Polish for your first 48 hours in Poland

Some of your first Polish sentences have more than one form. A man says przyjechałem and a woman przyjechałam; a question addressed to pan becomes one addressed to pani when you are speaking to a woman. Other useful phrases, including poproszę and uczę się polskiego, stay the same. This page runs the two days in order, from the bus into town to the office on day two, and gives you the Polish for each stop. Every row is quoted from the survive lane of our Polish collection, 204 phrases we wrote and reviewed, with the ticket, the room and the lunch rows taken from the travel lane beside it. There are 40 of them.

The first sentence, and the letters that change if you are a woman

Dopiero przyjechałem. is what a man says. A woman says dopiero przyjechałam. This distinction appears in singular past-tense forms and in requests built with chciałbym or chciałabym. It does not affect every polite request: poproszę works for either speaker. Three rows on this page carry that alternative in the margin.

Uczę się polskiego. is the one to say early and often. It explains that you are learning. If you need someone to slow down, ask for that too; this sentence does not ask it for you.

The pair behind it are ordinary. Przepraszam, słabo mówię po polsku. admits the level. Czy mówi pan po angielsku? takes pani when you are speaking to a woman, so the form addresses the person you are actually speaking to.

Into the city: the machine, the validator and the two prices

Czy ten autobus jedzie do centrum? is the question from the pavement. Buying a ticket and making it valid can be separate steps. Check before boarding whether yours needs validation or activation.

Bilet kupuje się w automacie. means the machine sells tickets. Accepted payments depend on the machine and the local operator, not simply on whether it is on board or at a stop. Then Czy muszę skasować bilet? The answer depends on the ticket and the city. A paper ticket may need stamping; a mobile ticket may need activation. Warsaw, for example, requires QR validation for tickets bought through its listed mobile apps. Follow the instructions for the ticket you bought.

Normalny czy ulgowy? is a price question, full or reduced. Eligibility and the documents proving it depend on the fare. A Polish ID is not the only possible proof: Warsaw recognises qualifying foreign students' ISIC cards. Check the operator's rules before buying ulgowy.

The starter, and how you put money on it

Poproszę starter. asks for a prepaid SIM pack. It starts the transaction; you still need to choose an offer and register the SIM. Ask the provider which identity documents and registration methods it accepts.

Chciałbym doładować telefon. is the top-up, chciałabym if you are a woman, and doładowanie is available through the provider's app and participating shops or kiosks. Nie mam zasięgu. covers the other half of the first day, when the phone is live and the building is concrete.

Złoty, the kantor and the one-word questions at the till

Poland uses złoty, so cash you brought in euros may need changing. Chciałbym wymienić euro na złotówki. belongs in a kantor, the exchange office. Compare the displayed buying rate and any fees, then ask how many złoty you will actually receive. The location alone does not tell you whether the rate is good.

At the till you get asked two things in almost no words. Reklamówkę? is a whole question in one word, meaning do you want a bag, and bags cost extra. Paragon czy faktura? asks receipt or invoice; paragon is the ordinary till receipt. A faktura can also be issued to a private individual, not only a company. Ask for the document you need.

Czy jest otwarte w niedzielę? is worth asking about anywhere you are relying on. Many shops close on non-trading Sundays, but there are permitted trading dates and exceptions, including some owner-operated shops. Check the shop's actual hours rather than relying on Sunday being open or closed.

Lunch, and the cheap way to eat it

Zestaw dnia, poproszę. asks for the set lunch. Where it is offered, it may include soup and a main; the current menu tells you what is included and what it costs. It is a short order even if the menu is long.

Poproszę wodę niegazowaną. asks for still water, while gazowana is sparkling. If you want tap water, ask for wodę z kranu. Say the allergy while you order: Mam alergię na orzechy. is the nut version and the shape carries over to anything else.

Then Poproszę rachunek. for the bill. Four of the rows on this page begin with poproszę and a fifth ends with it, because poproszę is the polite frame for asking for anything in Polish, from a ticket to a painkiller. Learn that one word and a whole class of requests comes with it.

The room, the wifi and the hot water

Mam rezerwację na nazwisko Nowak. is check-in, and na nazwisko means under the surname. Jakie jest hasło do wifi? follows it everywhere, in a hotel and in a flat.

If the room has no hot water or the heating is not working, these are the phrases to report it. Nie ma ciepłej wody. and Ogrzewanie nie działa. are the pair. The second one hands you a frame worth more than the sentence: nie działa attaches to anything, so the lift, the lock, the intercom and the card reader all take the same two words.

Something is broken in the flat

Coś się zepsuło w mieszkaniu. is the opening line to a landlord, vague on purpose, and you follow it with the specific thing. Cieknie kran. is two words for a leaking tap, with the verb standing in front of the noun.

Kiedy przyjdzie hydraulik? asks when the plumber is coming. You still need an agreed time, but the question moves from reporting the leak to asking about the repair.

The pharmacy at nine, and the prescription on your phone

Gdzie jest apteka? finds one. Czy jest apteka całodobowa? asks whether there is a round-the-clock pharmacy. Check the current opening hours and night-service arrangements before travelling.

