Asking and telling age is one of the very first things you'll need in Polish — and it hides two facts that trip up every English speaker. First, you don't be a certain age in Polish, you have years: Mam dwadzieścia lat literally means "I have twenty years." Second, the word for "year(s)" changes shape depending on the number in front of it — rok, lata, or lat — following the same numeral rule that governs counting everything in Polish. Master this one high-frequency pattern and you've drilled both mieć ("to have") and the 1 / 2–4 / 5+ split that runs through the whole number system.
Age is "having years": the verb mieć
English says "I am twenty (years old)." Polish says "I have twenty years," using mieć:
Mam dwadzieścia lat.
I'm twenty years old. (literally 'I have twenty years')
Ona ma trzydzieści pięć lat.
She's thirty-five years old. ('she has thirty-five years')
Using być here — Jestem dwadzieścia — is simply wrong; it doesn't mean anything in Polish. Age always travels with mieć. (For the full conjugation of mieć, see /grammar/polish/verbs-reference/miec.) The forms you need for age are:
| Person | mieć ("to have") | Example |
|---|---|---|
| ja (I) | mam | Mam 30 lat. |
| ty (you, informal) | masz | Ile masz lat? |
| on / ona (he / she) | ma | Ona ma 8 lat. |
| my (we) | mamy | Mamy po 20 lat. |
| pan / pani (you, formal) | ma | Ile pan ma lat? |
Asking someone's age
The standard question is Ile masz lat? — literally "How many years do you have?"
Ile masz lat?
How old are you? (informal — 'how many years do you have?')
Ile pan ma lat?
How old are you, sir? (formal, to a man — pan + ma)
Ile ma lat twoja siostra?
How old is your sister? ('how many years does your sister have?')
Notice the word order in the formal version: Ile pan ma lat? The polite pan ("sir") / pani ("madam") slots in and the verb stays ma (third person), because pan/pani grammatically behave like "he/she." For a child you'd ask the parent Ile ma lat? or, to the child directly, Ile masz latek? with the affectionate diminutive latek.
Ile masz latek? — Mam pięć latek!
How old are you (little one)? — I'm five! (latek = affectionate diminutive used with small children)
The heart of it: rok, lata, or lat?
Here's the fact that has no English parallel. The word for "year" takes one of three forms depending on the number in front of it. This is the numeral rule — the same pattern that governs how you count anything in Polish (see /grammar/polish/numbers/grammar/case-government).
| Number | Year-word | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | rok | jeden rok | one year |
| 2, 3, 4 | lata | dwa / trzy / cztery lata | two/three/four years |
| 5–21, and 0 / many | lat | pięć lat, dwadzieścia lat, zero lat | five / twenty / no years |
Mój syn ma rok.
My son is one (year old). (1 → rok)
Moja córka ma cztery lata.
My daughter is four. (2–4 → lata)
Mój dziadek ma osiemdziesiąt lat.
My grandfather is eighty. (5+ → lat)
Why three forms? Polish numerals govern the case of the noun they count. Jeden ("one") treats the noun as a singular subject (so the nominative singular rok). The numbers 2–4 take a special plural form (here lata). And 5 and above force the genitive plural lat ("of years") — the same genitive plural you meet in /grammar/polish/cases/genitive/after-numbers. You don't need the case theory to use this — just learn the three-way split as a block — but knowing why helps it stick, because the identical pattern reappears with every countable noun.
The crucial twist: it's the LAST digit that decides
This is the single most error-prone point, and the spec's headline insight. For compound numbers (21, 22, 33, 54…), it's the final digit that picks the year-word — except that the teens (11–19) all take lat.
So:
| Last digit | Year-word | Example age |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (but NOT 11) | lat | dwadzieścia jeden lat (21) |
| 2, 3, 4 (but NOT 12–14) | lata | dwadzieścia dwa lata (22), trzydzieści trzy lata (33) |
| 5–9, 0, and all teens 11–19 | lat | dwadzieścia pięć lat (25), jedenaście lat (11) |
A subtlety worth flagging clearly: 21 does not take rok even though it ends in 1 — compound "...one" takes lat, not rok. Only the bare number 1 (jeden) gives rok.
Mam dwadzieścia jeden lat.
I'm twenty-one. (compound ending in 1 → lat, NOT rok)
Mam dwadzieścia dwa lata.
I'm twenty-two. (ends in 2 → lata)
Mój brat ma trzydzieści cztery lata.
