What you know so far [Toggle]
'To not have' introduces us to a new set of rules as to how nouns (words like 'kawa', 'dom', etc.) and adjectives (describing words like 'dobry', 'czerwony', etc.) change.
So ... "Masz lekcję! Dalej, do boju!". (If you have just arrived here from a search engine go back to the previous lesson to get that joke!)
First let's just cover where we are up to. We have basic descriptions - phrases which answer the question "What is it?".
Then we have the changes that happen if the nouns and adjectives are coming after a verb. It is the reply to questions like "What are you doing?" or "What do you have?". In this case things change but for feminine nouns only.
To switch into the negative we simply stick a "nie" in front of "mam"
 English |  Polish |
|---|---|
| I don't have |
So "Masz wino?", "Nie mam" - "Have you got wine?", "I don't have".
"Nie mam" is a perfectly legitimate reply, it's just in English we have dropped the 'have' most of the time and just say "I don't" when we respond even though it's theoretically needed for the sentence to make sense.
And while in Engish we imply the "have" in Polish you can also use "Nie mam" and imply the 'it'. In other words you can also use this to say "I don't have it"
Next, and the focus of this lesson, is what happens to the rest of the sentence in what I call the case where "something is missing". In this case all three genders change. Let's compare before and after:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| I have a good house | |
| I don't have a good house | |
| I have (a) good coffee | |
| I don't have (a) good coffee | |
| I have (a) good wine | |
| I don't have (a) good wine |
Ouch! Well I know what you are thinking - "Po prostu szok!" - to which I would say "To prawda, masz rację" but "Do boju! Razem!".
Let's take a really close look at those endings on the adjective ("dobry") and the nouns ("dom", "kawa", "wino"):
It's not too bad - at least masculine and neuter are the same when it comes to adjectives - they both use the 'ego' ending - and when you get the hang of these 3 endings you have learnt pretty much 50% of Polish grammar rules!
Personally I really love the 'ego' sound. It just rolls off the tongue. A useful way to remember that 'ego' goes with masculine nouns (like "dom") is to think that men often have big egos! The 'ej' is the softer, more feminine ending.
Now remember ... and this is really important ... it is all about something that is missing, not simply about something being negative. You can be in the negative and nothing changes like this:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| It's not a laptop, it's a notebook |
OK! Let's get a couple of new (and very useful) adjectives to help practice all three cases.
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| Big | |
| Small |
Personally I really like "Duży" - it sounds like something is big, perhaps because it has that same feeling as "Deep". But the 'uży' almost sounds like an echo in a cave. For me it also sounds longer than "Mały"
Now what I always give when we are introducing a new adjective is the masculine form - it ends 'y' - "Duży" / "Mały" . So using the standard rules for adjectives work out femine and neuter:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| Big (for feminine nouns like 'coffee') | |
| Big (for neuter nouns like 'wine') | |
| Small (for feminine nouns) | |
| Small (for neuter nouns) |
OK and now let's move through the cases for male nouns (words that describe things like "bank"):
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| It's a big camera | |
| I have a big camera | |
| I don't have a big camera | |
| It's a small telephone | |
| I have a small telephone | |
| I don't have a small telephone |
... and now let's do it for femine nouns (like "kawa"):
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| It's a big keyboard | |
| I have a big keyboard | |
| I don't have a big keyboard | |
| It's a small bag | |
| I have a small bag | |
| I don't have a small bag |
... and finally for neuter nouns (like "wino"). Well, in fact, we don't have much except "wino" at the moment so let's add a couple of new neuter nouns to our vocab:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| Beer | |
| Password |
You'll see "Hasło" all over the internet be it online banking, online stores, forums, social media, etc. Polish uses the same words for "login" or "email" but for "Password" it's "Hasło". An absolute must have in your vocab!
And "Piwo" - well you'll find that everywhere else!
If you are interested that "Czesi nas" means "We are pround of". The rest you know!
OK, let's get using those new words.
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| It's a big password | |
| I have a big password | |
| I don't have a big password | |
| It's a small beer | |
| I have a small beer | |
| I don't have a small beer |
Now of course you should really use "long" and "short" as better descriptions - "I have a long/short password" but with "duży" and "mały" you will be perfectly understood and right now useful vocabularly which you can use in a wide variety of situations is better than text book vocabulary for specific moments.
It's helpful to put all three cases into a table like the one below so you can refer to it if you need to and as you become more familiar with the three cases you will need it less and less.
| Case | Masculine | Femine | Neuter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stating something | To duży aparat | To duża klawiatura | To duże hasło |
| After a verb | Mam duży aparat | Mam dużą klawiaturę | Mam duże hasło |
| Something missing | Nie mam dużego aparatu | Nie mam dużej klawiatury | Nie mam dużego hasła |
DO NOT take this as the ultimate table of how adjectives and verbs end. We're building towards that but we're not there yet!
