English uses one form, the -ing word, for two very different jobs: Reading is fun (a noun) and She is reading (a verb). Polish keeps these apart. The activity-naming job is done by a dedicated verbal noun (rzeczownik odsłowny), a true neuter noun built from a verb: czytać (to read) → czytanie (reading, the activity). It declines, it can be a subject or an object, it can be modified by an adjective — and, crucially, it keeps the aspect of the verb it came from and takes its own object in the genitive, not the accusative the verb would have used. This page shows you how to build verbal nouns, what they inherit from their verb, and where English instincts mislead.
What a verbal noun is
A verbal noun names the action as a thing. It is genderless in the sense that it is always neuter and declines like other neuter nouns in -e (pisanie, pisania, pisaniu).
| Verb | Verbal noun | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| czytać | czytanie | reading |
| pisać | pisanie | writing |
| robić | robienie | doing / making |
| myśleć | myślenie | thinking |
| gotować | gotowanie | cooking |
| pić | picie | drinking |
Czytanie przed snem pomaga mi się zrelaksować.
Reading before sleep helps me relax.
Gotowanie nie jest moją mocną stroną — wolę zamawiać jedzenie.
Cooking isn't my strong suit — I prefer ordering food.
The three suffixes
-anie, from -ać verbs
Verbs whose infinitive ends in -ać form their verbal noun in -anie. This is the largest, most regular group, and there is no consonant mutation.
| Verb (-ać) | Verbal noun (-anie) |
|---|---|
| czytać | czytanie |
| pisać | pisanie |
| czekać | czekanie (waiting) |
| śpiewać | śpiewanie (singing) |
| pływać | pływanie (swimming) |
Pływanie to najlepszy sport dla kręgosłupa.
Swimming is the best sport for your spine.
Czekanie na autobus w deszczu to nic przyjemnego.
Waiting for the bus in the rain is no fun at all.
-enie, from -ić / -eć verbs (with mutation)
Verbs in -ić and -eć form -enie — and here the stem-final consonant usually mutates, the same softening you see across Polish morphology.
| Verb | Verbal noun | Mutation |
|---|---|---|
| robić | robienie | b → bi |
| mówić | mówienie | w → wi |
| chodzić | chodzenie | dz → dz |
| nosić | noszenie | s → sz |
| prosić | proszenie | s → sz |
| uczyć | uczenie | cz → cz |
| myśleć | myślenie | l → l (soft) |
The mutation is not optional decoration — nosić → noszenie and prosić → proszenie with s → sz are the standard forms; *nosienie is wrong. (See consonant mutations.)
Ciągłe noszenie ciężkich toreb zniszczyło mi plecy.
Constantly carrying heavy bags has wrecked my back.
Mówienie po polsku przychodzi mi coraz łatwiej.
Speaking Polish is coming to me more and more easily.
-cie, from monosyllabic and irregular stems
A smaller group — verbs with short, vowel-final or nasal stems — forms -cie.
| Verb | Verbal noun | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| pić | picie | drinking |
| myć | mycie | washing |
| żyć | życie | living / life |
| wziąć | wzięcie | taking |
| otworzyć | otwarcie | opening |
| zamknąć | zamknięcie | closing |
Note that życie has lexicalised into the everyday noun "life", and otwarcie and zamknięcie mean both the action and, concretely, an "opening / closing" (e.g. of an exhibition or a shop's closing time) — a sign of how nouny these forms become.
Otwarcie nowej wystawy zaplanowano na piątek.
The opening of the new exhibition is scheduled for Friday.
Picie wody w upale jest naprawdę ważne.
Drinking water in the heat is really important.
Verbal nouns keep their aspect
This is the insight that separates a textbook learner from a fluent one. Polish verbs come in aspect pairs — imperfective (process, ongoing) and perfective (completed result). The verbal noun inherits the aspect of the verb it is built from.
| Imperfective | → noun | Perfective | → noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| robić | robienie (the doing) | zrobić | zrobienie (the getting-done) |
| czytać | czytanie | przeczytać | przeczytanie |
| pisać | pisanie | napisać | napisanie |
| otwierać | otwieranie | otworzyć | otwarcie |
So robienie names the process of doing, while zrobienie names the accomplishment — and you choose between them for exactly the reasons you would choose the verb's aspect. Po zrobieniu zadania means "after getting the task done" (completion), whereas podczas robienia zadania means "while doing the task" (process).
Po napisaniu eseju poczułam ogromną ulgę.
After finishing writing the essay I felt enormous relief.
Podczas pisania pracy słucham spokojnej muzyki.
While writing my paper I listen to calm music.