My brother is thirty-four. (ends in 4 → lata)
Mam dwadzieścia pięć lat.
I'm twenty-five. (ends in 5 → lat)
A quick reference: ages 1–100
| Age | Polish |
|---|---|
| 1 | jeden rok |
| 2 | dwa lata |
| 5 | pięć lat |
| 11 | jedenaście lat |
| 12 | dwanaście lat |
| 21 | dwadzieścia jeden lat |
| 22 | dwadzieścia dwa lata |
| 25 | dwadzieścia pięć lat |
| 33 | trzydzieści trzy lata |
| 40 | czterdzieści lat |
| 54 | pięćdziesiąt cztery lata |
| 67 | sześćdziesiąt siedem lat |
| 100 | sto lat |
Notice that 100 = sto lat — yes, the same Sto lat! you shout as a birthday toast and sing as the birthday song. It literally wishes someone a hundred years of life. To practice the underlying number words, see /grammar/polish/expressions/numbers-counting-practice.
Birthdays and getting older
A few high-frequency birthday phrases that ride on this pattern:
Wszystkiego najlepszego z okazji urodzin! Sto lat!
Happy birthday! ('all the best on the occasion of your birthday') — and 'a hundred years!'
W przyszłym tygodniu kończę trzydzieści lat.
Next week I'm turning thirty. (kończyć + age = 'to turn/complete' that age)
Ile lat kończysz w tym roku?
How old are you turning this year? ('how many years are you completing?')
The verb kończyć ("to finish/complete") is the natural way to say "turn (an age)" — you "complete" that many years. The year-word after it follows the same rok/lata/lat rule: kończę rok / kończę dwa lata / kończę pięć lat.
Common Mistakes
The errors English speakers reliably make with age.
❌ Jestem dwadzieścia lat.
Incorrect — using być ('to be') for age; Polish uses mieć ('to have').
✅ Mam dwadzieścia lat.
I'm twenty years old. (mieć, not być)
❌ Mam dwadzieścia jeden rok.
Incorrect — compound numbers ending in 1 take lat, not rok; only bare 'jeden' gives rok.
✅ Mam dwadzieścia jeden lat.
I'm twenty-one. (...jeden → lat)
❌ Mam dwadzieścia dwa lat.
Incorrect — numbers ending in 2/3/4 (not teens) take lata, not lat.
✅ Mam dwadzieścia dwa lata.
I'm twenty-two. (ends in 2 → lata)
❌ Mam dwanaście lata.
Incorrect — the teens (11–19) all take lat, even when they end in 2/3/4.
✅ Mam dwanaście lat.
I'm twelve. (teen → lat)
❌ Ile jesteś lat?
Incorrect — the age question uses mieć: 'how many years do you HAVE?'
✅ Ile masz lat?
How old are you? (Ile + masz + lat)
Key Takeaways
- Age is having years: always mieć, never być. Mam 20 lat, not jestem 20.
- Ask with Ile masz lat? (informal) or Ile pan/pani ma lat? (formal).
- The year-word follows the numeral rule: rok (1), lata (2–4), lat (5+, 0, and all teens 11–19).
- For compound numbers it's the last digit that decides — but 21 takes lat (only bare jeden gives rok), and the teens always take lat.
- "Turning" an age uses kończyć; Sto lat! ("a hundred years!") doubles as the birthday wish.
Now practice Polish
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Start learning Polish→Related Topics
- 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.
- How Numbers Govern Noun Case (the 2-4 vs 5+ Rule)B1 — The central rule of Polish numeral syntax: 1 takes nominative singular, 2-4 take nominative plural, and 5 and up flip the noun into the genitive plural — plus the teens exception and compound numbers.
- Counting Things in PracticeA2 — A practice phrase bank for counting real objects in Polish: jeden kot / dwa koty / pięć kotów across the 1 / 2–4 / 5+ boundaries, the masculine-personal split (dwóch braci, pięciu studentów), counting money and time, and the everyday 'how many' (Ile masz…?).
- Verb Agreement with NumbersB2 — Why 'two people came' takes a plural verb (przyszły) but 'five people came' takes a singular neuter verb (przyszło) — the 4/5 boundary flips not just the noun's case but the verb's number and gender.
- Genitive After Numbers and Quantity WordsA2 — Why numbers from five up — and most quantity words like dużo, mało, kilka — put the counted noun into the genitive plural, and how this differs from 2-4.