So have a look at the phrases below. Take your time, refer to the table above, and see if you can work them out before revealing them:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| I don't have a lot of (bad) stress | |
| I don't have a white telephone | |
| I don't have (a) good coffee | |
| I don't have a red tablet | |
| I don't have a normal house | |
| I don't have (a) red wine | |
| I don't have your bag | |
| I don't have your ticket | |
| I don't have a problem |
OK so there are a couple of common exceptions just to keep you on your toes!
Let's see some examples and also reveal "You don't have"!
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| I don't have a bad notebook | |
| I don't have a good laptop | |
| You don't have a bad computer | |
| You don't have ambition | |
| I don't have a good definition | |
| You don't have a logical option |
Don't worry too much about getting your 'a' and 'u' mixed in masculine (if in doubt use 'u' because it's more common). And don't fret your 'y' and 'i' in feminine either (if in doubt use the more common 'y'). We're at an early stage now. The more you speak Polish, the more you will pick up which to use intiutively and if you get it wrong you will still be understood.
Most importantly though is accepting you will be very slow at first as you need to think things out like this:
And then recall the right endings from the table above.
OK - let's try rocking back and forwards between the two cases of 'having' and 'not having'
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| I don't have a big house, I have a small house | |
| I don't have a small house, I have a big house | |
| You don't have red wine, you have white wine | |
| You don't have white wine, you have red wine | |
| I don't have a bad notebook, I have a good notebook | |
| I don't have a good notebook, I have a bad notebook | |
| You don't have a big coffee, you have a small coffee | |
| You don't have a small coffee, you have a big coffee |
Excellent - not as tricky as it looked!
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| He/She/It doesn't have |
"Nie ma" has a very wide usage in Polish far beyond he/she which is why we are going to cover the "it" first. There is the same "it does not have" useage as in English as follows:
Say, for example, you were talking about a desktop computer system and you said "Nie ma dobrego monitora" you would be saying "It [the computer system] doesn't have a good monitor" but if you were in a second hand computer shop and couldn't find a decent monitor "Nie ma dobrego monitora" would mean "It [the shop] does not have a good monitor".
Let's explore that second usage further....
Think of this. You walk into the kitchen, look in the cupboard where you normally store your coffee and see the jar is empty. You say "Oh, there is no coffee!". What - no coffee in the world? No, of course not. You mean there is no coffee in the jar or in the cupboard - in other words "the jar does not have coffee" or "the cupboard does not have coffee".
That's exactly how it is said in Polish when we are talking in negative terms. It's always something that doesn't have something, not something does not exist ... because usually it does, just not where you expect or want it to be!. The shop does not have wine, the town does not have a bank. And so on.
However the thing which does not have the thing doesn't need to be stated. You can ask someone "Jest bankomat?" and they might say (literally translated) "it doesn't have a cash machine" - "Nie ma bankomatu". What doesn't have a cash machine is implied by where you are or what you are talking about - the town, the shopping center, the bank itself.
We don't have to even talk about the thing that is missing. You might ask a waiter in a restaurant "Jest wino?" and he might reply "Nie ma" - "it does not have" by which he means the restaurant does not have wine.
You can ask someone "Gdzie jest bank?" and they might reply "Może nie ma tutaj" - "Maybe it [the place] doesn't have [it] here".
So let's try that out when we are talking about 'it' not having something and recap alot of the vocab we've learnt so far ...
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| There isn't a cash machine | |
| There isn't any normal coffee | |
| There isn't a good monitor | |
| There isn't any good wine | |
| There isn't a good option | |
| There isn't a firm here | |
| There isn't a white bag there | |
| There isn't a red zone here | |
| There is no wifi now | |
| There is no good supermarket | |
| There is no good toilet there | |
| (There's) no problem |
"Nie ma problemu" is also how you would reply to someone who asks you to do a favour - "Can you help me with these bags?" - you would say (in English) "no problem".In Polish - "Nie ma problemu"
And again a reminder to be relaxed about word ordering. You'll likely hear "Teraz Wifi nie ma" just as often as "Nie ma Wifi teraz" or any other combination! Only the "nie ma" sticks together.
Now with "nie ma" having such a wide range of uses there are plenty of times it can be ambigious. Are you talking about a place, a thing or he/she not having something. Sometimes context is not enough to be sure.
As such in he/she cases "he" and "she" is usually stated
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| He does not have wine | |
| She does not have wine |
And here we see once again in "Ona" that characteristic 'a' that comes up again and again with the feminine gender and so is a great way to remember that "Ona" is "She".
OK - let's try thinking out a few.
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| He does not have a good computer | |
| She does not have white wine | |
| She does not have good coffee | |
| He does not have stress | |
| She does not have ambition |
There are words for "I", "you", "we", etc. that we will come to later but they are simply not used in everyday Polish because, as we've seen, the way the verb is said defines the 'who'. However "On and "Ona are commonly used so I'll also use them going forward.
Now, as I said, don't worry if you struggled with the above. It is a lot to remember but the more you use it the more it will sink in as long as you go through this process in your mind:
This will make you slower now but faster in the medium and long term.
So when you are ready ... "Dalej".
Lesson 10: I want, do you want, New and Old