Food & Eating Out: Grammar (AQA GCSE Polish): Revision Note

• To say what you eat and drink, use negatives to say what you do not eat or drink, and express your food preferences

• You need to know three important grammar points:

  • The present tense of the verbs jeść and pić

  • How to use nie with verb, adjective and noun to make sentences negative

  • How to use lubię, wolę and najbardziej lubię to say what you like, prefer and like most

The verbs jeść i pić

• The verb jeść means 'to eat' and the verb pić means 'to drink'

  • Both verbs are irregular - be careful with the spelling changes

  • Jeść changes its stem in the oni form (jedzą); pić uses pij- in every present form

Expressing preference

• Use lubię, wolę and najbardziej lubię before jeść and pić to express how much you like eating and drinking something

• These are verbs/verb phrases, so their form does not change depending on the food or drink

• They work with any verb, not only jeść (to eat) and pić (to drink)

• Lubię means 'like', wolę means 'prefer', and najbardziej lubię means 'like the most'

• They are placed directly before the verb in a sentence, e.g. lubię jeść ciasto- 'I like eating cake'

• To say you dislike something, use nie lubię, e.g. nie lubię jeść warzyw- 'I don't like eating vegetables'

• Here are a few examples

Negation: nie + verb / adjective / noun

• In Polish there are two main ways to make a sentence negative:

  • nie + verb / adjective

  • nie + noun (written as one word)

• Choosing the right one depends on what you are negating

• Use nie for verbs and adjectives. In Polish, “nie” stays separate from verbs and adjectives

• Use “nie” with nouns — written together in the sentence. Polish simply attaches nie to the nouns:

  • nieprawda — not true

  • nieobecność — absence

  • niegrzeczność — rudeness

  • niepokój — anxiety