Polish-speaking students often struggle with English grammar because the two languages differ in several key structural ways. English relies heavily on a relatively fixed word order, obligatory articles, auxiliary verbs, and a rich tense-aspect system, whereas Polish is a highly inflected language with flexible word order and no articles at all. Grammatical relationships in Polish are largely expressed through case endings rather than prepositions, and many distinctions that English marks morphologically or syntactically are optional or expressed differently in Polish. As a result, English verb forms, especially tense and aspect, along with the use of articles, prepositions, and auxiliary verbs, tend to be particularly challenging for Polish learners.

ARTICLES

Polish has no articles, so learners often omit them.

Examples:
❌ I bought car yesterday.
✅ I bought a car yesterday.
❌ Teacher is kind.
✅ The teacher is kind.

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VERB TENSE & ASPECT

Polish expresses both tense and aspect, but the perfective/imperfective distinction is much more central than in English. Because the two systems do not map neatly onto each other, learners may choose an English tense or aspect that does not fit the context.

Examples:
❌ I read a book when you called.
✅ I was reading a book when you called.
❌ I am living here since 2015.
✅ I have lived here since 2015.

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PLURALS AND COUNTABLE/UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS

Countability does not always line up between Polish and English, so some nouns that behave as countable in Polish are uncountable in English.

Examples:
❌ Two furnitures
✅ Two pieces of furniture
❌ Many informations
✅ Much information

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WORD ORDER

Polish allows flexible word order; English is stricter (subject-verb-object).

Examples:
❌ Tomorrow I to the cinema go.
✅ I will go to the cinema tomorrow.
❌ Interesting is this book.
✅ This book is interesting.

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PREPOSITIONS

English prepositions are difficult for Polish students mainly because the two languages organize grammatical relationships in very different ways. Polish relies heavily on case endings, while English relies on prepositions and fixed combinations.

Examples:
pomagać komuś (dative case) → help someone
❌ help to someone
bać się czegoś (genitive case) → be afraid of something
❌ afraid from something

Many English verbs (and adjectives) require a specific preposition that is different from the one used in Polish.

❌ Get married with someone (PL)
✅ Get married to someone
❌ I am good in math (PL)
✅ I am good at math
❌ I depend from my parents (PL)
✅ I depend on my parents

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SUBJECT PRONOUNS

Polish can drop the subject or emphasize it unnecessarily.

Examples:
❌ Went to school yesterday.
✅ I went to school yesterday.
❌ He, he likes coffee.
✅ He likes coffee.

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QUESTION FORMATION

Polish can form yes/no questions without the auxiliary inversion that standard English normally requires.

Examples:
❌ You are coming tomorrow?
✅ Are you coming tomorrow?
❌ Why you didn't go?
✅ Why didn't you go?

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PLURAL ADJECTIVES

Polish adjectives change form for gender, case, and number, whereas English adjectives do not. This can occasionally lead learners to add unnecessary endings to English adjectives.

Examples:
❌ She has two reds dresses.
✅ She has two red dresses.
❌ These bigs problems
✅ These big problems

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NEGATION (DOUBLE NEGATIVES)

Polish uses negative concord as a normal grammatical pattern. Standard English usually does not, so direct transfer can produce double negatives in contexts where learners are expected to use forms such as anything or anyone.

Examples:
❌ I don't know nothing.
✅ I don't know anything.
❌ He never said nothing.
✅ He never said anything.


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