The object goes in the genitive
Here is the second trap. A verb assigns case to its object: czytać książkę (to read a book — accusative książkę). But once you nominalise, the object becomes a genitive of the noun — the "of" relationship — because czytanie is now a noun, and nouns take genitive complements.
| Verb + accusative | Verbal noun + genitive |
|---|---|
| czytać książkę (read a book) | czytanie książki (the reading of a book) |
| myć samochód (wash the car) | mycie samochodu (the washing of the car) |
| pisać list (write a letter) | pisanie listu (the writing of a letter) |
| uczyć dzieci (teach children) | uczenie dzieci (teaching children) |
So mycie samochodu literally is "the washing of the car" — the genitive samochodu, not the accusative samochód the verb would govern. (See genitive of possession / "of".)
Mycie samochodu w niedzielę to u nas rodzinny rytuał.
Washing the car on Sunday is a family ritual for us.
Uczenie dzieci cierpliwości to nie lada wyzwanie.
Teaching children patience is quite a challenge.
Czytanie tej książki zajęło mi cały miesiąc.
Reading this book took me a whole month.
Not every verb forms one freely
Verbal nouns are productive but not universal in everyday speech. Some are avoided in favour of a clause (że…) or are stylistically heavy — strings of -anie / -enie nouns make a sentence sound bureaucratic. Polish style guides actively warn against the "zenis" overuse seen in officialese (w celu dokonania sprawdzenia… "for the purpose of carrying out a checking…"). In casual speech you would just use the verb.
Zamiast pisać 'w celu dokonania zakupu', po prostu powiedz 'żeby kupić'.
Instead of writing 'for the purpose of effecting a purchase', just say 'in order to buy'.
Common Mistakes
❌ Czytanie książkę zajęło mi miesiąc.
Incorrect — a verbal noun takes a genitive object, not accusative.
✅ Czytanie książki zajęło mi miesiąc.
Reading the book took me a month.
The verb czytać takes the accusative książkę, but the noun czytanie takes the genitive książki. Carrying the accusative across from the verb is the classic transfer error.
❌ Po przeczytać tę książkę poszedłem spać.
Incorrect — 'after reading' needs the verbal noun in the locative after po.
✅ Po przeczytaniu tej książki poszedłem spać.
After reading the book I went to sleep.
English "after reading" can use the -ing form directly, but Polish needs po + the locative of the verbal noun: po przeczytaniu. You cannot put a bare infinitive after po.
❌ Lubię gotowanie, ale dziś nie mam czas.
Incorrect aspect/usage — for a habitual liking Poles normally use the infinitive: lubię gotować.
✅ Lubię gotować, ale dziś nie mam czasu.
I like cooking, but today I don't have time.
After lubić, Polish strongly prefers the infinitive (lubię gotować) for "I like to / I like -ing", not the verbal noun. Gotowanie as object sounds stilted. (Also note nie mam czasu — genitive of negation.)
❌ Mówienie po polsku jest robienie coraz łatwiejsze.
Incorrect — robienie is a noun; you need the verb 'staje się' here.
✅ Mówienie po polsku staje się coraz łatwiejsze.
Speaking Polish is becoming easier and easier.
A verbal noun cannot stand in for a finite verb. Robienie is a noun ("the doing"); to say "is becoming" you need the conjugated verb staje się.
❌ Robienie zadania zajęło dwie godziny — chodziło o pełne zrobienie.
Aspect confusion — for the completed result use the perfective noun in the right place.
✅ Zrobienie zadania zajęło dwie godziny.
Getting the task done took two hours.
If you mean the completed accomplishment, build the verbal noun from the perfective verb: zrobić → zrobienie. The imperfective robienie names the ongoing process, which subtly changes the meaning.
Key Takeaways
- The Polish verbal noun names an action as a neuter noun: -anie (from -ać), -enie (from -ić / -eć, with mutation), -cie (short/irregular stems).
- It inherits the aspect of its source verb: robienie (process) vs zrobienie (completion) — choose for the same reasons you choose verbal aspect.
- Its object goes in the genitive: czytanie książki, mycie samochodu — not the accusative the verb would take.
- Use it for "after / while doing X": po przeczytaniu (after, perfective), podczas czytania (while, imperfective).
- After verbs like lubić, prefer the infinitive, not the verbal noun; and don't pile up -anie/-enie nouns, which sounds bureaucratic.
Now practice Polish
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Start learning Polish→Related Topics
- 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.
- Nominalization and Verbal-Noun ConstructionsC1 — How official and academic Polish turns whole clauses into noun phrases with verbal nouns in -anie/-enie/-cie — a dense nominal style and the C1 skill of decoding it.
- 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.
- Noun-Forming Suffixes: -ość, -nik, -acz, -arzB1 — Polish builds nouns from adjectives and verbs with predictable suffixes — abstract -ość (always feminine), agent and instrument -nik/-acz/-arz/-ca, and the feminine -ka — so you can both decode and form whole families of words.
- Consonant Mutation Reference TableB1 — The master table of Polish consonant alternations (alternacje) — every hard-to-soft mutation, its trigger, and where it surfaces in cases, verbs, comparatives and word formation.