Language/Polish/Grammar/Gender
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Hello Everyone, 😊
In today’s lesson we are going to study the following topic: ”GENDERS” in Polish
Please feel free to edit this page if you think it can be improved!
Good learning!
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Genders in Polish
Genres in Polish
Polish distinguishes between the three genders: masculine, feminine and neutral.
1. Feminine nouns generally end in -a, in -i, or in a soft consonant (ń, ć…),
2. Neutrals end in -o, -e, -ę or -um,
3. Masculine ends with a hard consonant (spółgłoska) and a few -a.
However, there are many exceptions. Some genres 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.
| Kind | Male | Neutral | Feminine |
| The word ends
with: |
a consonant
-a (if male) |
-the
-and -is -one |
-a
-ść (abstract nouns) a consonant (rare irregularities) |
| Examples | table , "table"
colleague , "ami" |
desk , "bureau"
swimming , "natation" name , "nom" museum , "musée" |
apokalipsa , "apocalypse"
wolność , "freedom" noc , "night" |
| ENGLISH | POLISH | PRONUNCIATION IN
ENGLISH |
BRAZILIAN
PORTUGUESE |
| THIS (male) | TEN mężczyzna | tehn mehn zhih chih zhih nah | Esse homem |
| THIS (female) | TA kobieta | tah koh bih eh tah | Essa mulher |
| THIS (neuter) | TO dziecko | toh jih eht skoh | Esse bebê |
| THIS (neuter) | TO krzesło | toh ksheh sou oh | Essa cadeira |
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 26) but among other things, gender.
It can be really confusing for non-native speakers that are trying to learn Polish because the language is gendered.
There are three different genders.
Male, female and it.
While male and female are referring to men or women, "it" words refer either to babies or inanimate objects.
A few examples:
- Chair - TO krzesło (the "it" pronoun)
- Baby - TO dziecko (same as above)
- Woman - TA kobieta (female)
- Man - TEN mężczyzna (male)
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.
For example :
- verb BYĆ (be)-> JA BYŁ(EM) - It says man / JA BYŁ(AM)- It says woman