue.com). 

Over the course of its history, Polish has been influenced by a number of other languages—Latin, French, Italian, and English, as well as various Germanic and East Slavic languages. Indeed, although Polish is the primary language of the country today, as you have learned/will learn throughout this module, Poland’s borders continually changed over the course of its long history. In the early 17th century, for example, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth stretched into modern-day Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. Moreover, in the 18th century and into the early 19th century, the territory that the country occupies now was part of the Russian, Austrian, and Prussian empires. As such, Poland was once a very diverse place, full of people of various ethnicities and religions speaking a variety of languages—Russian, Ukrainian, German, Lithuanian, Yiddish, Belorussian, among others. Culture.pl has a great article that summarizes some of the languages spoken on Polish territory throughout history. 

So, while Poland today is a far more homogenous place, that multiculturalism and linguistic diversity has certainly left its mark in various ways, particularly on the Polish language itself. Consider the many Polish terms for one of the most popular vegetables in the country, the potato. The most commonly used word for the vegetable today is ziemniak, which comes from the Proto-Slavic word for “earth” and is based off the German and French terms for potato (which translate to “earth apple”). There are, however, scores of other words used to refer to potatoes across the country (take a look at all the synonyms listed on the Wikisłownik entry for ziemniak). This includes the widely recognized kartofel, derived from German, as well as more vernacular regional terms, such as pyra (popular in the Poznań region), bulwa (which can be encountered in the northeast region around Białystok), and grul (which can be heard in the south) (see this article from Kafkadesk for some more information about the various terms for potatoes that can be found in the country). 

Indeed, while the Polish language has been standardized, regional dialects continue to testify to the rich ethnic and cultural diversity of Poland’s past. There are four major dialect groups—the Mazovian, the Greater Polish, the Lesser Polish, and the Silesian—each comprised of further subdialects and variants (Wikipedia). Some scholars include two others, the Northern and Southern Kresy dialects, which were once more widely spoken along the eastern borderland region but are less commonly heard today. Silesian, moreover, spoken in the southwest near the border with the Czech Republic and Germany, is considered by many its own separate language. In 2024, the Polish parliament even passed a law recognizing Silesian as a regional language, but it was eventually vetoed by the Polish president (Notes from Poland). Kashubian, spoken in the Eastern Pomeranian region in the north of the country, once considered a dialect, has officially been recognized as its own language.   

The Alphabet and Phonetics 

Polish words, so often full of daunting consonant clusters, have a bit of a bad reputation, often thought to be very difficult to pronounce. However, it is important to remember that Polish pronunciation is phonetic, meaning that each letter or letter combination corresponds, generally, to a specific and fixed sound (there are variations to the sound of some letters, i.e. devoicing of consonants when in certain positions, but these are fairly slight and easy to keep track of). So, while Polish may seem intimidating at first, once you learn the alphabet and the different letter combinations, sounding-out and saying Polish words can be relatively straightforward. 

Polish uses the Latin alphabet and includes 32 letters: 9 vowels and 23 consonants. The Polish alphabet utilizes all of the letters found in the English language, with the exception of Q, V, and X. These letters are not part of the Polish alphabet and are therefore not used in native Polish words, but will sometimes be found in foreign loanwords.  

Moreover, most Polish consonants are pronounced similarly to their equivalent in the English alphabet, except for C (ts sound, as in “bats”), J (y sound, as in “yet”), and W (v sound, as in “vase”). Vowels are largely also similar to their English counterparts; however, they retain a single and regular pronunciation (for example, there is not a long a sound vs. short a sound as there is in English).  

However, there are also 9 unique characters in the Polish alphabet: Ą, Ć, Ę, Ł, Ń, Ó, Ś, Ź, Ż 

In addition, certain individual letters of the alphabet when placed next to each other, produce a distinct sound. These letter combinations include: CH, CI, CZ, DZ, DŹ, DZI, DŻ, NI, RZ, SI, SZ, ZI 

Take a look at the interactive slides below to acquaint yourself with the Polish alphabet and letter combinations. If interested, click on the audio to hear how the various Polish words below are pronounced and then repeat after them to practice your own pronunciation! Keep in mind that when saying Polish words, the stress almost always falls on second to last syllable: komputer, telefon, etc.  

Letters Found in English

Letters Unique to Polish

Letters Combinations in Polish  

Check out this article on Culture.pl on the Polish alphabet for some more notes on pronouncing Polish letters, or this video on Youtube that carefully goes through the Polish alphabet letter-by-letter, sound-by-sound. 

Practice a bit and before you know it, you’ll be mastering Polish tongue-twisters like these and saying these unique phrases used by native speakers!  

