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Family members in Polish

Everyone from parents to cousins, with audio. Tap a row to hear it.

Family words come up early and often when you learn Polish, partly because family matters enormously in Polish culture and partly because they're some of the first things people ask you about — Masz rodzeństwo? (Do you have siblings?), Masz dzieci? (Do you have children?). The umbrella word is rodzina (family), and the closest circle is built from just a few nouns you'll reuse constantly.

Start with the core four: mama (mum) and tata (dad) for the affectionate everyday forms, or matka and ojciec for the more formal “mother” and “father.” Then brat (brother) and siostra (sister). One lovely quirk to notice: tata means “dad” but ends in -a like a feminine noun, yet it stays grammatically masculine — a reminder that in Polish the ending usually predicts gender, but people-words sometimes follow meaning instead.

The extended family is where Polish is more precise than English. Grandparents are babcia (grandma) and dziadek (grandpa), and they hold a special place in most families. Polish also keeps separate words that English lumps together: an aunt is ciocia, an uncle wujek, and cousins are kuzyn (male) and kuzynka (female). Many of these words also have grammatical quirks in the plural — for example rodzice (parents) and bracia (brothers) don't follow the ordinary pattern — which makes this topic a friendly first look at Polish plurals.

Work down the two tables below, tapping each row to hear it and repeating it aloud. A good exercise is to describe your own family in a sentence or two — Mam brata i siostrę (I have a brother and a sister) — because tying new words to real people in your life is one of the most reliable ways to remember them.

Close family — najbliższa rodzina

Extended family — dalsza rodzina

Keep going

Practise in the word games (the Family topic) or My Vocabulary. Related guides: food & drink, greetings & phrases, numbers.