The 500 Polish phrases you actually need

In Poland the hard part of a first month is the questions people ask you, so this list prints them. A cashier's Reklamówkę?, a waiter's Razem czy osobno? and a ticket clerk's Normalny czy ulgowy? each get a row beside what you will say yourself: 500 phrases, written and reviewed by us, split into three lanes (survive, travel, work) and grouped by the situations of a day. Every phrase that addresses someone uses pan or pani, and the note gives the ty version colleagues use. Grammar is the one thing the page leaves alone. You will say Poproszę bilet do Warszawy correctly long before you can explain why Warszawa changed its ending, and nobody at the window will care.

How to read and use this list

Each table has three columns: the Polish, the English and a note. 145 of the 500 rows carry one, put there because the English alone would mislead; read it first. Pan is to a man and pani to a woman, the register for anyone who has not offered you ty; where colleagues would say it on ty, the note gives that form. Past tenses and adjectives change with the speaker's gender, so the row prints one form and the note the other: Zgubiłem się in the table, Zgubiłam się in the note, and the same for every Chciałbym. Three rows end in a comma on purpose: Szanowni Państwo, Z poważaniem, and Pozdrawiam, are written lines, and in a Polish email the comma belongs to them. To get through 500, hear them. Vocabcord plays one phrase each time the phone goes on the charger, Polish, a pause, English, Polish again; one word per charge explains why it is one. The list sits on this page; print it or save it as a PDF.

First contact: greeting, thanking, apologising

Dzień dobry covers a newcomer's whole day, until early evening. Cześć is marked informal because saying it to a shop assistant sounds like you learned Polish from a flatmate. Learn Przepraszam and Proszę before any greeting: przepraszam is sorry and excuse me at once and opens every question to a stranger; proszę is please, here you go and you're welcome, said whenever anything changes hands. Missing on purpose is a how-are-you opener. Poles do not ask strangers how they are, and Smacznego, said to anyone eating near you, does more social work than that question ever will.

Making yourself understood

Say Uczę się polskiego before anything else. We would rather you learn it than Czy mówi pan po angielsku?: the first buys patience and slower speech, the second gets a shrug. Proszę powtórzyć carries the first aspect trap on the page. Powtórzyć asks for one repeat; the powtarzać a course teaches first would ask them to keep going. Słucham? is the pardon Poles actually use, and the same word answers the phone. Chwila, przetłumaczę w telefonie is in because that is how a real exchange gets rescued now, and no phrasebook admits it.

Getting around: tickets, buses, trains, taxis

Poproszę is the word this table runs on, the polite way to ask for anything, in Poproszę bilet do Warszawy and Na dworzec, poproszę alike. The clerk's questions, W jedną stronę czy w obie? and Normalny czy ulgowy?, are here with their one-word answers. The mistake that costs money is the yellow box: an unstamped paper ticket counts as no ticket, so ask Czy muszę skasować bilet? every time. Jak dojść do rynku? and Jak dojechać na lotnisko? are kept apart, on foot from by transport, because asking how to walk to the airport gets an odd look.

Hotel and the first night in a flat

Hotels and shops both ask Paragon czy faktura? A faktura is a VAT invoice and needs your company's NIP, so the answer is paragon unless you are on company business; Poproszę fakturę is here for that trip. Room numbers are said as one number, which is why the key row reads Poproszę klucz do pokoju dwieście czternaście. The second half is for the first night in a rented flat, when the questions turn to Nie ma ciepłej wody and Gdzie wyrzuca się śmieci?, and the note on the five bins is week-one housekeeping. Small talk with reception is left out; nobody expects it.

Eating out: ordering, paying, allergies

Order Zestaw dnia, poproszę before you open the menu: most places do a cheap lunchtime soup plus a main, and it is how a working Pole eats. Tap water is rarely offered, so Poproszę wodę niegazowaną is the only way past the sparkling default. Two requests mark a foreigner faster than an accent does: tea with milk, when Poproszę herbatę z cytryną is the Polish tea, and a pint, when Poproszę duże piwo already means half a litre. The last row, Na osiemnastą, dla czterech osób, is the 24-hour clock; a booking for szósta is, on paper, six in the morning.

Shopping and money: the four questions every till asks

Four rows in this table are questions you will be asked rather than ask, and they are the most useful four on the page. Reklamówkę? is the cashier's one word for do you want a bag, and it comes so fast that most newcomers hear it as a price; Paragon czy faktura?, Ma pan aplikację? and Czy ma pan drobne? follow at almost every till, and Nie, dziękuję or Nie mam answers all three. Odbiorę w paczkomacie is in because parcel lockers are how the country receives its post, and the word is on every checkout page.

