The Easy Way to Understand
Polish Grammar
A friendly overview for
beginners and beyond

Polish grammar commands respect — and deservedly so. Many foreigners say it sounds like “a language with endings that change with every emotion.” And yet, when we look at it calmly and without haste, we discover that it is more logical than it seems. Polish is a very precise, flexible language, built on clear relationships between words.

In this short guide, you will get to know the basic elements of Polish grammar: verbs and the three conjugations, adjectives, nouns, the seven cases, word order, and the system of tenses and aspect. This is only a general overview, written to show that Polish can truly be liked — and understood. Understanding these mechanisms guarantees that you will soon start using Polish with ease.

Zapraszamy na Masterclass! A jeśli chcesz poznać te zagadnienia jeszcze głębiej i zobaczyć, jak ta teoria działa w praktyce komunikacyjnej, zapraszamy na wyjątkowy, bezpłatny wykład online o polskiej gramatyce prowadzony po angielsku! Wykład jest dla każdego – zarówno dla początkujących, jak i zaawansowanych.

• 🗓️ When: December 14 (Sunday)
• ⏰ Time: 16:00 (4:00 PM CET)
• 🗣️ Language of the lecture: English
• 👉 Registration: https://varia.clickmeeting.com/the-easy-way-to-understand-polish-grammar-a-friendly-overview-for-beginners-and-beyond-english-/register

In the meantime, we encourage you to read the summary below so you know exactly what you will learn during the session. You will find the registration link at the end of the article.

Table of content

1. The Verb and the Three Conjugations — The Engine of the Polish Sentence
2. Noun and Adjective: Gender and Cases
3. 7 Cases: The Functions of Words in a Sentence
4. Word Order: Flexibility Thanks to Endings
5. Tenses and Aspect: Two in One
6. Adverb: Describing the Action

When we learn Polish, we very quickly notice that the verb changes its ending depending on the person.. This is what we call conjugation — the way verbs change their forms.

In Polish, we have three main conjugations. It sounds technical, but in reality it’s simply about how the “I” and “you” forms look in the present tense. Take a look:

• Conjugation 1: -ę, -esz
  • pisać: ja piszę, ty piszesz
  • It’s a bit like the English difference between I read and he reads, except the Polish system is more regular.
• Conjugation 2: -ę, -isz / -ysz
  • mówić: ja mówię, ty mówisz
  • robić: ja robię, ty robisz
• Conjugation 3: -m, -sz
  • czytać: ja czytam, ty czytasz
  • mieć: ja mam, ty masz

Why is this important?

If you know the conjugations, it becomes easier to predict how verbs change, and you’ll start forming correct sentences much faster. In Polish, endings always carry information about who is doing the action, so you don’t need to use pronouns (I, you, he) as often as in English — the ending speaks for itself.

Fact to remember: Most basic verbs fit into one of these three patterns. When you learn a new verb, quickly memorize its “I” and “you” forms — that’s enough to figure out the rest.

1. Gender: The Foundation of Everything

In Polish, every noun has a grammatical gender, which is the foundation for all further inflections.

• Masculine gender (M): Usually ends in a consonant (e.g., dom, kot).
• Feminine gender (F): Usually ends with the letter -a (e.g., kawa, szkoła).
• Neuter gender (N): Usually ends in –o or –e (e.g., okno, słońce).

The most important fact about nouns in Polish: they have cases. This means that their ending changes depending on their function in the sentence. We call this change declension. More on that in the next part of the article.

2. Adjective: Always in Agreement

Adjectives in Polish are like chameleons — they always adapt to the noun. They change their form depending on gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), number, and case.

In English, the adjective has just one form: big cat, big window, big coffee.

In Polish, it looks like this:

• duży kot (męski)
• duża kawa (żeński)
• duże okno (nijaki)

Thanks to this, just from one ending we know what gender the noun is — it’s like a small built-in information system. This harmony between the adjective and the noun is one of the most characteristic features of the Polish language.

Why all these ending changes? They replace the fixed word order you know from languages like English. The ending signals the role of the word (who is acting, and who is being acted upon). In Polish, we have seven of them.

Here is a simplified description of their main functions:

One of the biggest differences between Polish and English is word order. In English, sentence order is extremely important, and you can’t really change it without changing the meaning:

• Lion ate Adam (Lew zjadł Adama)
• Adam ate lion (Adam zjadł lwa)

In Polish, case endings allow us to play with word order:

• Lew zjadł Adama.
• Adama zjadł lew.
• Zjadł Adama lew.

All three mean the same thing, because the ending -a in the word Adama clearly shows that Adam is the object (accusative), and the lion is the performer of the action (nominative).

This gives Polish an exceptional flexibility and melody, and allows us to build sentences more naturally than in the rigid structures of English.

Here’s more good news. In Polish, there are only three basic tenses:

• Present tense — jem, idę, pracuję
• Czas przeszły – jadłem, poszłam, pracowaliśmy
• Future tense — będę jeść / zjem, będziemy pracować

Perfective and imperfective aspect — how we look at an action

The meaning differences that English expresses through complex tenses are often conveyed in Polish through aspect. A Polish verb has an aspect that shows whether we view an action as an ongoing process or as a completed result.

Fact: Prefixes such as prze-, za-, na-, wy- change the meaning and give the verb a perfective character, signaling that a goal has been achieved or an action has been completed.

An adverb (e.g., quickly, nicely, loudly) is a word that describes how an action is performed.

• Function: It describes a verb or an adjective.
• Endings: Many adverbs end in –o or –e, formed from adjectives.

On mówi (jak? how?) głośno.

Ona pisze (jak? how?) dobrze.

Summary and invitation to the next lesson!

Polish grammar is not a labyrinth but a well-constructed house. Each part has its function: the verb — movement, the adjective — description, the noun — the subject, the cases — relationships, the word order — style, the tenses and aspect — time and perspective.

It’s enough to understand the basic principles — then every new word starts fitting into a meaningful structure. Polish is a logical language, and its grammar can become your ally, not your enemy.

Unlock the full potential: a free expert lecture!

Do you want to better understand how to apply this theory in real communication?

We invite you to a unique, free online lecture led by our grammar expert 😊 Agata Szybura, which will take your understanding of Polish grammar to the next level:

“The Easy Way to Understand Polish Grammar — A friendly overview for beginners and beyond (English)”

During the lecture, we will go through all these aspects step by step — cases, conjugations, and aspects — in a practical way, with plenty of examples that will finally help you feel confident. It’s the perfect opportunity both for beginners who want to strengthen their knowledge and for advanced learners who want to organize and understand the logic of Polish.

Don’t miss this opportunity! The lecture is very popular, so we encourage you to reserve your spot quickly.

• 🗓️ When: December 14 (Sunday)
• ⏰ Time: 16:00 (4:00 PM CET)
• 🗣️ Language of the lecture: English
• 👉 Registration: https://varia.clickmeeting.com/the-easy-way-to-understand-polish-grammar-a-friendly-overview-for-beginners-and-beyond-english-/register

The author of the article is Katarzyna Hoffmann, co-owner of the Polish Language Center Varia in Kraków. She graduated in German Philology from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków.