Describing your home and the chores you do in it pulls together three pieces of Polish grammar at once: the aspect pairs that every chore verb comes in (sprzątać/posprzątać), the locative case that names where you do them (w kuchni), and — the real trap — the fact that Polish has three separate verbs for "wash" depending on what you are washing. Get those three apart and you can narrate an entire Saturday of cleaning. This page is the phrase bank for home life, built around exactly those three systems.
The core chore verbs (in aspect pairs)
Every Polish chore verb comes as a pair: an imperfective for the ongoing/habitual activity, and a perfective for the finished result. You use the imperfective to describe doing the chore and the perfective to talk about getting it done.
| Imperfective | Perfective | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| sprzątać | posprzątać | to tidy / clean up |
| gotować | ugotować | to cook |
| prać | wyprać | to do laundry / wash clothes |
| zmywać | zmyć / pozmywać | to wash up (dishes) |
| odkurzać | odkurzyć | to vacuum |
| wycierać | wytrzeć | to wipe / dry |
W soboty zawsze sprzątam całe mieszkanie.
On Saturdays I always tidy the whole flat. (imperfective — habit)
Już posprzątałam, możesz wejść.
I've already tidied up, you can come in. (perfective — done)
Mama gotuje obiad, a ja zmywam naczynia.
Mum is cooking dinner and I'm washing the dishes. (two ongoing actions)
The three "wash" verbs: prać / myć / zmywać
English says wash for everything — wash your hands, wash the car, wash the dishes, do the washing. Polish refuses to. Which verb you use depends on what you are washing, and choosing the wrong one is one of the most recognisable learner errors.
- prać (perf. wyprać) — wash textiles: clothes, sheets, curtains. This is "doing the laundry".
- myć (perf. umyć) — wash a surface, the body, or an object: hands, face, the floor, the car, a window. Also myć naczynia exists, but for dishes Poles usually say zmywać.
- zmywać (perf. zmyć / pozmywać) — wash the dishes specifically; "do the washing-up".
Muszę dziś wyprać ręczniki, są już brudne.
I have to wash the towels today, they're dirty already. (textiles → prać)
Umyj ręce przed obiadem.
Wash your hands before dinner. (body → myć)
Po kolacji ja pozmywam, a ty wytrzesz.
After supper I'll do the washing-up and you'll dry. (dishes → zmywać)
W weekend trzeba umyć okna i wyprać firanki.
At the weekend the windows need washing and the curtains need a wash. (surface → myć, textiles → prać in one sentence)
A handy fixed phrase: robić pranie ("to do the laundry", literally "to do washing", where pranie is the noun) is interchangeable with prać in casual speech.
Nie mam czystych koszul — muszę zrobić pranie.
I've no clean shirts — I have to do the laundry.
Where the chores happen: w + locative
To say where something is or happens, the most common pattern is w ("in") + the locative case. Room names shift their endings: the locative typically adds -e (with a softening consonant change) or -i/-y.
| Room (nominative) | w + locative | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| kuchnia | w kuchni | in the kitchen |
| łazienka | w łazience | in the bathroom |
| sypialnia | w sypialni | in the bedroom |
| salon | w salonie | in the living room |
| pokój | w pokoju | in the room |
| dom | w domu | at home / in the house |
Gotuję w kuchni, a dzieci bawią się w pokoju.
I'm cooking in the kitchen and the children are playing in the room.
W łazience trzeba umyć podłogę.
The floor in the bathroom needs washing.
Cały dzień siedzę w domu i sprzątam.
I've been sitting at home all day, cleaning.
Note the irregular but extremely common w domu ("at home / in the house") — the locative of dom is domu, not domie. It is one of the first locatives every learner should fix in memory.
Robić zakupy and the rhythm of the household
Two more verb-plus-noun chores complete the picture. Robić zakupy ("to do the shopping", zakupy = "shopping/purchases", a plural noun) and the all-purpose sprzątać organise most domestic talk.
W piątek robię zakupy na cały tydzień.
On Friday I do the shopping for the whole week.
Kto dziś gotuje, a kto sprząta?
Who's cooking today and who's cleaning?
Najpierw muszę posprzątać kuchnię, potem zrobić pranie.
First I have to clean the kitchen, then do the laundry.
To talk about whose turn it is, Poles use kolej na ("turn for") + accusative, or simply assign chores with the impersonal trzeba ("one has to"):
Twoja kolej na zmywanie!
Your turn to do the dishes!
Trzeba jeszcze odkurzyć dywan w salonie.
The rug in the living room still needs vacuuming.
A chores description, fully assembled
Here is a natural paragraph a Pole might say about a Saturday at home — watch the aspect choices and the locatives working together:
W soboty rano sprzątam całe mieszkanie. Najpierw odkurzam pokoje, potem myję podłogę w kuchni i w łazience. Kiedy skończę, robię pranie i gotuję obiad. Wieczorem mąż zmywa naczynia, a ja w końcu odpoczywam.
On Saturday mornings I clean the whole flat. First I vacuum the rooms, then I wash the floor in the kitchen and the bathroom. When I finish, I do the laundry and cook dinner. In the evening my husband washes the dishes and I finally rest.
Common Mistakes
Using prać for hands, dishes, or the floor. Prać is only for textiles; bodies and surfaces take myć, dishes take zmywać.
❌ Muszę uprać ręce.
Incorrect — prać is for laundry, not hands; use myć.
✅ Muszę umyć ręce.
I have to wash my hands.
Using the genitive of motion for a static location. "In the kitchen" is w kuchni (locative), not do kuchni (motion).
❌ Gotuję do kuchni.
Incorrect — that's 'to the kitchen' (motion); cooking happens w kuchni.
✅ Gotuję w kuchni.
I'm cooking in the kitchen.
Saying w domie for "at home". The locative of dom is irregular: w domu.
❌ Jestem w domie.
Incorrect — the locative is irregular: w domu.
✅ Jestem w domu.
I'm at home.
Using the perfective for a habit. A repeated chore takes the imperfective.
❌ Codziennie ugotuję obiad.
Incorrect — a daily habit needs the imperfective gotuję.
✅ Codziennie gotuję obiad.
I cook dinner every day.
Treating zakupy as singular. It is a plural-only noun; "the shopping" is zakupy, and you robisz zakupy.
❌ Robię zakup w piątek.
Incorrect — the shopping is plural: zakupy.
✅ Robię zakupy w piątek.
I do the shopping on Friday.
Key Takeaways
- Chore verbs come in aspect pairs: imperfective for habits/ongoing (sprzątam), perfective for done (posprzątałem).
- Three "wash" verbs: prać/wyprać (laundry), myć/umyć (body, surfaces, objects), zmywać/pozmywać (dishes).
- Location uses w + locative: w kuchni, w łazience, w sypialni, and the irregular w domu.
- Robić pranie = do the laundry; robić zakupy = do the shopping (zakupy is plural-only).
- Don't confuse w + locative (where) with do + genitive (where to).
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Start learning Polish→Related Topics
- prać / wyprać — to wash (laundry); plus stem-change modelsB2 — Full conjugation of prać/wyprać 'to do laundry', showing the same io/ie stem alternation as brać, and how Polish splits 'wash' three ways.
- gotować / ugotować — to cookA2 — Full conjugation of gotować/ugotować 'to cook', a clean -ować→-uję verb, with how Polish splits cooking by method and the reflexive gotować się 'to boil'.
- w and na: In, On, AtA2 — The two workhorse location prepositions — w ('in') and na ('on/at') — with the locative for static location, the accusative for motion, and the lexically fixed, unpredictable split that decides which noun takes which.
- Verbal Aspect: The Big PictureA2 — Aspect is the central, pervasive feature of the Polish verb — almost every verb is one of an imperfective/perfective pair, and you choose between process and completed whole before you even pick a tense.
- High-Frequency Aspect Pairs: A Reference ListA2 — A curated, cell-accurate list of the ~50 most common imperfective/perfective pairs every learner needs — grouped sensibly, with the suppletive and irregular ones flagged, made to be memorised as pairs from day one.
- sprzątać / posprzątać — to tidy, clean upA2 — Full conjugation reference for the household-chore pair sprzątać/posprzątać ('tidy, clean up'), its place in the chores set, and the result-marking po- perfective.