Health: pharmacy, doctor, symptoms

The frame to learn is Boli mnie plus the part that hurts: Boli mnie głowa, Boli mnie gardło, Boli mnie tutaj with a finger. The doctor's own question, Od kiedy to trwa?, has a ready answer under it. Mam receptę w telefonie is the one that catches people out: a Polish prescription is a four-digit code, and the pharmacist needs that code and your PESEL together. Płacę prywatnie is how a newcomer without public cover sees a doctor this week. The table is thick with gendered rows, przeziębiony and przeziębiona, uczulony and uczulona, because how you feel is an adjective and adjectives agree with you.

Emergencies: 20 lines you can say without thinking

We kept this table to 20 rows on purpose; in an emergency you want lines that come out on their own. Proszę wezwać pogotowie is the one to have ready, and the note gives the numbers to dial. The row people forget is Nic mi nie jest: it ends an emergency that has stopped being one, and without it a stumble becomes an ambulance. The second half is theft, the emergency a visitor actually has; Muszę zablokować kartę is for the bank's phone line. Proszę mnie zostawić closes the table, firm but polite.

Phone, data and the internet

A prepaid SIM is a starter to everyone in Poland, so Poproszę starter is the phrase, and the note says to bring a passport. The longest row on the page, Mój numer to sześćset jeden, dwieście trzydzieści cztery, pięćset sześćdziesiąt siedem, is here because Polish numbers are read in threes, each group as one number, and reading yours digit by digit makes people ask you to start again. Rozładował mi się telefon is the line here we hope you need least, since a phone on its charger is where the rest of the list gets heard.

Forms, offices and the landlord

A tourist can skip this table; anyone who moves here cannot. Two nouns carry the first half. PESEL is the national number you need for a doctor or a bank, and meldunek is the address registration that gets you one, so Chcę się zameldować is the sentence the rest depend on. Every office hands out numbers from a machine by the door, and Proszę pobrać numerek is what you hear if you walk past it. In the flat-hunting half, ask Czy media są wliczone? before you ask the rent: adverts quote rent, then czynsz administracyjny, then media, and the number you saw is only the first.

First day at work

The trap on day one is the switch to ty. In a Polish office the senior person offers it, with Możemy przejść na ty?, and once offered, going back to pan is an insult, so the table gives you the answer, Jasne, jestem Tomek. Until then a boss is pan plus surname, as in Jestem umówiony z panem Nowakiem. Kiedy jest szkolenie BHP? looks odd until your first morning, when the safety briefing the law requires arrives with a sheet to sign. The last rows, from Jak minął weekend? to Miłego weekendu!, are the ty lines that hold a working week together.

Meetings and calls

If you learn one line from this table make it Nie do końca się zgadzam. It is the softened Polish no; the flat Nie zgadzam się a translation app hands you sounds like the start of a fight, and Polish meetings disagree in this hedged form. On the phone, Dzień dobry, z tej strony Anna z firmy Nowak is the fixed introduction, and z tej strony is the part English gives you no way to guess. Pasuje on its own is a complete answer to a proposed time, and it is the quickest way to sound like you belong on the call.

Email and messages

Polish email opens in one of two registers and the table gives both. Szanowni Państwo, is the formal opener when you have no name; Dzień dobry, panie Tomaszu is the everyday one, and it is the row English speakers misread. Pan with a first name in the vocative is formal and familiar at once, how you greet a boss in the corridor, and turning it into Mr Tomasz in your head is the mistake. Sign off with Pozdrawiam, for everyday work and keep Z poważaniem, for the message with a lawyer on copy.

Asking for help, deadlines, problems

Zrobię to do piątku is where Polish aspect stops being a grammar chapter and becomes a promise. Zrobię, the perfective, says the thing will be finished by Friday; Będę robić, which looks like the English will be doing, says you will still be working on it, and a manager hears the difference. Its partner is Nie zdążę, a verb with no clean English that means I will not make it in time, and it is the honest sentence to send on Thursday. Mogę zadać głupie pytanie? is in because it works, and Gotowe, one word, is how you report back.