Polish Grammar 

When forming sentences in Polish, one great thing is that word order is fairly flexible. While there is standard subject-verb-object structure, it can be adjusted, particularly if you want to change the emphasis of a sentence. For example, “Czytam [I’m reading] książkę [a book]” can be changed to “Książkę czytam” (which places more stress on “book” and communicates that you’re reading a book and not something else).  

As you may be able to tell from the sentence above, there is also some flexibility in terms of using pronouns—they can be entirely left out. For example, you can say “Ja [I] piję [am drinking] herbatę [tea]” or, more commonly, “Piję herbatę.” This is because the endings of verbs change to reflect the subject of a sentence. In the example provided, the ending of “piję” tells us that there is a first-person subject in this sentence. Here is the full present tense conjugation of another verb, mówić (to speak): 

All verbs conjugate in the present tense (as well as past and future tenses), but not all verbs follow the same conjugation pattern as the one shown above. For example, take a look at the conjugation of rozumieć (to understand): 

There are several present tense conjugation patterns (many scholars classify them into 3-4 distinct patterns). Unfortunately, it can be difficult to guess the conjugation pattern of a verb just by looking at its basic infinitive form. But with practice, conjugating Polish verbs becomes more intuitive. 

Another important thing to keep in mind regarding Polish grammar is that the third-person pronouns shown above can also be used to refer to objects, not just people. This is because Polish is a grammatically gendered language—every noun has a grammatical gender. Most words ending in a consonant, such as telefon (phone), are considered “masculine” (on), most words ending in an a, such as kawa (coffee), are “feminine” (ona), and most words ending in an e or o, such as krzesło (chair), are “neuter” (ono). Masculine nouns are further broken into two subgenders—animate, such as kot (cat) or inanimate, as in telewizor (television). Moreover, as you may have noticed in the verb conjugation tables above, there are two ways of indicating “they” in Polish. Nouns in plural forms are categorized as either oni, i.e. masculine personal (masculine nouns that refer to people, like lekarz (doctor)), or one, non-masculine personal (basically any noun that isn’t masculine personal, like książka (book) or pies (dog)).  

Knowing the grammatical gender of words is crucial because it ultimately allows speakers to structure sentences.  For example, the endings of any words used to qualify a noun, such as adjectives or possessive pronouns, have to adjust to match the gender of that noun. So, for example, a black phone would be described as czarny, black coffee as czarna, and a black chair as czarne. Moreover, in addition to the standard dictionary (nominative) form of words as described above, there are six other grammatical cases in Polish. This means that the ending of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives change based on their grammatical function in a sentence. And each of these cases requires different endings for words according to their grammatical gender.  

For example, the basic, nominative form for “black coffee” is czarna kawa. If you wanted to say, “I like black coffee,” however, you would have to use another grammatical case (the accusative) and adjust the endings of some words: Lubię czarną kawę. If you don’t like black coffee, you’d have to switch to yet another grammatical case (the genitive): Nie lubię czarnej kawy. Masculine nouns would have their own standard endings in each grammatical case (i.e., Nie lubię czarnego telefonu), as would neuter nouns (Nie lubie czarnego krzesła) and those in the plural form.  

As you can imagine, it’s difficult to succinctly summarize these grammatical endings. And there are other features of Polish grammar that often cause confusion (verbal aspect, motion verbs, among others). This is all the more compounded by the fact that there are many exceptions to grammatical rules. However, while it is beyond the purview of this module to delve into these intricacies, lots of non-Polish speakers have learned and fallen in love with the language. It’s a challenge, but well worth it. And there are plenty of resources out there to help you as you navigate the Polish language—see the additional resources listed at the bottom of this page for some recommendations. 

Let’s Learn Some Polish! 

Even without a detailed knowledge of Polish grammar, one can still learn plenty of useful expressions.  

Before we get to some of these, it is important to keep in mind that Poland, while a warm and inviting country, generally has a rather conservative culture, meaning that it is very important to maintain politeness and respect amongst people who differ in age, don’t know each other well, or occupy a different social/professional status. Even in families, younger members often address adults not as “you,” but as “mom,” “uncle,” “grandfather,” etc. Outside of families, it is most common to use pan (sir) and pani (ma’am, miss) along with third-person verbal forms when addressing someone formally. Pan/Pani can be considered a kind of formal “you,” but unlike other pronouns, they usually are never omitted in a sentence. 

In informal situations—when addressing someone you know well, a peer or someone younger outside of a professional/service setting, or someone in a similar social/professional position—you can address them with the informal “you” (ty) and/or second-person verbal forms.  

