A visit to the apteka (pharmacy) is one of the first real conversations a learner needs, and it packs two high-value grammar patterns into a few exchanges: asking for "something for [a symptom]" with na + accusative, and reporting pain with the experiencer construction boli mnie…. Below is a complete, natural dialogue between a customer (Klient) and a pharmacist (Farmaceutka). Read it through once, then work through the line-by-line notes.
The dialogue
— Dzień dobry. W czym mogę pomóc?
— Good morning. How can I help you? (literally: in what can I help?)
— Dzień dobry. Czy ma pani coś na ból głowy?
— Good morning. Do you have something for a headache, madam?
— Tak, oczywiście. Boli pana głowa od dawna?
— Yes, of course. Has your head been hurting for a long time, sir?
— Od wczoraj. Boli mnie głowa i trochę boli mnie gardło.
— Since yesterday. My head hurts and my throat hurts a bit.
— Rozumiem. Czy ma pan gorączkę?
— I see. Do you have a fever, sir?
— Chyba nie, ale nie jestem pewien.
— Probably not, but I'm not sure.
— Polecam te tabletki. To lek bez recepty.
— I recommend these tablets. It's an over-the-counter medicine (literally: a medicine without a prescription).
— A jak je brać? Jakie jest dawkowanie?
— And how do I take them? What's the dosage?
— Jedna tabletka co osiem godzin, po jedzeniu. Proszę nie brać więcej niż trzy dziennie.
— One tablet every eight hours, after a meal. Please don't take more than three a day.
— A czy ma pani coś na kaszel dla dziecka?
— And do you have something for a cough for a child, madam?
— Tak, ten syrop jest dla dzieci. Ile lat ma dziecko?
— Yes, this syrup is for children. How old is the child?
— Pięć lat. Dziękuję bardzo. Ile płacę?
— Five years old. Thank you very much. How much do I pay?
— Razem dwadzieścia trzy złote. Proszę uważać na siebie!
— Twenty-three złoty in total. Please take care of yourself!
"Something for a headache" — coś na + accusative
The central pattern of any pharmacy visit is Czy ma pan(i) coś na…? — "Do you have something for…?". The preposition that follows is na, and it governs the accusative case here, because the symptom is the target the medicine is aimed at — what the remedy is for.
Czy ma pani coś na ból głowy?
Do you have something for a headache, madam?
A czy ma pani coś na kaszel dla dziecka?
And do you have something for a cough for a child, madam?
Think of na here as "against / aimed at": coś na ból głowy ("something against a headache"), coś na kaszel ("something for a cough"), coś na gardło ("something for the throat"), coś na katar ("something for a runny nose"). Many of these ailment nouns are masculine inanimate (ból, kaszel, katar), so their accusative looks identical to the nominative — which conveniently hides the case from a beginner. But the case is accusative, and you can see it the moment a feminine noun appears: coś na grypę ("something for the flu", from grypa), where the -ę ending is unmistakably accusative. This "target / purpose" use of na is covered in detail on the na-with-prepositions accusative page.
"My head hurts" — the boli mnie construction
When the customer reports the symptom, watch the word order and the case: Boli mnie głowa — literally "(it) hurts me (the) head". This is an experiencer construction, and it is built very differently from English.
Boli mnie głowa i trochę boli mnie gardło.
My head hurts and my throat hurts a bit.
Boli pana głowa od dawna?
Has your head been hurting for a long time, sir?
The grammatical subject is the body part (głowa, gardło), and the verb boleć ("to hurt") agrees with it. The person who feels the pain is the object in the accusative: mnie ("me"), pana ("you, sir"), go ("him"), ją ("her"). So:
- Boli *mnie głowa. — "My head hurts." (literally: head hurts *me)
- Bolą *mnie nogi. — "My legs hurt." (plural subject → plural verb *bolą)
- Co *cię boli?* — "What hurts (you)?"
English makes the person the possessor of the body part ("my head hurts"); Polish makes the body part the subject and puts the person in the accusative. Crucially, you do not use a possessive — Boli mnie głowa already means "my head hurts", so adding moja (Boli mnie moja głowa) is wrong and redundant. This experiencer pattern, where a feeling is "done to" a person in an oblique case, recurs across Polish; see the dative-subject and feelings page for the related dative pattern (note that boleć takes the accusative, while many feeling verbs take the dative). For the wider vocabulary of aches and pains, see body and health basics.