Pay, contracts, sick leave, holidays

Ask Czy to umowa o pracę? before you ask about money, because it decides more than the salary. An umowa o pracę gives you the full set of rights; umowa zlecenie and B2B are cheaper, and Wystawię fakturę na koniec miesiąca exists for B2B. Brutto czy netto? is the second question, since job adverts quote gross. L4 is the everyday word for a sick note; the doctor files it online and Mam L4 do piątku is all you tell your employer. Chciałbym porozmawiać o podwyżce comes with a warning: it is a sentence for a booked meeting, and saying it in the kitchen ends the conversation.

Sightseeing and small talk with strangers

Polish small talk with a stranger is short, and the table is sized to match. Ale leje! and Ale zimno! show the frame behind most Polish exclamation: ale plus the thing. Czy mogę się dosiąść? is the row worth learning by heart, because shared tables are normal in a milk bar and the answer, Proszę bardzo, comes with a chair. Flattery about the country is missing; Podoba mi się Kraków is the one compliment in the table, and it lands better than a speech.

Feelings and opinions

Przykro mi is the phrase learners misuse most. It is sympathy, what you say when someone tells you their news; Przepraszam from the first table is the apology, and a learner who bumps into someone and says przykro mi has just offered condolences. Dam radę is the most Polish sentence in the list, I'll manage, said about a task, a move, a winter, and it is the reply a Pole expects to Proszę się nie martwić. We ended the collection on Dobrze się tu czuję because it is the sentence the other 499 are for.

What did not make the list

Four kinds of phrase were cut. Proverbs went first; a newcomer needs none, and a proverb said with an accent sounds like a costume. Next came textbook sentences, the kind written to show off a case ending and never said aloud. Slang dates, so it is out. So is anything a course teaches for grammar: number tables, the days of the week as a list, the conjugation of być. Numbers appear where a day produces them, Dwanaście pięćdziesiąt at a till, and days inside sentences like Pracuję zdalnie w piątki. We also left out the word no. In speech it means yeah, and it is a habit to catch by ear, so it is absent from the tables and present in every conversation. Add what your own case needs: the words of your trade, the names of your medicines, the stop before your flat. The part we are least sure of is the work lane. It assumes an office; a warehouse or a kitchen moves to ty in the first hour and runs on nouns this list does not have.

How 500 phrases stick without a study plan

A page is easy to read and easy to forget. Phrases stay when you meet them again on a schedule, and keeping the schedule is what people drop. Vocabcord plays one phrase every time your phone goes on the charger: on iOS that is one personal automation in the Shortcuts app, and on Android it runs on its own. A weighted decay sampler picks the phrase. Its weight grows with the days since you last heard it, on a five-day scale, and a row you have never heard counts as about twenty days overdue, so the app keeps bringing back what you are about to forget. There is no streak to keep. At three or four plug-ins a day the list takes months to come round once; a course would promise weeks. This collection is an article first; it becomes a pack with audio later, with no date on that. Behind it sits the graded corpus the app ships, 4,708 Polish entries from A1 to C2, counted on the Polish corpus statistics page.

Common questions

How many Polish phrases do you need to get by in Poland?

Fewer than 500 for a week and about 500 for a first month. The first two tables, 62 phrases of greeting, thanking and repair, get a visitor through a day of pointing and Przepraszam. The survive lane, 204 phrases across seven tables, is the first weeks of living here; the travel and work lanes, 154 and 142 phrases, are for the visitor and the new hire.

Should I learn pan and pani or ty first?

Pan and pani, until someone moves you. They are what every stranger expects, and ty to a cashier or a clerk is how a child talks. In an office the senior person makes the switch with Możemy przejść na ty?; answer Jasne, jestem Tomek, and from then on pan would be an insult.

Is this the Polish spoken everywhere in Poland?

Yes: standard Polish as spoken across the country, which varies less from city to city than a learner fears. Where the everyday thing changes the note says so; Gdzie jest najbliższa stacja metra? only makes sense in Warsaw, and elsewhere you ask for the tramwaj.

What is the difference between Przepraszam and Przykro mi?

Przepraszam is the apology and the excuse-me; it opens every question to a stranger. Przykro mi is sympathy, said when someone tells you bad news. Saying przykro mi after treading on a foot offers condolences for the foot.

What is the fastest way to memorise them?

Hearing them at moments you did not plan. Vocabcord plays one phrase each time the phone goes on the charger, and its sampler brings back the rows you are about to forget. Start with the first two tables and the four cashier's questions in the shopping table; those 66 phrases carry a first week.