If you are unsure whether to address someone formally or informally, it’s typically best to err on the side of caution and be more formal than not. Some people may take offense if addressed informally when they shouldn’t be. 

Now that we’ve gone over this important rule, here are some common phrases, expressions, and questions that may be useful if you encounter a Polish speaker.  

In the list below, formality is indicated where applicable, unless otherwise suggested by pronouns (remember: ty is informal, pan/pani is formal). Pronouns that are typically not pronounced are included in brackets. Using what you’ve learned about the Polish alphabet, sound out each expression and repeat a few times. Then move on to the suggested learning activities below to practice your Polish! 

Greetings and Goodbyes 

Cześć = Hi (informal) 

Dzień dobry = Hello; Good morning; Good afternoon (formal) 

Dobry wieczór = Good evening (formal) 

Pa = Bye (informal) 

Do widzenia = Goodbye (formal) 

Asking For and Providing Some Personal Details 

Jak [ty] masz na imię? = What is your (first) name? 

Jak pan/pani ma na imię? = What is your (first) name? 

[Ja] Mam na imię… = My (first) name is… 

Jak [ty] się nazywasz? = What is your (full) name? 

Jak pan/pani się nazywa? = What is your (full) name? 

[Ja] Nazywam się… = My (full) name is… 

Skąd [ty] jesteś? = Where are you from? 

Skąd pan/pani jest? = Where are you from? 

[Ja] Jestem z Ohio. = I am from Ohio. 

[Ja] Jestem ze Stanów. = I am from the (United) States. 

[Ja] Jestem z Polski. = I am from Poland. 

Czy [ty] mówisz po polsku / po angielsku? = Do you speak Polish / English? 

Czy Pan/Pani mówi po polsku / po angielsku? = Do you speak Polish / English? 

Tak, [ja] mówię po polsku / po angielsku. = Yes, I speak Polish / English. 

Nie, [ja] nie mówię po polsku / po angielsku. = No, I don’t speak Polish / English. 

A ty? = And you? 

A pan/pani? = And you? 

Other 

Miło mi = Nice to meet you 

Dziękuję = Thank you 

Przepraszam = Excuse me; I’m sorry 

Proszę = Please; You’re welcome; Here you go 

Na zdrowie = (after someone sneezes) Bless you; (for a toast) Cheers 

Smaczego = Bon appétit (enjoy your meal) 

[Ja] Nie rozumiem = I don’t understand 

[Ja] Rozumiem = I understand 

Proszę powtórzyć = Please repeat 

Proszę mówić wolniej = Please speak slower 

You can hear some of these expressions pronounced, along with some other basic phrases, in these two videos from Culture.pl: Some Polish To Get You Started #1 and Some Polish To Get You Started #2 

Want to learn some more Polish vocabulary? Check out the videos below: 

Numbers 1-10 

Days of the week 

Months 

Family Members (watch with subtitles) 

Suggested Learning Activities: 

An answer key to the following exercises can be found at the bottom of this page. 

Activity # 1: For the following questions, put the conversations in order. Also, consider whether the conversation is formal or informal: 

• Miło mi. 
• Cześć! Mam na imię Aleksandr. A ty? 
• Cześć! 
• Miło mi. 
• Mam na imię Michał. 

What do you think, is this conversation formal or informal? 

• Dzień dobry. Nazywam się Lena Nowak. A pan? 
• Nazywam się Jakub Wójcik. Miło mi. 
• Miło mi. 
• Dzień dobry. Jak Pani się nazywa? 

What do you think, is this conversation formal or informal? 

Activity #2: For each of the following questions, consider the situation described and decide which phrase, questions, or pronoun would best fit the scenario. Pay attention to formality. Choose the correct answer from the list provided.   

