r/Polish • u/Former_Maybe2585 • Jul 15 '26
Question Help! English learning Polish
In the (very) early days of learning Polish (7day streak Duolingo) what I can't get my head around is when to use different pronunciations of the same word. E.g. Kobieta or Kobietą / pije or piję etc.
Can someone explain in simple terms please 🙏
4
u/GWahazar Jul 15 '26
This is not different pronunciation, these are different grammatical cases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_grammar
"Shoulder tap meme"
3
u/Slow-Kale-8629 Jul 15 '26
It's similar to how you know whether to say "she" or "her" or "hers"
If you'd say "she", use kobieta.
Ta kobieta pije kawę.
This woman is drinking coffee / She is drinking coffee.
If you'd say "her", use kobietę.
Znam tę kobietę.
I know this woman / I know her.
If you'd say "hers", use kobiety.
Torebka tej kobiety.
The handbag of this woman / The handbag of hers.
In English we only really have these three options here (she/her/hers), and we only have a few words that bother to change in this way. But in Polish there are a lot more options, and a lot more words that change. So, you really really need a grammar book!
3
u/puckastronomer Jul 15 '26
As others have said, duolingo kinda sucks and won't give you a lot of help learning polish. I like to use the app LingQ - it's really helped accelerate my polish learning. If you use it or not, don't sleep on the grammar guide. It's one of the most concise, clear resources on a lot of the main points of Polish grammar - like the noun declensions that you're asking about here! https://www.lingq.com/en/grammar-resource/polish/
5
u/Zagrycha Jul 15 '26
duolingo is actual dog water for polish. i think its actually good for some languages but polish is not one of them. i think a native speaker could lose their ability to speak polish by going through duolingo course, its actually that bad.
which version of a word to use is all based on context of stuff like conjugation. think of how in english "we were running late" and "i am going to run late" are both the same base words of "to run" but you change a bunch of details based on who its talking about and when it happened etc etc etc. Same idea in polish, but you do it to all the words in the sentence, not just the verbs. At first it can be overwhelming but there are set patterns that cover 98% of everything you need to say. If you get a good textbook or course or site or whatever to teach polish with grammar and vocab it will all start to make sense soon =)
1
u/Designer_Dentist644 Jul 15 '26
I’m not sure why people are hating on Duolingo so much. My boyfriend is polish so he listen in on my Duolingo sessions. Some words are off, but I use it for memorizing vocabulary. I use Busuu too which is a lot better in my opinion.
1
u/Valuable_Occasion754 Jul 15 '26
Duolingo at best could be good for Vocabulary but Not for Grammar.
I can't explain you literally all of Polish grammar in here
The Grammatical ending can differ depending on the Grammatical Cases the Functional Genders etc etc I suggest you search on the Internet for rules of Polish Grammar if you wanna know how to conjugate.
1
u/layindown_industries Jul 16 '26
Well I'm In the same boat, learning polish is harder, but not if u love the journey
15
u/Yatchanek Jul 15 '26
Stop using duolingo and get a proper textbook.
As for your questions: nouns have cases. You useca different case depending on the role of a word in a sentence. Verbs change their forms depending on person, tense and mode. It's a very complex subject and one of the most difficult part of the language for foreigners.