Gramatyka i tłumaczenie: the system, and the two translations built on it

Put this English sentence into Polish and justify every ending: After work my sister gives her son a book about Poland, but she does not have time for a long conversation.

1. 01Po pracy - the preposition decides first

   Po in a temporal sense governs the locative, so praca becomes pracy. That single ending also settles a common confusion: pracy is both the genitive and the locative of praca, and the preposition is what tells a reader which one is meant. Beginning with the prepositional phrases rather than with the verb is a good habit, because a preposition removes all doubt about the case and gives you a fixed point to build the rest of the clause around.

2. 02moja siostra - the subject in the nominative, with agreement

   The subject sits in the nominative: siostra, feminine singular. The possessive adjective must agree with it in gender, number and case, so moja and not mój. Polish possessives are adjectives, not the invariable words English uses, and they decline through the full paradigm alongside the noun. That is the first place a range mark is quietly earned or lost, because an examiner reads an unagreed possessive as a basic error rather than an oversight.

3. 03daje synowi książkę - one verb, two objects, two cases

   Dawać takes a dative recipient and an accusative thing. Syn goes into the dative singular: synowi. Książka goes into the accusative singular: książkę. This double-object pattern is worth memorising as a shape rather than as two separate rules, because a large family of verbs behaves the same way - dawać, pokazywać, tłumaczyć, wysyłać, kupować, opowiadać. Her son is swojemu synowi if you want to be precise, because Polish uses swój when the possessor is the subject of the clause.

4. 04o Polsce - the locative again, this time for topic

   O meaning about governs the locative, so Polska becomes Polsce. Country names decline in Polish exactly like other nouns, which surprises English speakers and appears in nearly every translation passage: w Polsce, do Polski, z Polski, o Polsce. The rule to carry is that o plus the locative is the standard way of saying about a subject, and that o plus the accusative means something quite different - prosić o coś, chodzi o coś - so the case choice here is carrying meaning.

5. 05ale nie ma czasu na długą rozmowę - negation moves the object

   Ma czas would put czas in the accusative, but the verb is negated, so the object moves into the genitive: nie ma czasu. Na answering the question for what governs the accusative, so rozmowa becomes rozmowę and the adjective agrees: długą. Note that the negation rule reaches the direct object only. It does not touch na długą rozmowę, which is governed by its own preposition and stays exactly as it would have been in an affirmative clause.

6. 06Assemble and check

   Po pracy moja siostra daje swojemu synowi książkę o Polsce, ale nie ma czasu na długą rozmowę. Then run the check in the same order you built it: every preposition against its case, every adjective and possessive against its noun, the negated object in the genitive, and the two objects of dawać in dative and accusative respectively. Six checks, perhaps forty seconds, and they catch the errors that actually occur rather than the ones a student worries about.

Result: Po pracy moja siostra daje swojemu synowi książkę o Polsce, ale nie ma czasu na długą rozmowę. Every ending is forced by something identifiable: po and o by the locative they govern, dawać by its dative-plus-accusative pattern, na by the accusative of purpose, and czasu by the genitive of negation.

Take the phrase moja młodsza siostra and write seven Polish sentences, one for each case, so that the phrase carries a different grammatical role in every one. Say what forces the case each time.

1. 01Mianownik and wołacz - the two nominative-shaped roles

   As a subject the phrase is untouched: Moja młodsza siostra mieszka w Krakowie. As a form of address the noun takes the vocative while the adjectives, being soft-stem feminine forms, look the same as the nominative: Moja młodsza siostro, posłuchaj. The vocative is genuinely used in Polish, in letters, in speech reported in narrative and in imperatives addressed to a named person, so a student who has decided it is archaic is preparing against a form the exam can legitimately set.

2. 02Dopełniacz - possession and negation

   Nie znam mojej młodszej siostry z tej strony. The genitive is forced twice over here: znać is negated, so its object moves out of the accusative, and the feminine singular genitive of siostra is siostry with the adjectives in -ej. The same form does duty for possession - książka mojej młodszej siostry - which is why the genitive is the case that appears most often in ordinary Polish prose and the one worth over-drilling.

