Grammatical gender of nouns

Noun is an inflected part of speech determining things, objects, places and persons. Noun is inflected for numbers and cases, and it has genders.

In Polish, there are three genders in singular number: masculine (ten), feminine (ta) and neuter (to). In plural number, there are two genders: masculine personal (ci) and non-masculine personal (te).

Nominative singular of most nouns has the following endings:

• Masculine gender ends with a consonant (e.g. syn, pies, brat).
• Feminine gender ends with -a (e.g. mama, ulica, córka).
• Neuter gender ends with -o (e.g. kino, auto, nazwisko or -e mieszkanie, spotkanie).

Number of nouns

Nouns can have singular or plural number.

Singular number is used when talking about one object (e.g. siostra, dom, pies, dziecko).

Plural number is used when talking about a number of objects (e.g. siostry, domy, psy, dzieci).

Some nouns have only plural number (e.g. drzwi, okulary).

Inflection of nouns

In the Polish language, there are seven cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative and vocative. The case of a noun is determined by means of a question.

Singular number

Plural number

Nominative

Nominative is the basic form of a noun. In a sentence, nominative is never used with prepositions. Nominative answers the questions: kto? co?

In nominative singular, most nouns have the following endings:

• Masculine gender ends with a consonant (e.g. syn, pies, brat).
• Feminine gender ends with -a (e.g. mama, ulica, córka).
• Neuter gender ends with -o (e.g. kino, auto, nazwisko or -e mieszkanie, spotkanie).

Some nouns have non-typical endings in nominative singular:

• ending -a also appears in masculine gender (ten kolega, mężczyzna, dentysta),
• ending –ę appears in neuter gender (to imię, kurczę),
• nouns in feminine gender may end with a consonant (ta krew, kość).

Plural number

The locative case of non-masculine nouns most often takes on the ending –y (dziura → dziury, krem → kremy).

Nouns with stem word ending in the nominative case of singular number in –k, -g, take on the ending –i (żarówka → żarówki, kosmetyk → kosmetyki).

Nouns with stem word ending in the nominative case of singular number in –ń, -sz, -cz, -rz, -ż, -l, -j, -c, -dz, -ś, -ć, -ź, take on the ending –e (grosz → grosze, pokój → pokoje, pieniądz → pieniądze, kłótnia → kłótnie).

Nouns that are in the singular neuter gender take the plural ending –a (ubranie → ubrania, narzędzie → narzędzia).

Movable (reduced) e

Some nouns, when inflected, undergo changes in the root (e.g.młotek → młotki).

Nominative case of masculine personal nouns takes on ending –owie (pan → panowie). This group includes e.g. relationship names (teść → teściowie, syn → synowie, ojciec → ojcowie).

Masculine nouns ending in singular number in –k, -g(a), -r, -ec take on ending –y (Polak → Polacy, kolega → koledzy, doktor → doktorzy, chłopiec → chłopcy).

Masculine nouns ending in singular number in -d, -ch, -sta, –t(a) take on ending –i (Szwed → Szwedzi, Włoch → Włosi, artysta → artyści, architekt → architekci).

Masculine nouns ending in singular number in –c, –cz, -l, -rz, -sz, -ść take on ending –e (rodzic → rodzice, gracz → gracze, nauczyciel → nauczyciele, lekarz → lekarze, listonosz → listonosze, gość → gośćie).

Some masculine nouns have untypical endings in the nominative case of plural number, e.g. brat → bracia, ksiądz → księża, Rosjanin → Rosjanie, Amerykanin → Amerykanie.

Genitive

Genitive is used after prepositions: obok, bez, od, do, z, naprzeciwko, dla. Genitive answers questions: kogo? czego?

Some verbs (e.g. bać się, życzyć, szukać, słuchać, uczyć się) require the use of genitive: Uczyć się języka polskiego. Życzyć wszystkiego najlepszego..

Some masculine inanimate nouns in genitive singular form have the ending -u. Often, these are short words (sok → soku), loan words (bar → baru), words indicating means of transport (autobus → autobusu), masculine nouns, which name a week day (wtorek → wtorku), or uncountable nouns (cukier → cukru).

Plural number

Nouns that are in the nominative (kto? co?) singular and end in a consonant take in the genitive plural the ending –ów (sąsiad → sąsiadów, student → studentów) or –y/i (klucz → kluczy, mysz → myszy).

Nouns that are in the nominative singular and end in a vowel have in the genitive plural the so-called zero ending (brama → bram, mieszkanie → mieszkań).

Movable (reduced) e

Some nouns, when inflected, undergo changes in the root (e.g.wtorek → do wtorku).

Plural nouns, which are feminine and neuter in singular number, have the so called zero ending in genitive. If in the word ending there are two consonants, in between such consonants a vowel will appear e (e.g. sukienka → sukienek, jajko → jajek).

