GRAMMAR TOPICS IN ENGLISH THAT CAN CAUSE PROBLEMS FOR POLISH SPEAKERS
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.
VERB TENSE & ASPECT
Polish verbs express aspect (perfective vs. imperfective) instead of tense in the same way English does, which can cause confusion.
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.
PLURALS AND COUNTABLE/UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS
Polish has different plural rules and no strict distinction between countable and uncountable nouns in some contexts.
Examples:
❌ Two furnitures
✅ Two pieces of furniture
❌ Many informations
✅ Much information
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.
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
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.
QUESTION FORMATION
Polish allows rising intonation without inversion, unlike English.
Examples:
❌ You are coming tomorrow?
✅ Are you coming tomorrow?
❌ Why you didn't go?
✅ Why didn't you go?
PLURAL ADJECTIVES
Even though Polish and English both place adjectives before nouns, Polish grammar trains speakers to change adjective forms for gender and number—so Polish learners sometimes incorrectly pluralize adjectives in English, where adjectives never change.
Examples:
❌ She has two reds dresses.
✅ She has two red dresses.
❌ These bigs problems
✅ These big problems
NEGATION (DOUBLE NEGATIVES)
Polish often uses double negatives, which English does not allow.
Examples:
❌ I don't know nothing.
✅ I don't know anything.
❌ He never said nothing.
✅ He never said anything.
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