The Environment: Grammar (AQA GCSE Polish): Revision Note

Impersonal constructions

• Use trzeba + infinitive to say “it is necessary to / you have to” do something

  • Trzeba chronić środowisko. It is necessary to protect the environment

• Use należy + infinitive to say “one should / it is advisable to” do something. This sounds more formal

  • Należy segregować odpady. One should sort waste

• Use można + infinitive to say “one can / it is possible to” do something

  • Można korzystać z transportu publicznego. One can use public transport

• Use nie wolno + infinitive to say “one must not / it is forbidden to” do something

  • Nie wolno wyrzucać śmieci do lasu. You must not throw rubbish into the forest

• Use warto + infinitive to say “it is worth” doing something

  • Warto oszczędzać wodę. It is worth saving water

• Use powinno się + infinitive to say “one should” do something

  • Powinno się korzystać z roweru. One should use a bicycle

• The verb after these constructions stays in the infinitive

• Using different impersonal constructions helps you avoid repetition and demonstrate a wider range of grammatical structures in your GCSE answers

  • Musimy chronić środowisko. We must protect the environment

  • Trzeba chronić środowisko. It is necessary to protect the environment

  • Należy chronić środowisko. One should protect the environment

• Impersonal constructions are particularly useful when giving advice, expressing rules or discussing what should be done

Future tense: będę + infinitive

• Use będę + infinitive to talk about an action that will be happening / will be done in the future

• This is the compound future tense and is used with imperfective verbs

• The form of być changes depending on the subject:

• The second verb can appear either as an infinitive or as a past-tense-looking form. When used with będę, the whole construction is still future tense

• Two possible forms

  • Infinitive: Będę robić. I will do / I will be doing

  • Past-tense-looking form: Będę robił. (male), Będę robiła. (female), I will do / I will be doing

• robił / robiła looks like a past-tense form, but będę robił / będę robiła is FUTURE tense

Powinniśmy (we should)

• Powinniśmy means “we should / we ought to”

• It is used to give advice, recommendations or express what we think is the right thing to do

• Powinniśmy is the “we” form and is followed by an infinitive

• The infinitive tells us what we should do

• The verb after powinniśmy stays in the infinitive:

  • Powinniśmy chronić środowisko

• The form changes according to gender and number

• Powinniśmy is particularly useful when giving your opinion:

  • Moim zdaniem powinniśmy...
    In my opinion, we should...

  • Uważam, że powinniśmy...
    I think that we should...

  • Według mnie powinniśmy...
    In my view, we should...