3. 03Celownik - the recipient

   Dałem mojej młodszej siostrze klucze. The dative feminine singular of siostra is siostrze, with the stem consonant softening from r to rz, and the adjectives again in -ej. That softening is regular but it catches people, because the dative and the locative of feminine nouns both trigger it: siostrze, książce, Polsce. Learn the alternation as a pattern - k becomes c, g becomes dz, r becomes rz, t becomes ci - rather than as a list of exceptions.

4. 04Biernik - the direct object

   Widziałem moją młodszą siostrę wczoraj na dworcu. The feminine accusative singular takes -ę on the noun and -ą on the adjectives, which is the one place in the whole feminine paradigm where noun and adjective take visibly different vowels. It is worth writing out ten times, because the pairing moją siostrę looks wrong to an English eye and is exactly right.

5. 05Narzędnik and miejscownik - with and about

   Rozmawiałem z moją młodszą siostrą o pracy: z governs the instrumental, and the feminine instrumental has -ą on everything, adjective and noun alike. Then Myślę o mojej młodszej siostrze: o governs the locative, and the feminine locative is identical to the dative, siostrze. Two cases sharing one form is not a defect of the system; it is a fact you can lean on, because it halves what has to be memorised for feminine nouns.

6. 06Read the seven back and check the adjectives every time

   The check that matters is not whether the noun is right - most students get the noun right - but whether both adjectives moved with it. Moja and młodsza must carry the same case, gender and number as siostra in every one of the seven sentences. Read the seven aloud and listen for a nominative adjective sitting in front of an oblique noun; that mismatch is audible once you have trained for it and is the single most visible agreement error in written Polish.

Result: Mianownik: Moja młodsza siostra mieszka w Krakowie. Dopełniacz: Nie znam mojej młodszej siostry z tej strony. Celownik: Dałem mojej młodszej siostrze klucze. Biernik: Widziałem moją młodszą siostrę na dworcu. Narzędnik: Rozmawiałem z moją młodszą siostrą o pracy. Miejscownik: Myślę o mojej młodszej siostrze. Wołacz: Moja młodsza siostro, posłuchaj.

Render these four sentences into Polish and justify the aspect in each: (a) When I was reading the letter, the telephone rang. (b) I read the whole letter and then telephoned my brother. (c) Every evening she used to write to her mother. (d) She will write to her mother tomorrow.

1. 01(a) A process interrupted by an event

   The reading is in progress and something cuts across it, so the reading is imperfective and the interruption is perfective: Kiedy czytałem list, zadzwonił telefon. This is the commonest aspectual shape in narrative and it is worth internalising as a pattern rather than deriving each time: background in the imperfective, foreground event in the perfective. English marks the same contrast with was reading against rang, which is why a student who tracks the English tense forms carefully will usually arrive at the right Polish aspects.

2. 02(b) Two completed events in sequence

   Both actions are single wholes and the second follows the first, so both are perfective: Przeczytałem cały list, a potem zadzwoniłem do brata. Note two details beyond aspect. Cały reinforces the completeness and sits naturally with the perfective; and zadzwonić governs do plus the genitive, so it is do brata and not the accusative an English speaker might reach for. A sequence of perfectives is what narrative movement sounds like in Polish.

3. 03(c) A habit

   Every evening signals repetition, and repetition is imperfective territory: Każdego wieczoru pisała do matki. Note that każdego wieczoru is itself in the genitive, because that is the case Polish uses for a repeated point in time. The imperfective past here carries what English carries with used to write, and adding a word for used to would be both unnecessary and un-Polish - the aspect is already doing that work.

