Basic Polish words
for beginners

Short answer. This page has 102 basic Polish words in 10 topics, from family and your flat to transport, paperwork and false friends: for example mieszkanie (apartment), przystanek (stop) and gotówka (cash). Learn each one inside a short phrase: woda is water, but in a café you say Poproszę wodę.

Your first few hundred Polish words do the most work: with them you can read a sign, follow an announcement at the bus stop and understand half of what a shop assistant asks you. Polish can look intimidating, with consonant clusters like szcz and letters like ł, but basic vocabulary is very regular, and many words are easy to guess once you know how they are spelled.

The words below come from Talkfirst's Polish decks at levels A1 and A2 and are grouped by topic. These are single words, not ready-made sentences. If you want to start speaking straight away, begin with the guide Polish from zero: first phrases; phrases for specific situations are in the Polish phrasebook.

Basic Polish vocabulary by topic

Introductions and family

Home and flat

Food and drink

Numbers, days and time

Weather and seasons

Town and transport

Money and post

Everyday verbs

Study and paperwork

False friends for Slavic speakers

Numbers and days of the week in full

The table has the core words from the decks. Counting to ten in Polish: jeden, dwa, trzy, cztery, pięć, sześć, siedem, osiem, dziewięć, dziesięć. The days of the week in order, Monday to Sunday: poniedziałek, wtorek, środa, czwartek, piątek, sobota, niedziela. Polish does not capitalise days or months, and a week is tydzień.

How to learn Polish words so they stick

Learn each word inside a short phrase. Polish nouns change their endings depending on their role in the sentence: woda is water, but in a café you say Poproszę wodę. If you only learn the dictionary form, you will have to rebuild it every time you speak. Every word in Talkfirst's flashcards comes with an example, so say the example out loud too.

Learn the gender with the word. Polish has three genders, and the ending usually gives it away: words ending in -a, like kuchnia and łazienka, are mostly feminine; words ending in a consonant, like pokój and stół, are mostly masculine.

Don't worry about forms like latem and zimą. They mean "in summer" and "in winter"; the seasons themselves are lato and zima. These forms come up more often in conversation, so the deck teaches them.

Review a little every day. Ten words a day, reviewed after a day, three days and a week, stick better than a hundred words crammed in one evening. Talkfirst's flashcards tell you which word is due for review.

Pronunciation without a phonetic spelling

Many lists give Polish words "with pronunciation" spelled out in English letters, but English spelling cannot show the nasal vowels ą and ę or the difference between ś and sz. Polish spelling is consistent, though: learn a dozen reading rules and you can read any word. Stress almost always falls on the second-to-last syllable. Listen to each word in the flashcards and repeat it out loud.

False friends

The last section of the table matters most if you already speak Russian or Ukrainian: these Polish words look familiar but mean something else. Dywan is a carpet, not a sofa, and owoce are fruit, not vegetables. If you don't speak a Slavic language, they are simply useful everyday words.

What next

Once the basic words feel familiar, move on to phrases for real situations: at the shop, in a restaurant, at the doctor's and the pharmacy, at work. If you need Polish for a residence permit or citizenship, see B1 exam preparation.

Questions and answers