Talking about your body when something is wrong is one of the places where Polish grammar refuses to map onto English word-for-word. English uses have and a possessive ("I have a headache", "my throat hurts"); Polish flips the whole sentence around so that the body part is the subject and you are the object of the verb boleć ("to ache"). Get that inversion right and the rest — fevers, colds, the pharmacy — is mostly vocabulary. This page is the phrase bank for feeling unwell and getting seen, with the boli mnie construction at its centre.
Co panu/pani dolega? — "What's wrong?"
A Polish doctor opens with Co panu/pani dolega? — literally "what ails you?". The verb dolegać ("to ail, to trouble") takes a dative experiencer, which is why it's panu (to a man) / pani (to a woman), the dative forms of the polite pan/pani. Among friends or to a child it's Co ci dolega? (ci = informal "to you", dative) or simply Co się stało? ("what happened?").
Dzień dobry, proszę usiąść. Co panu dolega?
Hello, please sit down. What's the matter? (to a man, formal)
Co pani dolega? Od kiedy to trwa?
What's wrong? How long has it been going on? (to a woman, formal)
Wyglądasz blado. Co ci dolega?
You look pale. What's wrong with you? (informal)
Boli mnie głowa — the inversion English has no version of
Here is the single most important pattern on this page. To say my head hurts, Polish says Boli mnie głowa — literally "aches me [the] head". Pull it apart:
- boli — third-person singular of boleć ("to ache"), agreeing with…
- głowa — the head, in the nominative: it is the grammatical subject, the thing doing the aching.
- mnie — me, in the accusative: you are the object, the person the ache affects.
So the body part is the subject and the sufferer is the object. There is no possessive ("my") and no have. You do not say Mam ból głowy in everyday speech (that's stiff and clinical); you say Boli mnie głowa.
Boli mnie głowa od rana.
My head has been hurting since morning. (lit. 'aches me the head')
Boli mnie gardło i trudno mi przełykać.
My throat hurts and it's hard to swallow.
Boli mnie brzuch — chyba zjadłem coś nieświeżego.
My stomach hurts — I think I ate something off.
When more than one body part hurts, the subject becomes plural and the verb switches to bolą (third-person plural). The accusative mnie never changes.
Bolą mnie plecy po całym dniu w samochodzie.
My back hurts after a whole day in the car. (plecy is plural in Polish → bolą)
Bolą mnie nogi i kolana.
My legs and knees hurt.
To put the ache in the past, boleć still agrees with the body part — bolała (fem. sing., głowa), bolało (neut. sing., gardło), bolały (plur., plecy):
Wczoraj bolała mnie głowa, ale dziś jest już lepiej.
My head hurt yesterday, but today it's better already.
Całą noc bolało mnie gardło.
My throat hurt all night.
Źle się czuję — "I feel unwell"
To say I feel bad/unwell, Polish uses an adverb + reflexive verb: źle się czuję (źle = "badly", czuć się = "to feel"). This is a classic false-friend trap: do not say Jestem zły — that means "I'm angry" (or, of a thing, "I'm bad/wicked"). Feeling is czuć się + an adverb, never być + an adjective.
Źle się czuję, chyba wezmę dziś wolne.
I feel unwell, I think I'll take the day off.
Czuję się okropnie — kręci mi się w głowie.
I feel awful — my head is spinning.
Jak się czujesz? — Już lepiej, dziękuję.
How are you feeling? — Better now, thanks.
Jestem chory / Jestem przeziębiony — being sick, gender-marked
Jestem chory = "I'm sick/ill" — and like most Polish predicate adjectives it agrees with your gender: a man says chory, a woman chora. The same goes for przeziębiony / przeziębiona ("having a cold").
Nie przyjdę do pracy, jestem chora.
I won't come to work, I'm ill. (woman speaking)
Jestem trochę przeziębiony, ale to nic poważnego.
I've got a bit of a cold, but it's nothing serious. (man speaking)
For specific symptoms, Polish does use mieć ("to have") + the accusative, exactly as English does — this is the one place have works:
- mam gorączkę — I have a fever (gorączka → acc. gorączkę)
- mam katar — I have a runny nose / head cold (katar, masc., acc. = nom.)
