Language/Polish/Grammar/Gender

Genders in Polish

Hi Polish Learners! 😃

➡ In today's lesson, we will learn how to use genders in Polish.

Polish is a tough language to learn, and that's common knowledge. The reason behind it is not only the alphabet (which has 32 letters as opposed to English's 26) but, among other things, gender. It can be really confusing for non-native speakers trying to learn Polish because the language is gendered.

If you want to speak correct Polish, you must know each noun's gender. Basically, in Polish and other languages, nouns are often accompanied by adjectives describing them (big city, fantastic result, terrible performances, etc.). In Polish, adjectives have different forms and must match nouns. Polish distinguishes between the 3 genders: masculine (rodzaj męski), feminine (rodzaj żeński), and neuter (rodzaj nijaki).

• Other lessons: After mastering this lesson, you can also explore other related topics, such as our lessons on Polish Grammar Verbs and Tenses, Polish Grammar - Conditional Mood, and Adjective Agreement to further improve your Polish language skills. Good luck!

Gender of Nouns in Polish

While masculine and feminine are referring to men or women, neuter words refer either to babies or inanimate objects.

How can you guess the gender of nouns in Polish? Here are basic tips below (see also the video at the bottom of this page):

1. Masculine ends with a hard consonant (spółgłoska) and a few -a.
2. Feminine nouns generally end in -a, in -i, or in a soft consonant (ń, ć…)
3. Neuters end in -o, -e, -ę or -um
   

Unfortunately, there are many exceptions. Some genders are consistent with the meaning, for example the masculine:

• poeta (poet),
• dziadzio (grandfather),
• wykładowca (teacher),
• dentysta (male dentist and for a woman it would be dentistka).

The masculine is divided into "personal animates" (names expressing a human being), non-personal animates (an animal), inanimate (an object or an idea).

• In the singular, the masculine are distinguished into animate (humans and animals) and inanimate (objects). 
• In the plural, they are distinguished into personal (humans) and impersonal (animals and objects). Often, the plurals of different genders are common, except the personal masculine.

Gender	Masculine	Neutral	Feminine
The word ends with:	a consonant -a (if male)	-o -e -ę -um	-a -ść (abstract nouns) a consonant (rare irregularities)
Examples	stół, "table" kolega, "friend"	biurko, "desk" pływanie, "swimming" imię, "name" muzeum, "museum"	apokalipsa , "apocalypse" wolność , "freedom" noc , "night"

Gender of Pronouns, Adjectives and Verbs

Demonstrative Pronouns "This"

The English demonstrative pronoun 'this' has in Polish language 3 variations. These are ten, ta and to. We use them depending on the grammatical gender of the nouns that the pronoun describes:

• This Man (MASCULINE GENDER) - TEN mężczyzna
• This Woman (FEMININE GENDER) - TA kobieta
• This chair (NEUTRAL GENDER) - TO krzesło
• This Baby (NEUTRAL GENDER) - TO dziecko

Adjectives

For instance, English adjective 'good' in Polish language has got following forms: dobry (when agrees with grammatically masculine noun), dobra (when agrees with grammatically feminine nouns), dobre (when agrees with grammatically neuter nouns). So you would say:

• dobry chłopiec - good boy
• dobra dziewczynka - good girl
• dobre dziecko - good child

More information: Adjective Agreement in Polish

Verbs

In Polish it is so important, because verbs must be inflected to every gender.

For example in the past simple in English, we describe only verb+ed or irregular form of this verb.

In Polish past tenses we must add the right letter in the end of verb depending on the gender.

For example :

• verb to be: BYĆ

➡ JA BYŁEM (said by a man)

➡ JA BYŁAM (said by a woman)

More information on Polish Verbs.

Sources

• https://www.po-polsku.fr/cas.php
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_grammar
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6b1oZ7Ah8w
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4DQBG4vjJk
• Polish Verbs
• Polish Adjectives

Other Lessons

• Perfective and imperfective verbs
• Adjectives
• być to be
• Future Tense
• Indefinite Articles in Polish
• Pronouns
• Adverbs
• Past Tense
• Plural