What you know so far [Toggle]
OK - time to get some of those all important words that are the key to more complex sentences - or, neither, nor, instead
"Ale teraz ... myślę, że jest Dzień dobry, ale może nie, może dobry wieczór. Wiem, że masz lekcję teraz."
Let's start our tout of useful joining words with a strange case ...
 English |  Polish |
|---|---|
| Whether, Or |
"Czy" is one of those little words that bubbles up everywhere and is sort of translated as "Whether" or "Or" depending where it is used in a sentence. Let's start with the "or".
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| You want coffee or tea? | |
| Do you want coffee or tea? |
Now "Czy" is certainly not "Do" in the second phrase so the best way to describe it is "whether" - "whether you want coffee or tea?" ... it's a clumsy translation but probably the best we can get!
My general rule is to add "Czy to the start of a question if I just want to emphasise the question. Say, for example, I've asked someone if they want tea or coffee and that person can't decide, eventually I ask "Czy chcesz kawę czy herbatę". It's kind of pushing the point that I am asking a question which needs an answer.
But in the middle of two nouns ("Kawa", "Herbata", etc.) "Czy" always means "or".
We will return to "Czy" in the future when it pops up to be used as a way of saying "if". Yes seriously this little word knows how to get around but right now we're really only interested in how to say "or" with it.
So let's try asking a few questions using the full question form:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| Do you want to have wine or beer? | |
| Do you want to buy red or white? | |
| Do you want to have depression or stress? |
Now as it happens there are actually many ways to say "or" in Polish because it depends what you mean!
When you are using "czy" it is usually in a question and you are asking if a person wants one thing or the other assuming they will want one of them.. The clue to this is in the endings of "Kawa" and "Herbata" which have become "Kawę" and "Herbatę" - you are going to have tea or coffee ... not nothing. So we are in the "after the verb" case but not in the "something is missing" case.
Contrast that with this:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| You want wine or beer? | |
| Do you want wine or beer? |
And you can see "Piwo" and "Wino" have now both moved into the case of "something is missing" because you are asking if someone wants either of these things or possibly nothing at all .. which is rude so you wouldn't do it - you would use "czy"!
"Albo" is actually more often used when the sentence is not a question.
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| I want to have jazz or rock, but not techno |
... and we're back out of the "something is missing" case because we're going to have one or the other.
So try these
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| I want to buy a computer or a laptop | |
| You can buy a tablet or a notebook | |
| I want to have a small house or a big apartment |
Now just to keep you on your toes there is also "lub" which is completely interchangeable with "albo but more commonly used when writing. My advice is just to stick with:
... and always be prepared to have any of the three come at you regardless of the circumstances!
It's become common in English to say "I don't want tea or coffee" but we also have the negative version "I don't want tea nor coffee" or "I want neither tea nor coffee" - so don't start giving Polish a hard time for having multiple ways to say the same thing!
In Polish the negative "or" is "ani" ... and it's also the word for "neither" ... which is handy
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| Neither this nor that |
But don't forget if we don't want tea and we don't want coffee then we don't have anything yet so we are "missing something".
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| We have neither tea nor coffee | |
| I don't want good tea or good coffee |
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| Instead |
Now this is one to watch carefully. Consider this: "Instead of water, you can have wine". Now that means that you won't have water but you will have wine. That means "water" is going to be in the Something is missing case ... but wine won't be!
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| Instead of water you can have wine |
Basically if a noun comes after "zamiast" it is in the something is missing case. So have a go at these:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| I like jazz instead of hip hop | |
| I have a computer instead of a television | |
| Instead of red you can have white | |
| I like wine instead of beer | |
| Instead of coffee we want to have tea |