- mam kaszel — I have a cough
- mam dreszcze — I have the chills (plural)
Mam wysoką gorączkę i okropny kaszel.
I have a high fever and a terrible cough.
Mam katar i boli mnie gardło — typowe przeziębienie.
I have a runny nose and a sore throat — a typical cold.
Notice the two systems sitting side by side: mam gorączkę (have + accusative, like English) but boli mnie gardło (the inverted ache construction). Symptoms you "have" use mieć; pains that "ache you" use boleć.
U lekarza, recepta, apteka — getting seen and getting medicine
To go to the doctor is iść do lekarza (do + genitive: lekarz → lekarza). At the doctor's you are u lekarza (u + genitive = "at someone's place"). A recepta is a prescription; the doctor wypisuje receptę ("writes out a prescription"), and you fill it at the apteka (pharmacy).
Muszę umówić się do lekarza na jutro.
I need to make a doctor's appointment for tomorrow.
Lekarz wypisał mi receptę na antybiotyk.
The doctor wrote me a prescription for an antibiotic.
Czy ten lek jest na receptę, czy bez recepty?
Is this medicine prescription-only, or over the counter?
Gdzie jest najbliższa apteka? Potrzebuję czegoś na ból gardła.
Where's the nearest pharmacy? I need something for a sore throat.
Useful frame at the pharmacy: Coś na… + accusative ("something for…") — coś na ból głowy (something for a headache), coś na kaszel (something for a cough), coś na gardło (something for a sore throat).
Poproszę coś na katar i na kaszel.
Could I have something for a runny nose and a cough, please.
For a full doctor's-visit scene with line-by-line grammar notes, see the doctor dialogue.
Common Mistakes
Treating "my head hurts" like English — possessive + have. There is no moja and no mam here; the body part is the subject and you are the accusative object.
❌ Mam ból w mojej głowie.
Incorrect — calque of 'I have a pain in my head'; stiff and unnatural.
✅ Boli mnie głowa.
My head hurts. (lit. 'aches me the head')
Putting the body part in the accusative too. Only the person is accusative (mnie); the body part stays nominative as the subject.
❌ Boli mnie głowę.
Incorrect — głowa is the subject, so it stays nominative.
✅ Boli mnie głowa.
My head hurts.
Not making the verb agree with a plural body part. Plurals like plecy (back) and nogi (legs) take bolą, not boli.
❌ Boli mnie plecy.
Incorrect — plecy is plural, so the verb must be bolą.
✅ Bolą mnie plecy.
My back hurts.
Saying Jestem zły for "I feel bad". That means "I'm angry". Feeling unwell is the adverb-plus-reflexive źle się czuję.
❌ Jestem zły. (meaning 'I feel ill')
Incorrect — this means 'I'm angry'.
✅ Źle się czuję. / Jestem chory(-a).
I feel unwell. / I'm ill.
Forgetting gender agreement on chory / przeziębiony. A woman says chora, przeziębiona.
❌ Jestem chory. (said by a woman)
Incorrect — a woman says chora.
✅ Jestem chora.
I'm ill. (woman speaking)
Key Takeaways
- The doctor asks Co panu/pani dolega? (dative experiencer); informally Co ci dolega? / Co się stało?.
- Boli mnie głowa = "my head hurts": body part = nominative subject, person = accusative object (mnie/cię/go/ją); plural body part → bolą.
- Źle się czuję = "I feel unwell" — adverb + reflexive czuć się, never Jestem zły ("I'm angry").
- Symptoms you have use mieć
- accusative: mam gorączkę / katar / kaszel; being sick is jestem chory/chora, przeziębiony/przeziębiona (gender-marked).
- recepta = prescription, apteka = pharmacy; ask for coś na…
- accusative (coś na ból głowy).
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Start learning Polish→Related Topics
- boleć — to hurt, acheA2 — Full reference for boleć ('to hurt, ache'): the 3rd-person-only present boli/bolą, the gendered past bolał/bolało/bolały, the perfective rozboleć, and the inverted health construction where the body part is the subject and the person is the accusative object — Boli mnie głowa, Bolą mnie nogi.
- Accusative: The Direct ObjectA1 — The accusative's core job — marking the direct object of a transitive verb — and how that case-marking frees Polish word order in ways English can't.
- 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.