4. 04(d) A single future event

   One completed act in the future takes the perfective future, which is built with what look like present endings: Jutro napisze do matki. The alternative Jutro będzie pisać do matki is grammatical but means something different - she will be writing, at length or repeatedly - so the choice is semantic and not stylistic. This is the pair of forms a student should be able to produce instantly, because the Paper 3 translation into Polish almost always contains at least one future.

5. 05Check the four together

   Read the four back and ask one question of each verb: is this a process or a whole? If the answer is process, the verb must be imperfective and the future must be compound. If it is a whole, the verb must be perfective and its present-looking form is a future. That single question resolves the large majority of aspect decisions in an exam passage, and the residue - verbs of motion, verbs of perception, negated imperatives - can be learned as a short list of special cases.

Result: (a) Kiedy czytałem list, zadzwonił telefon. (b) Przeczytałem cały list, a potem zadzwoniłem do brata. (c) Każdego wieczoru pisała do matki. (d) Jutro napisze do matki. The four decisions are: process interrupted, two completed wholes in sequence, habit, and single future event.

Put into Polish: In our school twenty-two teachers and fifteen pupils took part in the project; three girls and two boys wrote the report, and a quarter of the class watched. Justify every numeral decision.

1. 01dwudziestu dwóch nauczycieli - the masculine personal overlay

   Nauczyciele is masculine personal, so the masculine personal numeral form is required and the noun goes into the genitive plural: dwudziestu dwóch nauczycieli. The verb will be singular. Note that the last digit is two, which in the non-personal system would have given a nominative plural; the masculine personal overlay removes that option entirely and sends every quantity above one into the genitive with a singular verb. That simplification is worth welcoming rather than resenting.

2. 02piętnastu uczniów - the same overlay, a teen

   Uczniowie is also masculine personal, so again the -u numeral form and the genitive plural: piętnastu uczniów. Had the noun been uczennice, feminine and therefore not masculine personal, the teen would have taken the ordinary five-and-above pattern: piętnaście uczennic. Teens are the band students misplace most often, so it is worth saying explicitly that every teen from jedenaście to dziewiętnaście behaves like pięć and never like dwa.

3. 03wzięło udział - one verb for both subjects

   With a compound subject of this shape the verb goes into the neuter singular past: wzięło udział. That is the form the genitive-plural construction demands, and it is the detail that most often gives a candidate away. Wziąć udział w plus the locative is the fixed collocation for take part in, so the project goes into the locative: w projekcie. Learning the collocation with its preposition and case attached saves a decision under pressure.

4. 04trzy dziewczynki i dwaj chłopcy - two different systems in one clause

   Dziewczynki is not masculine personal, so three takes the nominative plural: trzy dziewczynki. Chłopcy is masculine personal, so two takes either dwaj chłopcy with the nominative or dwóch chłopców with the genitive. Mixing the two constructions inside one coordinated subject is awkward, and the cleanest solution is the collective numeral, which exists precisely for mixed groups: pięcioro uczniów napisało raport. If the sentence must keep both groups separate, trzy dziewczynki i dwaj chłopcy napisali raport is correct, with the verb in the masculine personal plural because the group now includes males.

5. 05jedna czwarta klasy oglądała - the fraction

   Fractions take the genitive of what is being divided: jedna czwarta klasy. The verb agrees with the fraction itself, which is feminine singular, so oglądała. Trzy czwarte klasy would take a plural or a neuter singular depending on the construction, which is why the safer choice in an exam is the shape whose agreement is unambiguous. Note that klasa here means the group of pupils rather than the room, exactly as in English.

6. 06Assemble and run the numeral check

   W naszej szkole w projekcie wzięło udział dwudziestu dwóch nauczycieli i piętnastu uczniów; trzy dziewczynki i dwaj chłopcy napisali raport, a jedna czwarta klasy oglądała. The check is mechanical: for each numeral, name its band, confirm the noun's case, confirm the verb's number and gender. Four numerals, twelve checks, under a minute - and it converts the part of a translation passage that most reliably bleeds marks into the part you can be certain about.

