Describing someone in Polish leans on two grammar points that English simply doesn't have. First, every adjective must agree with the person's gender, so "tall" is wysoki for a man but wysoka for a woman — the word changes shape, not just the pronoun. Second, physical features are expressed with mieć ("to have") + accusative (ma niebieskie oczy, "has blue eyes"), and "resembles / looks like" splits into two distinct frames depending on the construction. Get these patterns into your ear and you can describe anyone — their build, their face, their character — accurately and naturally.
Appearance adjectives and gender agreement
The core appearance pairs are below. Each adjective has a masculine, feminine, and neuter form; for describing people you mostly need masculine (man) and feminine (woman).
| Meaning | Masc. (mężczyzna) | Fem. (kobieta) |
|---|---|---|
| tall | wysoki | wysoka |
| short (in height) | niski | niska |
| slim | szczupły | szczupła |
| handsome / pretty | przystojny | ładna / piękna |
| young | młody | młoda |
| old / elderly | stary / starszy | stara / starsza |
To wysoki mężczyzna o ciemnych włosach.
He's a tall man with dark hair.
Moja siostra jest wysoka i szczupła.
My sister is tall and slim.
Note the agreement working in both directions: wysoki mężczyzna but wysoka siostra. The same adjective root wysok- takes -i for the man and -a for the woman. English keeps "tall" frozen and changes only "he/she"; Polish marks the gender right on the adjective. For the full mechanics, see everyday adjective agreement.
Personality adjectives
The same agreement applies to character. High-frequency pairs:
| Meaning | Masc. | Fem. |
|---|---|---|
| nice / pleasant | miły / sympatyczny | miła / sympatyczna |
| intelligent | inteligentny | inteligentna |
| funny | zabawny / wesoły | zabawna / wesoła |
| kind / good-hearted | dobry | dobra |
| shy | nieśmiały | nieśmiała |
Nasz nowy sąsiad jest bardzo miły.
Our new neighbour is very nice.
Ona jest inteligentna i ma świetne poczucie humoru.
She's intelligent and has a great sense of humour.
Predicate adjectives stay nominative — but predicate NOUNS go instrumental
Here is the trap. After być ("to be"), a predicate adjective stays in the nominative and just agrees in gender: Ona jest miła ("she is nice"). But a predicate noun after być goes into the instrumental: Ona jest nauczycielką ("she is a teacher"). So the rule that catches learners is the opposite of what they expect — the adjective does not take the instrumental.
Marek jest wysoki i wesoły.
Marek is tall and cheerful. (adjectives → nominative)
Marek jest inżynierem.
Marek is an engineer. (noun → instrumental)
So "she is a nice woman" mixes both: Ona jest miłą kobietą — the adjective miłą and the noun kobietą are both instrumental, because together they form a predicate noun phrase. But standalone Ona jest miła keeps the lone adjective nominative.
Ona jest miłą kobietą.
She is a nice woman. (adj + noun together → instrumental)
Features: mieć + accusative
Physical features — eyes, hair, a beard — are described with mieć ("to have") + accusative, exactly where English uses "have." The feature noun and its adjective both go into the accusative.
Ma niebieskie oczy i blond włosy.
She/he has blue eyes and blond hair.
Mój dziadek ma siwą brodę i okulary.
My grandfather has a grey beard and glasses.
Masz piękny uśmiech.
You have a beautiful smile.
Two vocabulary notes. włosy ("hair") is plural in Polish — ciemne włosy ("dark hair"), długie włosy ("long hair") — so its adjectives are plural too. And blond is indeclinable: it never changes form (blond włosy, never blonde włosy). The colour adjectives otherwise agree normally: niebieskie oczy, zielone oczy, brązowe oczy.
You can also describe features with the preposition o + locative ("with / characterised by"), common in written portraits: kobieta o ciemnych oczach ("a woman with dark eyes").
To dziewczyna o długich, jasnych włosach.
It's a girl with long, fair hair.
"Looks like" and "resembles": two different frames
This is where the brief's distinguishing insight lives. Polish splits what English smears together as "look like / resemble" into two constructions with two different governments.
wyglądać jak / na — "to look like / to look (a certain way)." wyglądać jak + nominative compares to something; wyglądać na + accusative gives an impression (often of age or state).
Wyglądasz jak twoja mama.
You look like your mum.
Wyglądasz na zmęczonego.
You look tired. (lit. you look [to be] tired)
On wygląda na jakieś trzydzieści lat.
