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Beginner’s guide · with audio

How to speak Polish: a beginner’s guide

What to learn first, what can wait, and a simple four-week plan. Tap any Polish line to hear it.

The good news first: you can learn to read Polish aloud in a few days. Spelling is consistent — a letter or letter pair almost always makes the same sound — so once you know about a dozen combinations, no word is a mystery. The harder part is grammar, because word endings change. The trick is not to learn it all at once. This guide gives you the order that works.

1. Learn the sounds before the words

These are the spellings that surprise English speakers. Learn them and the rest of Polish reads almost the way it looks.

Want to hear every letter? The Polish alphabet guide plays each one, and Lesson 1: Alphabet & pronunciation walks you through them with exercises.

2. Your first 15 phrases

With these you can greet people, be polite, ask for help and buy a coffee. Say each one out loud after you hear it.

More for travel and everyday life in the greetings guide and the phrasebook.

3. Polite or casual?

Polish has two ways to say “you”. With friends, family and children use ty and the normal verb: Czy możesz mi pomóc? (Can you help me?). With strangers, in shops and offices, use Pan (to a man) or Pani (to a woman) with the verb in the “he / she” form: Czy może mi Pan pomóc? When in doubt, start polite — people will tell you if they want to switch to ty.

4. The grammar to learn first — and what can wait

• 1Być, “to be”. Jestem (I am), jesteś (you are), jest (he / she / it is). You will use it in your first conversation. → Lesson 3
• 2Noun gender. Every noun is masculine, feminine or neuter, and the ending usually tells you: most feminine nouns end in -a (kawa), neuter in -o or -e (okno), masculine in a consonant (dom). → Lesson 4
• 3The present tense. One present tense covers both “I work” and “I am working”: pracuję. → Lesson 5
• 4Two cases, not seven. Start with the object form — Mam kawę (I have coffee) — and the form after “not”: Nie mam kawy (I have no coffee). That covers a surprising share of everyday sentences. → Lesson 7

What can wait: the full seven-case tables, verb aspect, participles and reported speech. They matter later, and they are much easier once the basics feel automatic.

5. A simple four-week plan

Twenty to thirty minutes on most days beats a long session once a week. Every step below is free.

• W1Week 1 — sounds and hello. Lessons 1–3: pronunciation, greetings and być. Ten minutes a day of word games.
• W2Week 2 — first sentences. Lessons 4–6: gender, the present tense, questions and “not”. Read the first texts in reading practice.
• W3Week 3 — everyday Polish. Lessons 7–9: the two key cases, the past and the future. Practise out loud with pronunciation practice.
• W4Week 4 — talk about your life. Lessons 10–12, then check yourself with the level test and review the words you missed in My Vocabulary.

The whole route is on the learning map, and your progress saves itself in your browser — no account needed.

6. Speak from day one

Reading builds recognition; speaking builds speed. Say every example out loud, copy the rhythm of the audio, and repeat short phrases until they come out without thinking. Talking to yourself counts. So does ordering in Polish the first time you are in a Polish shop — Dzień dobry, poproszę… goes a long way.

Common questions

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The fastest way to begin is the first lesson: the alphabet and the sounds above, with audio and exercises.