Inside, Poproszę coś na ból głowy. uses the frame coś na, something for, followed here by ból głowy, a headache. Swap ból głowy for kaszel and you have asked for cough medicine. Czy to jest na receptę? asks whether it needs a prescription at all, not whether symptoms can safely wait. Explain the symptoms to the pharmacist and seek urgent help when needed.

The Polish system has moved to prescriptions on the phone, so Mam receptę w telefonie. is a sentence you will need if a doctor has already seen you. The note on that row explains what the pharmacist wants: the four-digit code together with your PESEL number, or the scannable code on the screen, which spares you reading a long number aloud in a queue.

112, 999, and the call you hope not to make

Proszę wezwać pogotowie. asks somebody else to call the ambulance, and the note on it carries both numbers: 112 reaches everything, 999 is the medical line only. Reading a row once now is worth more than finding it later.

To nagły wypadek. opens the call. Ktoś jest ranny. says someone is injured. Give your current location and answer the operator's questions; the phrase alone does not determine what help is sent. Neither is long, and that is the point of an emergency phrase: short enough to say while your hands are shaking.

Ukradli mi telefon. is the everyday version of the same shock, and it takes you to a police station instead. Say it in the past and plural, literally they stole me the phone, which is how Polish reports a theft without naming who did it.

Day two: the office, the ticket machine and the number they ask for

Chcę się zameldować. is the sentence at the counter. Meldunek means registering your address at the local office, and that is exactly as much as our note claims. Who has to do it, by when, and what it depends on are set by rules that change, and the note points at gov.pl for the current version, which is where you should look before you go.

Czy potrzebuję numeru PESEL? belongs in the same conversation. PESEL is a personal identification number that appears on a great many Polish forms, from a doctor's desk to a bank. Our note says to ask whether it is required for your situation, and we are deliberately leaving it there, because your situation is one we cannot see.

Two rows make the morning survivable. Jakie dokumenty są potrzebne? is worth asking before you travel, along with whether you need an appointment. Proszę pobrać numerek. means take a queue number. Some offices and bank branches use a machine; others use appointments or a physical queue. Look for the instructions rather than assuming the people sitting down are waiting in arrival order.

One more row belongs to any form you fill in. Ulica Długa pięć, mieszkanie dwanaście. is how a Polish address is spoken, street then building then flat, and it is written Długa 5/12 with a slash. That slash is the part a courier and an office both read.

Where a list stops helping

The honest weakness of a Polish phrase list is the endings. Every row here is fixed in one shape. Polish has seven cases, and a replacement noun may need a different ending depending on its role, gender and number. That does not mean every substitution changes the ending. You can start with complete phrases and learn those patterns alongside them; mistakes may need clarification, but they need not keep you silent.

Fatigue is the second one. After several conversations, it can become harder to hear where one word ends and another starts. Polish consonant clusters add to the work. Short rows help a little; scheduling a difficult office visit for a time when you are rested may help more.

The third is the counter that wants a document nobody mentioned. No sentence here fixes that, and if we rebuilt the survive lane the row we would add is the one for the moment somebody hands you a form in Polish and you cannot read a line of it.

Making it stick

Say the rows for tomorrow's first errand out loud on the way there, under your breath, until the shape of each one sits in your mouth. A cashier standing in front of you tests something a page never does.

Vocabcord does the repeating for you, one phrase at a time. The phone goes on the charger and you hear the Polish, a pause, the English, a pause, the Polish again. Set up the Shortcuts automation on iOS; on Android, check the background and battery settings for direct charger detection. Playback remains subject to platform restrictions. A weighted sampler picks the entry, leaning towards what you have not heard for a while, and it claims nothing about your recall. The case for hanging vocabulary on the charger is made in One word per charge: why a lesson would fail.

These collections live as web pages first and become app packs with text-to-speech audio afterwards, with no date attached. The six lists and the method behind them are on The Vocabcord 500, and the Polish list in full, travel and work lanes included, is The 500 Polish phrases you actually need.

Common questions

What do you say in Polish when you have just arrived?

A man says Dopiero przyjechałem. and a woman says dopiero przyjechałam. Follow it with Uczę się polskiego. which tells people you are learning, and keep Przepraszam, słabo mówię po polsku. for the moment somebody answers at full speed anyway.

Do you have to validate a bus or tram ticket in Poland?

It depends on the city and ticket type. Ask Czy muszę skasować bilet? Paper tickets may need stamping and mobile tickets may need activation; some products are already valid when issued. Follow the local operator's instructions. Bilet kupuje się w automacie. means you buy it at the machine; payment methods vary.

What is the emergency number in Poland?

112 reaches everything and 999 is the medical line on its own. If somebody else can dial, say Proszę wezwać pogotowie. Pogotowie is the ambulance service. On the call, To nagły wypadek. and Ktoś jest ranny. explain that there is an emergency and someone is injured. Give your current location and follow the operator's questions.

How do you buy a prepaid SIM card in Polish?

Ask for a starter. Poproszę starter. is what people actually say. Ask the provider which identity documents and registration methods it accepts; the request alone does not activate the SIM. Topping it up later is Chciałbym doładować telefon. with chciałabym if you are a woman, and doładowanie is available through the provider's app and participating shops.