He looks about thirty.
być podobnym do + genitive — "to resemble." Here the resemblance is to a person, and that person goes into the genitive after do. The predicate adjective podobny itself goes instrumental after być (or stays nominative in casual speech: jest podobna).
Jest bardzo podobna do matki.
She closely resembles her mother.
Syn jest podobny do ojca, a córka do babci.
The son takes after his father, and the daughter after her grandmother.
So "she resembles her mother" is podobna do matki — genitive matki after do. English speakers reach for an accusative or a "to," but the resemblance frame is fixed: podobny do + genitive. See possession and 'of' with the genitive for the broader do + genitive pattern, and the verb wyglądać for the jak / na split in full.
A person-description
Moja nowa koleżanka z pracy jest wysoka i szczupła.
My new colleague at work is tall and slim.
Ma długie, ciemne włosy i zielone oczy.
She has long, dark hair and green eyes.
Jest bardzo miła i inteligentna, i wygląda trochę jak moja siostra.
She's very nice and intelligent, and looks a bit like my sister.
Notice everything working together: feminine agreement (wysoka, szczupła, miła, inteligentna), the plural feature noun (długie, ciemne włosy; zielone oczy) under ma + accusative, and the comparison frame wyglądać jak + nominative (jak moja siostra).
Common Mistakes
❌ Mój brat jest wysoka.
Incorrect — feminine adjective with a masculine person.
✅ Mój brat jest wysoki.
My brother is tall.
The adjective must agree with the person's gender: wysoki (m.), wysoka (f.). Agreement is on the adjective, not just the pronoun.
❌ Ona jest wysokim.
Incorrect — instrumental on a lone predicate adjective.
✅ Ona jest wysoka.
She is tall.
A lone predicate adjective after jest stays nominative. The instrumental is for predicate nouns (jest nauczycielką), not adjectives.
❌ Ma niebieski oczy.
Incorrect — singular adjective with the plural noun 'eyes'.
✅ Ma niebieskie oczy.
She/he has blue eyes.
oczy and włosy are plural, so their adjectives must be plural too: niebieskie oczy, jasne włosy.
❌ Jest podobna do matka.
Incorrect — nominative after 'do'.
✅ Jest podobna do matki.
She resembles her mother.
podobny do governs the genitive: matka → matki. The resemblance frame always takes do + genitive.
❌ Wygląda jak zmęczony.
Incorrect — used 'jak' where an impression needs 'na'.
✅ Wygląda na zmęczonego.
He looks tired.
For an impression (tired, ill, young), use wyglądać na + accusative (na zmęczonego); wyglądać jak is for comparing to a specific thing or person.
Key Takeaways
- Appearance and personality adjectives agree in gender: wysoki (m.) / wysoka (f.), miły / miła.
- A lone predicate adjective stays nominative (jest wysoki); a predicate noun goes instrumental (jest inżynierem, jest miłą kobietą).
- Describe features with mieć + accusative: ma niebieskie oczy, ma blond włosy (and włosy / oczy are plural; blond is indeclinable).
- "Look like / look (a way)" = wyglądać jak + nominative / wyglądać na + accusative.
- "Resemble" = być podobnym do + genitive: podobna do matki.
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Start learning Polish→Related Topics
- Making Adjectives Agree: The BasicsA1 — The first adjective skill: matching the ending to the noun's gender in the nominative — dobry dom, dobra kawa, dobre dziecko.
- wyglądać — to look, appearB1 — Full conjugation of wyglądać (imperfective only, 'look/appear a certain way'), plus its three complement patterns English collapses into 'look': wyglądać + adverb (wyglądasz dobrze), wyglądać jak + nominative (wygląda jak ojciec), and wyglądać na + accusative (wygląda na zmęczonego).
- Family and RelationshipsA2 — The phrase bank for family and relationships in Polish — the core members (mama, tata, brat, siostra, dziadkowie, wujek, ciocia), Mam… (+ accusative), the gender-specific 'I'm married' (żonaty for a man, zamężna for a woman), kawaler / panna (single), chłopak / dziewczyna (boyfriend/girlfriend), and the collective numeral in Mam dwoje dzieci ('I have two children').
- Genitive for Possession and 'of'A2 — How Polish expresses possession and the English 'of'-relationship using the genitive case alone — no preposition, no apostrophe, reversed word order.
- mieć — to haveA1 — Full conjugation reference for mieć ('to have') — present, past, future, imperative and conditional — with the cases it governs and the dozens of high-frequency idioms (age, being right, feeling like) that English builds with other verbs.