Result: W naszej szkole w projekcie wzięło udział dwudziestu dwóch nauczycieli i piętnastu uczniów; trzy dziewczynki i dwaj chłopcy napisali raport, a jedna czwarta klasy oglądała. Every numeral is decided by naming its band first: masculine personal genitive with a singular verb, the same again for the teen, the ordinary nominative plural for a non-personal three, and the genitive of the divided noun for the fraction.

Render this practice passage into English and say what each decision turned on. Practice material, not a past paper. Coraz więcej młodych Polaków wraca z zagranicy. Mówi się, że decyduje o tym nie tylko sytuacja gospodarcza, ale i tęsknota za rodziną. W zeszłym roku zbudowano w naszym mieście dwa nowe przedszkola, a kilkanaście rodzin, które wróciły z Wielkiej Brytanii, zapisało do nich swoje dzieci.

1. 01Coraz więcej młodych Polaków wraca z zagranicy

   Coraz plus a comparative is the standard Polish device for an increasing quantity, so coraz więcej is more and more. Więcej governs the genitive plural, which is why młodych Polaków carries those endings; the endings are a consequence of the quantifier and not a separate piece of information to be translated. Wraca is imperfective present and describes an ongoing pattern, so English wants are returning rather than return. Z zagranicy is from abroad, with zagranica as a noun in the genitive after z. More and more young Poles are returning from abroad.

2. 02Mówi się, że decyduje o tym nie tylko sytuacja gospodarcza, ale i tęsknota za rodziną

   Mówi się is the reflexive impersonal, best rendered as it is said or people say. Decydować o czymś governs the locative, so o tym is about this or determines this; English takes the preposition differently and says decides this or is behind this. Nie tylko ... ale i is not only ... but also, a fixed correlative pair worth recognising as one unit. Tęsknota za plus the instrumental is longing for, and za rodziną is therefore for family. It is said that this is caused not only by the economic situation but also by longing for family.

3. 03W zeszłym roku zbudowano w naszym mieście dwa nowe przedszkola

   Zbudowano is the impersonal past in -no, which has no subject at all in Polish and must not be given one in English. The natural renderings are the passive, two new nurseries were built, or the vague they, they built two new nurseries. W zeszłym roku is last year, with the locative after w; w naszym mieście is in our town, again the locative. Dwa nowe przedszkola is a neuter noun with the numeral two, so it takes the nominative plural - and that is invisible in English but confirms that the impersonal reading is right, because a subject would have had to be nominative too.

4. 04a kilkanaście rodzin, które wróciły z Wielkiej Brytanii

   Kilkanaście is the indefinite numeral for a quantity somewhere in the teens, and English has no single word for it: a dozen or so or between ten and twenty families. It takes the genitive plural, rodzin. Które is the relative pronoun agreeing with rodziny in gender and number but taking its own case from its own clause, here the nominative as the subject of wróciły. Wróciły is perfective past, non-masculine-personal plural, so the return is presented as completed. Wielka Brytania declines, hence z Wielkiej Brytanii.

5. 05zapisało do nich swoje dzieci

   Zapisało is perfective past, neuter singular - which looks wrong until you remember that kilkanaście governs a singular neuter verb in the past, exactly like pięć. Zapisać kogoś do czegoś is to enrol someone in something, so do nich is in them, referring back to the nurseries. Swoje is the reflexive possessive and means their own, referring to the subject of the clause; rendering it simply as their loses a nuance English can carry with their own where it matters. And enrolled their own children there.

6. 06Read the English back on its own

   The last step of any into-English translation is to read the English without looking at the Polish and ask whether it sounds like something a person would write. A rendering can be accurate at every point and still fail to show comprehension because it reads as a gloss. Here the fix is small: joining the last two clauses and letting the impersonal become a natural English passive produces prose rather than an interlinear crib, and it is the prose that persuades an examiner the Polish was understood.

Result: More and more young Poles are returning from abroad. It is said that this is caused not only by the economic situation but also by longing for family. Last year two new nurseries were built in our town, and a dozen or so families who had returned from the United Kingdom enrolled their own children there.