Dative

Prepositions followed by dative: ku, dzięki, przeciw. Dative answers a question: komu? czemu?

Dative follows some verbs: dać, dziękować, obiecać, pomagać, powiedzieć.

In the Polish language, endings of dative are in masculine gender -owi (e.g. mężowi, nauczycielowi) and -u (e.g. bratu, psu). In feminine gender, noun has the ending –i/-y (e.g. babci, ulicy and –e/-ie koleżance, dziewczynie).

Note! Alternating sounds:

• ch + e = sze (mucha → musze)
• d + e = dzie (woda → wodzie)
• g + e = dze (kolega → koledze)
• k + e = ce (matka → matce)
• r + e = rze (siostra → siostrze)
• zd + e = ździe (gwiazda → gwieździe)
• dz → g (koledzy → kolegom)
• ć → t (klienci → klientom)

Accusative

Accusative follows prepositions: na, pod, przez, nad, w. Accusative answers the questions: kogo? co?

Accusative is used after the following verbs: mieć, lubić, jeść, kupować, czytać, znać, oglądać, prosić. However, if such verbs follow negation, the case is changed to genitive (kogo? czego?).

Some nouns, when inflected, also show changes in the stem (e.g. pies → mam psa).

Plural number

Accusative case of non-masculine personal nouns is the same as nominative case. E.g.:

To są (kto?, co?) kremy. X Mam (kogo?, co?) kremy.

To są (kto?, co?) studentki. X Widzę (kogo?, co?) studentki.

Accusative case of masculine personal nouns is the same as genitive case. E.g.:

Szukam (kogo? czego?) studentów. X Znam (kogo? co?) studentów.

Nie widzę (kogo? czego?) twoich rodziców. X Widzę (kogo? co?) twoich rodziców.

Instrumental

Instrumental follows prepositions: nad, pod, przed, za, między. Instrumental answers questions: (z) kim? (z) czym?

Locative

Locative is used after the following prepositions: na, po, o, przy, w(e). Locative answers the questions: (o) kim, (o) czym?

Nouns with a hard stem have in locative the ending -e (e.g. okno → na oknie, sklep → w sklepie).

Nouns in neuter and masculine gender with a soft stem and a stem ending with k, g, ch have in locative the ending –u (e.g. mieszkanie → w mieszkaniu, rok → w roku).

Some nouns in feminine gender have the ending –i/-y (e.g. kuchnia → w kuchni, praca → w pracy).

Note! Alternating sounds:

• ch + e = sze (mucha → o musze)
• d + e = dzie (woda → w wodzie)
• g + e = dze (noga → o nodze)
• k + e = ce (matka → o matce)
• ł + e = le (stół → na stole)
• r + e = rze (rower → na rowerze)
• sł + e = śle (krzesło → na krześle)
• st + e = ście (miasto → w mieście)
• t + e = cie (uniwersytet – na uniwersytecie)
• zd + e = ździe (gwiazda → o gwieździe)

Plural number

The locative case in plural number ends with –ach (góra → górach, dom → domach, Bieszczady → Bieszczadach).

Vocative

Vocative is used when addressing someone.

In colloquial speech, the vocative case is often replaced by the nominative case, e.g. Cześć, Marcin!

However, in official situations, when addressing someone, we use the vocative case, e.g. Cześć, Marcinie!

Masculine nouns with the stem ending in hard consonant take on the ending –ie (Marcin → Marcinie, Filip → Filipie).

Masculine nouns with the stem ending in soft consonant, nouns ending in -k, -g, -ch and diminutives of female given names take on the ending -u (Tomasz → Tomaszu, Marek → Mareku, Basia → Basiu).

Feminine nouns take on the ending -o (Beata → Beato, mama → mamo).

Gerunds

Nouns which name acts and states are called gerunds. For most verbs, they are formed by cutting off an inflectional ending and adding a suffix to the stem -anie, -enie, -cie, e.g.:

• budować → budowanie
• biegać → bieganie
• projektować → projektowanie

• chodzić → chodzenie
• robić → robienie
• mówić → mówienie

• być → bycie
• pić → picie
• myć → mycie

Forming feminatives

Feminatives are formed from most masculine nouns by adding the suffix -ka, e.g.:

In the Polish language, there are no feminative forms of some masculine names of academic titles, professions or job positions. A masculine name is then supplemented with the noun pani, E.g.:

In job advertisements and some communications names of job positions may relate to both genders although feminatives ......

Creating names of doers

Nouns which denote doers are formed with the use of derivational word parts, e.g. -arz, -ec, -ik.

• -arz (piłkarz, bramkarz, dziennikarz, pisarz, siatkarz)
• -ec (strzelec)
• -ik (przewodnik, napastnik, zawodnik, przeciwnik)