Polish

Polish

Polish is a slavic language, mother tongue of about 38 million poles and secondary language in large parts of Ukraine, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, the UK and Ireland (in fact, polish speakers in Ireland are more than those that can speak Gaeilge).

Polish is the sixth language that I'm learning after Spanish, English, German, French (which I gave up), and Italian. It has the great advantage of being a phonetic language (unlike English), which means that the words are pronounced in the same way in which they are written.

Alfabet (Alphabet)

Polish uses the Latin script, setting aside Qs, Vs and Xs.

In addition, there are three nasal vowels:

• Ąą, which sounds like a nasal oun, as in en in rendez-vous, or ão in coração
• Ęę, which sounds like a nasal eun, which is a nasal e
• Łł, which sounds like ué, as in well

and six accented consonants:

• Ćć, which sounds like a Spanish ch
• Ńń, which sounds exactly like a Spanish ñ
• Óó, which sounds exactly like a Spanish u
• Śś, which sounds like a Spanish sh
• Źź, which sounds like a Spanish yi
• Żż, which sounds like a Spanish j mixed with an argentinian y

Some letters together sound differently:

• ch and h sound like a soft Spanish j
• ci sounds exactly as in Italian
• cz sounds like a Spanish ch
• dz sounds like a Spanish dse
• dzi and dź sound like a Spanish yi
• dż sounds like a Spanish ye
• rz sounds the same as ż
• w sounds like a Spanish v (which is different from the b!)
• y sounds like a wide e or a German ö

Soft, hardened and hard consonants

Additionally, consonants are separated into two categories, hard and soft, and in some cases, the declensions vary depending on wether the stem of the word ends with a hard or a soft consonant.

Polish hard and soft consonants

hard

m

b

p

w

f

n

d

t

z

s

ł

r

g/gi

k/ki

h/hi

ch/chi

soft

mi

bi

pi

wi

fi

ń/ni

dź/dzi

ć/ci

ź/zi

ś/si

l

j

hardened

rz

dz

c

ż

sz

dż

cz

Liczby (Numbers)

1: jeden	11: jedenaście	10: dziesięć	100: sto	1000: tysiąc
2: dwa	12: dwanaście	20: dwadzieścia	200: dwieście
3: trzy	13: trzynaście	30: trzydzieści	300: trzysta
4: cztery	14: czternaście	40: czterdzieści	400: czterysta
5: pięć	15: pietnaście	50: pięćdzieściąt	500: pięćset
6: sześć	16: szesnaście	60: sześćdzieściąt	600: sześćset
7: siedem	17: siedemnaście	70: siedemdzieściąt	700: siedemset
8: osiem	18: osiemnaście	80: osiemdzieściąt	800: osiemset
9: dziewięć	19: dziewiętnaście	90: dziewięćdzieściąt	900: dziewięćset

Poland's currency is the złoty (which in the stores is abbreviated as zł), and the pennies are called grosz.

• 1 złoty or grosz
• whenever the number ends with 2, 3 or 4 (except 12, 13 and 14): złote or grosze
• all the other numbers: złotych or groszy

When speaking about the age

• 1 rok
• whenever the number ends with 2, 3 or 4 (except 12, 13 and 14): lata
• all the other numbers: lat

New Year is nowy rok

Gender of the nouns

There are three genders that a noun can have: feminine, masculine or neutral, and the letter with which the word ends gives a hint about its gender:

• If it ends with a, the noun is feminine
• If it ends with o, the noun is neutral
• If it ends with any other letter, the noun is masculine

There are, however, some exceptions to these rules:

• kierowca (driver) is masculine
• poeta (poet) is masculine, poetka is feminine
• dentysta (dentist) is masculine, dentyska is feminine

Days of the week (Dni tygodnia)

• Poniedziałek — w poniedziałek
• Wtorek — we wtorek
• Środa — w środę
• Czwartek — w czwartek
• Piątek — w piątek
• Sobota — w sobotę
• Niedziela — w niedzielę

Months of the year (Miesiące roku)

• styczeń — w styczniu
• luty — w lutym
• marzec — w marcu
• kwiecień — w kwietniu
• maj — w maju
• czerwiec — w czerwcu
• lipiec — w lipcu
• sierpień — w sierpniu
• wrzesień — w wrześniu
• październik — w paźdizerniku
• listopad — w listopadzie
• grudzień — w grudniu

Polish cases

Polish grammar is the most involved that I have dealt with so far. Romance languages do not have declensions (cases or declinaciones)—which dictate the way in which the nouns and adjectives are written—but German has (albeit only four). Polish has seven:

• Mianownik (nominative)
• Narzędnik (instrumental)
• Biernik (accusative)
• Celownik (dative)
• Dopełniacz (genitive)
• Miejscownik (locative)
• Wołacz (vocative)

What they are all about can be found here.