Practice material, not a past paper. Supporting text in Polish (extract): W ostatnich latach coraz więcej młodych ludzi bierze udział w wolontariacie. Organizacje pozarządowe podkreślają, że wolontariat daje doświadczenie zawodowe. Zdaniem socjologów zmienia się także stosunek do pracy społecznej. English passage: In recent years more and more school pupils have taken part in voluntary work. Five organisations in our town say that volunteering gives young people professional experience, and in the opinion of teachers it also changes their attitude to community work.

1. 01Mine the supporting text before reading the English again

   The supporting text hands over four things the passage needs: the quantifier phrase coraz więcej with its genitive, the collocation brać udział w plus the locative, the frame zdaniem plus the genitive for in the opinion of, and the noun phrase stosunek do plus the genitive for attitude to. It also supplies doświadczenie zawodowe for professional experience and praca społeczna for community work. Reading it first turns four production decisions into four recognition decisions, which is exactly what it was written to do.

2. 02W ostatnich latach coraz więcej uczniów bierze udział w wolontariacie

   In recent years is w ostatnich latach, locative plural after w. Coraz więcej governs the genitive plural: uczniów. The English present perfect have taken part describes a continuing pattern rather than a finished event, so Polish uses the imperfective present, bierze - and the verb is singular because coraz więcej belongs to the genitive-plural family. Brać udział w takes the locative, so w wolontariacie. Every one of those four decisions came out of the supporting text.

3. 03Pięć organizacji w naszym mieście twierdzi

   Five sends its noun into the genitive plural and takes a singular verb: pięć organizacji twierdzi. Organizacja has a genitive plural in -i, which is a form worth having secure because -cja nouns are extremely common in this kind of prose. W naszym mieście is the locative after w, with the possessive and the adjective agreeing. Twierdzić is the natural verb for a reported claim and is a better choice than mówić here, because it carries the sense of asserting rather than merely saying.

4. 04że wolontariat daje młodym ludziom doświadczenie zawodowe

   Dawać takes a dative recipient and an accusative thing, so młodym ludziom in the dative plural - note the masculine personal dative in -om with the adjective in -ym - and doświadczenie zawodowe in the accusative, which for a neuter noun is identical to the nominative. The whole noun phrase came straight from the supporting text and should be reproduced exactly as given rather than re-invented, because a phrase supplied by the paper is a phrase the examiner expects to see.

5. 05a zdaniem nauczycieli zmienia także ich stosunek do pracy społecznej

   Zdaniem plus the genitive is in the opinion of, so zdaniem nauczycieli. Zmieniać takes an accusative object, stosunek, and stosunek do governs the genitive: do pracy społecznej. Także sits before the element it scopes over. Ich is the invariable third-person possessive and is correct here because the possessor - the young people - is not the subject of this clause; had it been, swój would have been required, and that distinction between ich and swój is one an examiner will look for.

6. 06Run the five-point check

   W ostatnich latach coraz więcej uczniów bierze udział w wolontariacie. Pięć organizacji w naszym mieście twierdzi, że wolontariat daje młodym ludziom doświadczenie zawodowe, a zdaniem nauczycieli zmienia także ich stosunek do pracy społecznej. Check in this order: every preposition against its case; every numeral against its band and its verb; every adjective and possessive against its noun; every verb against the aspect the English demanded; and finally, whether anything the supporting text offered was left unused. That last question alone is usually worth a mark.

Result: W ostatnich latach coraz więcej uczniów bierze udział w wolontariacie. Pięć organizacji w naszym mieście twierdzi, że wolontariat daje młodym ludziom doświadczenie zawodowe, a zdaniem nauczycieli zmienia także ich stosunek do pracy społecznej. Four of the passage's hardest decisions - the quantifier's case, the collocation's preposition, the attribution frame and the noun phrase for attitude to - were supplied by the supporting text and only had to be recognised.