Learn how to ask "What?"
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| Cześć! Jestem Joanna. Hi! I’m Joanna. |
| Welcome to PolishPod101.com’s “Polski w 3 minuty”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Polish. |
| In this lesson, we will jump into our lessons dedicated to question words in Polish. Our first one will be "What”, which in Polish is Co. |
| So imagine you see your friend busy with something and you want to ask "What are you doing?” You will ask: |
| Co robisz? |
| [slowly] Co robisz? |
| Let’s break down this question - |
| Co is a question word that means "what" in Polish. The second word is robisz , which is the second person form of the verb robić, which we’ve already learned. So, all together it’s Co robisz? |
| “What are you doing?” |
| If you want to make this question more detailed and ask about someone’s plans, for example for this weekend, you just add “this weekend”. |
| Co robisz w ten weekend? |
| or |
| “What are you doing on Monday?” |
| Co robisz w poniedziałek? |
| Of course if you want to pose this question to an older person or someone you don’t know very well you have to add Pan or Pani. Then we will get for example: |
| Co Pani robi w poniedziałek? |
| Co itself can also be used as a question. For example, say you are among your friends and someone says something you didn’t hear or understand. Or you’re simply surprised by what your friend said, just say Co? Remember that the intonation has to be the same as for a question. |
| Let’s try. If you didn’t catch what your friend said, you say - Co? |
| If you want to express surprise or disbelief, say - Co? |
| Other examples of more detailed questions using Co are - |
| Co studiujesz? “What are you studying?” |
| [slowly] Co studiujesz? |
| Co czytasz? “What are you reading?” |
| [slowly] Co czytasz? |
| Co oglądasz? “What are you watching?” |
| [slowly] Co oglądasz? |
| When answering this kind of question, just name the thing you study, read or watch. For example - “What are you studying?” |
| Fizykę “Physics” |
| “What are you watching?” |
| Mission Impossible. |
| When something has a title we usually just give the title. We don’t really answer with words like “a movie”, “a book”, “an article”. |
| Now it’s time for Joanna’s Insights. |
| In most cases in Polish the question word Co is used the same way as the English “what”. But there’s a very commonly used question which is an exception to that. In English, we say - “What’s your name?” But in this case, in Polish, we will not use Co. The word that has to be used here is Jak, which literally means “how”. |
| Jak masz na imię? |
| “What’s your name?” |
| So, please remember! When you ask about someone’s name, never use Co. |
| In the next lesson, we will learn how to use a question word - “where”. |
| See you later in next Polski w 3 minuty lesson! Do zobaczyska! |
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