The 1,000 Most Common Polish Words

Ranked by real-world frequency. Study all of them free with spaced repetition.

More Polish lists: Nouns Verbs Adjectives Adverbs About learning Polish

The 1,000 Most Common Polish Words: the list

Tips for learning Polish words

• Watch for aspect pairs among the verbs: robić (to do) is imperfective and zrobić (to do) is perfective, so one frames an ongoing action and the other a completed one — learn them as a pair, not as two unrelated words.
• Notice that the verbs here appear in the infinitive, which in Polish ends in -ć: być, mieć, wiedzieć, chcieć, musieć, powiedzieć, dać, widzieć, robić, zrobić. Learn each one in this dictionary form first, then practise conjugating it.
• Don't confuse tak (yes) with taki (such): tak keeps one fixed form, while taki takes adjective endings to agree with the noun it describes.
• Group the question words jak, gdzie, kiedy and dlaczego together when you practise — drilling them as a set makes it much easier to ask and answer basic questions quickly.
• Remember that nie goes immediately before the word it negates, usually the verb, rather than at the start of the sentence — keep that word order in mind when you type flashcard answers.
• Adverbs such as tu, tam, teraz, jeszcze, bardzo and dobrze don't take endings, so you only have to memorise one fixed form for each.