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A1

Polish A1: Beginner

At this level the language covers everything the first few days ask for: your name, where you are from, what you do, your family, numbers, the time, food and drink.

Sentences are short and stand on their own. Anyone who gets this far can say what is, what they have and what they want — not yet what happened yesterday.

Sounds, first sentences and numbers14

Alphabet and pronunciation

6

A1The Polish alphabetThirty-two letters, nine of them with marks — and each one always sounds the same.A1Hissing sounds: sz, cz, rz, ż and ś, ć, źEnglish has one “sh”; Polish has two — a hard one and a soft one.A1Soft sounds: ni, si, ci and ń, ś, ćA soft sound is written with an accent or with an i — the next letter decides which.A1The nasal vowels ą and ęTwo vowels said through the nose — which turn into “om” or “en” before some sounds.A1Stress on the second-to-last syllableAlmost every word is stressed on the second-to-last syllable — and the stress moves when the word grows.A1Voiced and voiceless: chleb sounds like “chlep”At the end of a word a voiced consonant is said voiceless — something English never does.

The simple sentence

6

A1Free word order, fixed endingsSubject, verb, object as the neutral order — but the endings, not the position, say who does what.A1być: jestem, jesteś, jestThe verb “to be” in the present — and why a job after it takes a different ending.A1To jest: “This is …”With to jest you point at something and name it — and the noun after it stays as it is.A1Yes-no questions with czyOne word at the front turns a statement into a question — no do, no inversion.A1Question words: kto, co, gdzie, kiedyThe question word goes first; the rest stays as in the statement.A1Negation with nie and nie maOne word for “not” and “no”, always before the verb — and happy to appear twice.

Numbers, time, date

2

A1Numbers from nought to a thousand: jeden, dwa, pięćThe numbers up to a thousand, why there are jeden, jedna and jedno, and dwa beside dwie.A1The time: o ósmej, wpół do dziewiątejFor the time Polish uses ordinals: Jest ósma means “it is eight”, o ósmej “at eight”.

Nouns, cases, pronouns, adjectives13

The noun

3

A1Telling the three genders from the endingConsonant, -a or -o: the end of the word usually shows its gender.A1No article: dom means “a house” and “the house”No “a”, no “the” — word order shows what is known and what is new.A1The plural: domy, książki, klucze, oknaFour endings, and the last sound of the word tells you which.

The cases

5

A1The seven cases at a glancePolish shows the case at the end of the noun — seven cases, and no article.A1The accusative: kawę, brata, domOnly feminine words and living masculine ones change — everything else stays as it is.A1The instrumental: z mamą, jestem lekarzemWith whom, with what, as what — one case for three English ideas.A1The locative: w domu, w Krakowie, o mamieThe case for “where?” and “about what?” — always after a preposition, and often with a changed stem.A1The genitive: dom Piotra, szklanka wodyWhose, how much, from where, to where: in Polish one of the most common cases of all.

Pronouns

4

A1Personal pronouns: ja, ty, on, ona, onoUsually left out, because the verb ending already says who — and in the plural it matters whether a man is in the group.A1Polite address: pan, pani, państwoThe polite Polish “you” is a noun — sir, madam, ladies and gentlemen — with the verb in the third person.A1Possessives: mój, twój, jego, jejmój, moja, moje agree with the thing owned; jego, jej, ich never change.A1Demonstratives: ten, ta, toten, ta, to point at something and agree with the noun like an adjective.

Adjectives and adverbs

1

A1The adjective agrees: nowy, nowa, noweAn adjective takes the gender and number of its noun — before the noun and after “to be”.

Prepositions and their cases2

Prepositions

2

A1w, na and do: where and where toWhere? takes w or na with the locative; where to? takes do with the genitive, or na with the accusative.A1do, z, od, u, bez: prepositions with the genitiveThe commonest small prepositions always take the genitive — and z has two meanings.

Present, past, future5

The present tense

5

A1Three present-tense patterns: czytam, robię, piszęThe first two forms — “I” and “you” — show which pattern a verb follows.A1The a-conjugation: czytam, czytaszThe easiest pattern: -am, -asz, -a, -amy, -acie, -ają go onto the stem.A1The i-conjugation: robię, robisz-ę for “I”, -isz or -ysz for “you” — and often a different sound before the -ę.A1The e-conjugation: piszę, piszesz, pracuję-ę for “I”, -esz for “you” — and with -ować → -uję the biggest group of all.A1Irregular: mam, chcę, jem, wiem, mogęFive verbs you need every day and learn one by one: have, want, eat, know, can.

All about the verb: aspect, mood, motion1

Must, can, like

1

A1musieć and móc: must, can, maymuszę, mogę and an infinitive — and why “nie musisz” does not mean “you mustn’t”.

Sentence structure: linking and reporting1

Joining sentences

1

A1And, but, or: i, a, ale, alboi joins, a contrasts, ale contradicts — and a and ale have a comma before them.

Word lists at level A1

Lists: 15 · words: 565

Reading texts at level A1

Sentences from this level’s topics

Jak się pisze twoje nazwisko?How do you spell your surname?

Szymon je czekoladę.Szymon is eating chocolate.

Moja siostra ma na imię Kasia.My sister’s name is Kasia.

Poproszę kawę z mlekiem.A coffee with milk, please.

Practise level A1 only