D. Chapter III. ↔︎ Chapter V.
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Polish Grammar: Chapter IV.
Animals 1
Nouns: Gender
All Polish nouns belong to one of three gender categories: masculine (masc.), feminine (fem.) and neuter (neut.)
Grammatical gender is quite significant. Among others, it determines the case endings that the noun takes. So, for example, the way in which the Accusative form is created is different for feminine and masculine nouns.
Grammatical gender is not the same as natural gender (or sex). Apart from nouns for people and animals (animate nouns), it is also assigned to plants, objects and abstract concepts (inanimate nouns).
Grammatical gender is entirely arbitrary. There is nothing in the meaning of woda (water) that would make you think that it is a feminine noun, just as there is nothing particularly masculine about chleb (bread).
When it comes to animate nouns, the distinction is just as “random”: kaczka (duck) is of feminine gender, while pies (dog)
is of masculine gender. The gender of the noun is always fixed – even
if we are referring to a male duck or a female dog. There exist certain
nouns that can be used to describe animals of a specific sex – such as kaczor (male duck) or suka (female dog) – but obviously, they are not as common as the general nouns.
Gender endings
Masculine nouns usually end in a consonant, for example: chłopiec (boy), kot (cat), ser (cheese).
However, some masculine nouns for persons end in -a, for example: mężczyzna (man), kolega (colleague), artysta (artist).
Feminine nouns tend to end in -a, for example:
dziewczyna (girl), ryba (fish), kawa (coffee).
There are some exceptions to this rule – mysz (mouse) is feminine, even though it ends in a consonant. Other exceptions include words like twarz (face), noc (night) and miłość (love).
Neuter nouns most often end in -o, -e or -ę, for example: dziecko (child), jedzenie (food), zwierzę (animal).
Pronouns and gender
Gender is not unique to nouns. Pronouns have grammatical gender too.
As pronouns are used in place of nouns, the gender of the noun that is being replaced determines the gender of the pronoun that replaces it.
If you want to use a pronoun to replace a feminine noun, you use the feminine singular pronoun – ona (she). Unlike in English, this is not limited to nouns for people. In Polish, you would use ona to replace kobieta (woman), but also kaczka (duck) and even herbata (tea).
The same goes for masculine and neuter pronouns – both animate and inanimate nouns are replaced by a pronoun of the appropriate gender.
This explains why the pronoun ono is not as common as you would expect: while the English equivalent it is used for all inanimate nouns, ono covers only neuter nouns.
As pronouns are used in place of nouns, the gender of the noun that is being replaced determines the gender of the pronoun that replaces it.
If you want to use a pronoun to replace a feminine noun, you use the feminine singular pronoun – ona (she). Unlike in English, this is not limited to nouns for people. In Polish, you would use ona to replace kobieta (woman), but also kaczka (duck) and even herbata (tea).
The same goes for masculine and neuter pronouns – both animate and inanimate nouns are replaced by a pronoun of the appropriate gender.
This explains why the pronoun ono is not as common as you would expect: while the English equivalent it is used for all inanimate nouns, ono covers only neuter nouns.
