What you know so far [Toggle]
To say 'you can' is important but sometimes you need to get across that 'you have to' ... in other words 'you must'.
But as we always do ... "Witam, może Dzień dobry, może dobry wieczór, nie wiem ale wiem, że mamy lekcję teraz. Dlaczego? Bo tak!"
OK, let's start with the basic 'he/she/it form' of "to have to (must)" and pick up the 'to form' of "to buy" while were are at it:
 English |  Polish |
|---|---|
| I think (that) he must (to) buy milk | |
| I think (that) she must (to) buy water |
We can play around with this a bit. If "water" after a verb is "wodę" then how would you say "It's water"?
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| It's water |
"Tak jest". Exactly as "To kawa" switched to "Mam kawę" because it came after a verb you can switch "Mam wodę" back to "To woda". Practicing these reverse switches helps to reinforce the different endings in your mind and helps you to find other endings no matter which form of a noun or adjective you come across.
And now let's do the same with a new adjective:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| I think (that) he must buy cold water |
So what is:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| It's cold water | |
| It's cold wine | |
| It's a cold house |
Never miss the opportunity to move back and forwards through a language. Sometimes you might be wrong (there are always exceptions) but you will probably be close enough to be understood and then someone will correct you. Try it with "hot":
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| I think (that) he/she must buy hot tea |
So what is
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| It's hot coffee | |
| It's a hot house | |
| It's hot beer |
"Gorące piwo" is very popular in Poland during the winter months. It will often be mixed with raspberry syrup, honey, cloves and all sorts of other things in a sort of similar way to mulled wine ... which would be why it's called:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| Mulled beer |
And here's a typical advert for the very same ...
Adverts are a great way to learn because they often contain very simple language so never miss an opportunity to take a closer look at one. There are some really useful words here which you can probably guess. Try matching them up before revealing the answers:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| Only | |
| Aromatic | |
| Ideal |
Of course you didn't need to guess "Idealne" at all ... it's a word that ends 'al' in English so we know what to do with it!
And "aromatyczne" you would have spotted as having a 'yczne' ending which means if you replace it with 'ic' or 'ical' you will probably get the English version.
We can actually use words like "aromatycne" and "idealne" to tell us what gender the noun ("piwo") is if we are in doubt.
We see both these describing words ("Idealne", "aromatycne") end in 'e' so "Piwo" must be neuter ... as if we didn't know that!
So how would you say:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| It's aromatic shampoo | |
| It's ideal shampoo | |
| It's aromatic coffee | |
| It's ideal coffee |
OK - now let's play with "he/she must"
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| She must sleep here | |
| Why must she sleep here? | |
| Why mustn't she sleep here? | |
| He must have hot tea now | |
| Why must he have hot tea now? | |
| Why mustn't he have cold tea now? |
So we've got the 'he/she/it' form of 'to have to' ... or 'must' - "musi".
It's a useful one in many ways just to look at because it's a reminder that 'si' makes the sound 'she'. If you come across 's' and 'i' together in any other word you can think back to "musi" and it will remind you how to say 'si'.
It's also not too difficult to remember as it is very close to the English - both "musi" and "must" start 'mus'.
So now let's extract the 'informal you' and 'we' forms of the verb using the rules we've covered in several of the previous lessons.
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| You must buy good water | |
| We must buy new milk |
Again we see the same pattern here as we saw in "Możesz spać" - "You can (to) sleep". Here we have "you must (to) buy".
So let's play around with "Musimy" by creating a mega sentence and then breaking it down:
"You think (that) we must go to town on Monday but we think (that) we must go at the weekend"
Yes, "weekend" is "weekend", said in exactly the same way as it is in English. I know it's true that 'w' usually sounds like 'v' in Polish but when a word is lifted from another language it's pronounciation is often kept in its entirity.
I believe there was an attempt to create a formal Polish word - "łikend" - but it never caught on.
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| You think (that) we must go to town on Monday but we think (that) we must go at the weekend |
So try breaking these down:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| You think (that) you must buy a big house but it's not true | |
| We think (that) we must buy milk on Sunday but you think it's not true | |
| We must buy the ticket because we want to go at the weekend | |
| You must go to town now because I want my shampoo |
Slightly unusual this one:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| I must go to the cinema on Saturday |
OK ... and there are two new words two new words. Let's reverse engineer to get the dictionary terms.
"Kina" - We're in the case where "something is missing" because if we have to go to the cinema then we are not at the cinema so the cinema is missing us!. We know it's neuter nouns that gets the 'o' changed to 'a' in this case so we can switch that back to get "Kino" - the translation for "cinema" that you'll find in the dictionary.
"Sobotę" - Although we are in the case where "something is missing" this word has not come straight after the verb so "Saturday" is not missing something. That means we're in the more general "after a verb" case and it's feminine nouns which have their last 'a' changed to 'ę' in this case. Reverse that out and we get "Sobota" as you'll find it in the dictionary.
OK - let's try a mega sentence: "I think (that) I must go to the supermarket on Saturday because I want to buy wine".
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| I think (that) I must go to the supermarket on Saturday because I want to buy wine |
Cracking so here are a few more to work through:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| I must have a good password because my computer is old | |
| I have a red lamp but I must buy a white lamp on Saturday | |
| I have GPS but I must know (of) your address | |
| You want to buy coffee but I must buy tea because I don't like coffee |
Now we haven't mentioned "must not" and for a reason, it doesn't exist. You see "Musić" is really "to have to" - I've just been using must as a way to remember that connection via the first 3 letters. So if you have "to have to" then the negative is "to not have to":
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| You don't have to go to town |
So try these:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| I don't have to buy milk | |
| We don't have to have wine |
But that begs the question ... 'How to you say "you must not"'? Simples - we just use the "cannot" we covered a couple of lessons ago.
Lesson 17: Or, neither, nor, instead