Formal address: pan and pani
Throughout the dialogue the speakers use pan (to a man) and pani (to a woman) rather than ty ("you"). This is obligatory between strangers — a pharmacy is a formal setting, and using ty with the pharmacist would be rude. Note how pan/pani slots into the questions:
Czy ma pani coś na ból głowy?
Do you have something for a headache, madam?
Czy ma pan gorączkę?
Do you have a fever, sir?
Pan/pani takes a third-person verb (ma = "has", not masz) — grammatically you are addressing the person as "the gentleman / the lady has…". And pan/pani itself declines: in Boli pana głowa it is the genitive/accusative pana; in dla pani it would be genitive. The full system of formal address is on the health and doctor expressions page, which extends this dialogue to a doctor's visit; see also the doctor dialogue.
Prescriptions and dosage
A few practical nouns close the loop. Recepta is "a prescription"; lek / lekarstwo is "medicine"; tabletka is "a tablet"; syrop is "a syrup". The key distinction:
To lek bez recepty.
It's an over-the-counter medicine (literally: medicine without a prescription).
Na ten antybiotyk potrzebna jest recepta od lekarza.
For this antibiotic you need a prescription from a doctor.
Bez recepty ("without a prescription", genitive after bez) marks over-the-counter medicine; na receptę ("on prescription", accusative after na) marks prescription-only. For dosage, dawkowanie is "dosage", and the rhythm is given with co ("every"): co osiem godzin ("every eight hours"), raz dziennie ("once a day"), po jedzeniu ("after a meal"). And to ask how to take a medicine: Jak to brać? ("How do I take this?").
Common Mistakes
❌ Czy ma pani coś dla ból głowy?
Incorrect — 'dla' (for the benefit of someone) instead of 'na' for an ailment.
✅ Czy ma pani coś na ból głowy?
Do you have something for a headache?
Use na + accusative for the ailment you are treating. Dla ("for the benefit of") is for the person: coś dla dziecka ("something for a child"). The dialogue shows both — coś na kaszel dla dziecka.
❌ Moja głowa boli.
Incorrect — using English-style possessive + body part as subject.
✅ Boli mnie głowa.
My head hurts.
In Polish the body part is the subject and the person is the accusative object: Boli mnie głowa. No possessive needed.
❌ Mam ból w mojej gardle.
Incorrect — redundant possessive and wrong locative form.
✅ Boli mnie gardło.
My throat hurts.
The natural way to report a sore throat is Boli mnie gardło, not a calque of "I have a pain in my throat".
❌ Bolą mnie głowa.
Incorrect — plural verb 'bolą' with a singular body part.
✅ Boli mnie głowa.
My head hurts.
The verb agrees with the body part: singular głowa → boli; only plural parts (nogi, zęby) take bolą.
Key Takeaways
- Ask for a remedy with Czy ma pan(i) coś na…?
- accusative of the ailment (na ból głowy, na kaszel).
- Report pain with Boli mnie…: body part = subject, person = accusative (mnie, pana); verb agrees with the body part (boli / bolą).
- Use pan / pani
- a third-person verb with strangers; never ty in a pharmacy.
- Na + accusative = the ailment; dla + genitive = the person it's for; bez recepty = over the counter.
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Start learning Polish→Related Topics
- At the Doctor and Talking About HealthB1 — The phrase bank for health in Polish — Co panu/pani dolega?, the Boli mnie… construction (where the body part is the SUBJECT in the nominative and you are the accusative object: Boli mnie głowa = 'aches me the head'), Źle się czuję, Mam gorączkę / katar / kaszel, Jestem przeziębiony, plus recepta and apteka — and why 'I have a headache' inverts into a structure English has no equivalent for.
- Accusative After Prepositions (motion: na, w, przez, po, za)A2 — The prepositions that take the accusative — na, w, przez, po, za and the motion-toward set — and the crucial rule that the same preposition means 'where to' with the accusative but 'where at' with the locative or instrumental.
- Dative Subject: Feelings and StatesB1 — The pervasive Polish construction where the experiencer of a feeling stands in the dative and the predicate is impersonal — zimno mi, smutno mi, podoba mi się, nudzi mi się, chce mi się, udało mi się — with no nominative subject at all.
- Annotated Dialogue: At the DoctorB1 — A Polish doctor's-visit dialogue — Co panu dolega?, Boli mnie…, Źle się czuję, Mam gorączkę — annotated to show the boli mnie construction (the body part is the subject), czuć się + adverb, the dative/accusative experiencer, and formal pan/pani address.
- Body Parts and Basic HealthA2 — Body-part vocabulary plus the Boli mnie… construction, gender-marked chory/chora, and the phrases you need to say you're ill or feeling better.