1. You are speaking with your good friend who identifies as female. Which pronoun would you use when addressing her? 

   A. Pani 

   B. Pan 

   C. ty 

2. As you walk through a busy bus terminal, you accidentally bump into someone. What should you say? 

   A. Przepraszam 

   B. Proszę 

   C. Miło mi. 

3. You walk into a store and greet the person working behind the counter. Which greeting would you use? 

   A. Dzień dobry 

   B. Cześć 

4. You are handed change after making a purchase at the store. What should you say? 

   A. Proszę 

   B. Dziękuję 

   C. Smacznego 

5. As you leave the store, how would you say goodbye? 

   A. Pa 

   B. Do widzenia 

6. You are at a bus station and want to buy a weekend mass transit ticket. How would you begin your request? 

   A. Na zdrowie jeden bilet weekendowy. 

   B. Proszę jeden bilet weekendowy. 

   C. Dziękuję jeden bilet weekendowy. 

7. You need directions and stop a man in the street to ask for help. What would you say to get his attention? 

   A. Proszę 

   B. Nie rozumiem 

   C. Przepraszam 

8. Which pronoun would you use when addressing this man? 

   A. pani 

   B. pan 

   C. ty 

9. You want to ask the older woman you just met on the plane what her full name is. What would you ask? 

   A. Jak się nazywasz? 

   B. Jak pani ma na imię? 

   C. Jak pani się nazywa? 

10. You run into a peer that you met recently at a social event. How do you greet them? 

   A. Dzień dobry 

   B. Cześć 

11. You can’t remember the first name of a man you met at a party. What do you ask him? 

   A. Jak masz na imię?  

   B. Jak się nazywasz? 

   C. Jak pan ma na imię? 

12. You want to tell a fellow student in your class that it was nice to meet them. What would you say? 

   A. Cześć 

   B. Jak masz na imię 

   C. Miło mi. 

Activity #3: What would you say in these scenarios? 

1. Your friend just sneezed. How would you respond? 
2. You raise your hand to get your teacher’s attention, but they don’t notice. What would you say? 
3. Someone just said something to you, but you didn’t quite catch it. What can you say? 
4. You and a friend are about to start eating dinner at a restaurant. What would you say to them? 
5. You asked someone for directions, but they are speaking too fast for you to understand. What can you say? 
6. Someone asks you if they can borrow a pen. You say yes and pass it to them. What do you say? 
7. They say thank you. How do you respond? 
8. It’s raining and someone lends you an umbrella. What would you say? 
9. Someone has overestimated your Polish skills and you have no idea what they are saying to you. What do you say? 

Activity #4: Translate the following into Polish, filling in the blanks with your own personal information: 

1. [formal; speaking to someone who identifies as a woman]  Good evening. My (first) name is… And you? I am from…I speak English. Where are you from? Do you speak English?
2. [informal] Hi. My (full) name is…I am from…I speak Polish. What is your (full name)? Where are you from? Do you speak Polish? 

Additional Resources 

If you’re interested in learning more Polish, here are some resources to check out: 

• The Ohio State University has “Polish on the Ground,” a self-paced, interactive introductory course offered online, in which students learn about and practice various phrases, expressions, and vocabulary to navigate basic, real-word experiences in Polish.
• As you may have noticed on this page, there are lots of YouTube videos that go over Polish vocabulary, expressions, and grammar. Some are brief; some are more detailed. I’ve linked some throughout this page, but there are many others! 
• PolishPod101.com offers useful guides on various elements of Polish grammar. Their YouTube channel is definitely one to explore for great videos introducing important phrases and vocabulary. 
• This research guide developed by the University of Oregon’s library lists a number of Polish grammar reference books, textbooks, and dictionaries, some of which are available online.  
• The University of Pittsburgh has a Polish language website, featuring a Polish-English dictionary, a reference grammar, and other free resources.  
• Three popular Polish textbook series often used in classrooms are Hurra!!! Po polsku; Polski jest cool; and Polski, krok po kroku. Keep in mind that all three of these series are geared towards international learners of Polish and may, therefore, be a bit difficult to manage independently at times (i.e., no explanations of grammar in English).  

Answer Key to Learning Activities 

Activity # 1:  

• Cześć! 
• Cześć! Mam na imię Aleks. A ty? 
• Mam na imię Michał. 
• Miło mi. 
• Miło mi. 

This conversation is informal. 

• Dzień dobry. Jak Pani się nazywa? 
• Dzień dobry. Nazywam się Lena Nowak. A pan? 
• Nazywam się Jakub Wójcik. Miło mi. 
• Miło mi. 

This conversation is formal. 

Activity #2 

1. C. ty 
2. A. Przepraszam 
3. A. Dzień dobry 
4. B. Dziękuję 
5. B. Do widzenia 
6. B. Proszę jeden bilet weekendowy. 
7. C. Przepraszam 
8. B. pan 
9. C. Jak pani się nazywa? 
10. B. Cześć 
11. A. Jak masz na imię? 
12. C. Miło mi. 

Activity #3 

1. Na zdrowie
   
2. Przepraszam 
3. Proszę powtórzyć 
4. Smacznego 
5. Proszę mówić wolniej 
6. Proszę 
7. Proszę 
8. Dziękuję 
9. Nie rozumiem 

Activity #4:  

1. Dobry wieczór. Mam na imię…A pani? Jestem z…Mówię po angielsku. Skąd Pani jest? Czy Pani mówi po angielsku?
2. Cześć. Nazywam się…Jestem z…Mówię po polsku. Jak się nazywasz? Skąd jesteś? Czy mówisz po polsku?