Plural forms in the Polish language are not without their complexity. When we talk about plural forms, we no longer have the three genders to consider: masculine, feminine and neuter. These become two genders: masculine and non-masculine.
- Masculine gender – a group that has at least one adult man in it, for example: żołnierze (soldiers), malarze (painters), goście (guests)
- Non-masculine gender – a group that hasn’t got any adult men in it, for example: koty (cats), domy (houses), miasta (cities), kobiety (women)
Consonants not vowels
To help us decide what words take what endings we should look at consonants that differentiate between soft and hard. We will consider only consonants. If a word ends in a vowel, observe the consonant next to it with the exception of non-masculine neuter words.
💡 Ways to remember! Hard consonants tend to be regular-looking letters, except for ch and ł. Soft consonants, on the other hand, tend to consist of exotic-looking letters or two letters joined together.
Masculine gender
| plural: nominative masculine (męskoosobowe) | |||
| hard consonants | soft consonants | family, one or two syllables, titles, ek-owie | |
| B, D, F, CH, Ł, M, N, P, S, T, W, Z, T | K, G, R + C (soft con.) | SZ, CZ, DZ, DŻ, Ż, RZ, Ś, Ć, DŹ, Ź, Ń, L, J | |
| I | Y | E | OWIE |
| T:CI, D:DZI, CH:SI, STA:ŚCI | K:CY, G:DZY, R:RZY, EC:CY, CA:CY | ANIN:ANIE, Ń:NIE, Ć:CIE | |
Consider the first part of the table: student (student) – (pl.) studenci. Student ends with t, hence, according to the table, it will take the ending i. Further, notice word transformations, t becomes ci, (T:CI). More examples: sąsiad – sąsiedzi, Włoch – Włosi, artysta – artyści
Non-masculine gender
💡neuter nouns in the non-masculine category will end with a
💡 diacritic letters (apostrophe letters), for example: ś becomes si, ń becomes ni when plural
| plural: nominative and accusative non-masculine (niemęskoosobowe) | |||
| hard consonants | soft consonants | neuter words | |
| B, D, F, CH, Ł, M, N, P, S, T, W, Z, R | K, G | SZ, CZ, DZ, DŻ, Ż, RZ, Ś, Ć, DŹ, Ź, Ń, C, L, J | |
| Y | I | E | A |
| | | Apostrophe letters Ś:SI | |
Plural: masculine and non-masculine