Personal Pronouns: Overview | Polish Grammar

The Polish personal pronouns are ja "I," ty "you (singular, informal)," on / ona / ono "he / she / it," my "we," wy "you (plural, informal)," and oni / one "they." Two things about them surprise English speakers immediately. First, you usually leave the subject pronoun out — the verb ending already tells you who's acting, so idę alone means "I'm going." Second, "they" splits into two words depending on whether the group includes a man, and the polite "you" you'd use with a stranger isn't ty or wy at all — it's pan / pani. This page lays out the whole set; the case forms (mnie, mi, mną…) get their own pages.

The subject set

Polish	English	Note
ja	I
ty	you (sg.)	informal — friends, family, children
on	he	also "it" for masculine nouns
ona	she	also "it" for feminine nouns
ono	it	only for neuter nouns
my	we
wy	you (pl.)	informal — a group you'd each call ty
oni	they (masc.-personal)	a group that includes at least one man
one	they (everything else)	women, children, things, animals, mixed non-male

My jesteśmy z Polski, a oni są z Czech.

We're from Poland, and they're from the Czech Republic.

Ona pracuje w szpitalu, a on jeszcze studiuje.

She works in a hospital, and he's still studying.

Subject pronouns are normally dropped

This is the single biggest habit to break. Polish verb endings encode person and number, so the pronoun is redundant and is left out in neutral speech. Polish is a pro-drop language (see person and pro-drop). You add the pronoun only to emphasise or contrast.

Neutral (no pronoun)	Emphatic / contrastive (with pronoun)
Mieszkam w Krakowie. "I live in Kraków."	Ja mieszkam w Krakowie, a ty? "I live in Kraków — and you?"
Nie wiem. "I don't know."	Ja nie wiem, zapytaj jego. "I don't know — ask him."

Because of this, sprinkling ja and ty into every sentence the way you would in English makes you sound oddly insistent — as if you were constantly stressing who. The default is to drop them.

Jutro lecę do Londynu na tydzień.

Tomorrow I'm flying to London for a week. (no 'ja' needed — the ending -ę already says 'I')

Ja stawiam dzisiaj, ty zapłaciłeś ostatnio.

I'm paying today — you paid last time. (pronouns used precisely to contrast)

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Rule of thumb: if you could italicise the pronoun in English ("I didn't say that"), use it in Polish. If the pronoun is just neutral scaffolding ("I went to the shop"), drop it. Over-using ja / ty is one of the clearest giveaways of an English speaker.

"They": oni vs one

English has one "they"; Polish has two, and the choice depends on who is in the group. This is the masculine-personal distinction that runs through the whole grammar.

oni — used if the group contains at least one man (or boy). All-male, or mixed men-and-women, or "the team" if there's a man in it.
one — used for everything else: women only, children, animals, objects, and any mix that contains no men.

The group	Pronoun
three men	oni
a man and a woman	oni
two women	one
women and children (no man)	one
cats, books, cars	one

The unsettling consequence: the same group changes pronoun if a man joins. Five women are one; add one man and the six of them become oni. The masculine "wins," grammatically.

Moje koleżanki przyjechały wczoraj — one zostają na weekend.

My (female) friends arrived yesterday — they're staying for the weekend. (all women → one)

Aśka, Kasia i Tomek już są — oni czekają na dole.

Aśka, Kasia and Tomek are already here — they're waiting downstairs. (a man is present → oni)

The verb agrees too: oni takes the masculine-personal past (byli, przyszli), one the other form (były, przyszły). For the full story see oni vs one.

The polite "you" is pan / pani — not ty

Here is the trap that causes real social damage. Ty and wy are informal. You use ty with friends, family, children, peers you're on first-name terms with, and (carefully) animals and God. You do not use ty with a stranger, a shop assistant, an official, a new colleague, or anyone older you don't know well — to them, ty sounds rude, like barging in.

The real polite "you" is the third person: pan (to a man), pani (to a woman), państwo (to a mixed group), used with a third-person verb:

To…	Polite "you"	Verb
a man	pan	3rd sg. — Czy pan ma…? "Do you have…?"
a woman	pani	3rd sg. — Czy pani chce…? "Do you want…?"
mixed group	państwo	3rd pl. — Czy państwo są…? "Are you…?"

So "Do you have a moment?" to a stranger is Czy ma pan chwilę? — literally "Does the gentleman have a moment?" — not *Masz chwilę?. The full system, including when to switch from pan to ty, is on the formality: ty vs pan page.

Przepraszam, czy może mi pan pomóc?

Excuse me, could you help me? (to an unfamiliar man — pan, 3rd person)

Masz może długopis? Zapomniałem swojego.

Have you got a pen by any chance? I forgot mine. (to a friend — informal ty/masz)

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Default to pan / pani with any adult you don't know. Using ty too early is a genuine faux pas in Polish — wait to be invited to switch (often with the phrase Możemy na ty? "Shall we use ty?"). It's far safer to be too formal than too familiar.

Preview: the pronouns decline

The subject forms above are only the nominative — the dictionary face. Like every Polish noun, the pronouns change shape across all six cases, and several have two competing forms (a long, stressed one and a short, unstressed "clitic" one):

Case	ja	ty	on
nominative	ja	ty	on
accusative	mnie	cię / ciebie	go / jego / niego
dative	mi / mnie	ci / tobie	mu / jemu / niemu
instrumental	mną	tobą	nim

So "give it to me" is daj mi to, "I see him" is widzę go, "with you" is z tobą. When to use the short form (go, mu, cię, ci) versus the long one (jego, jemu, ciebie, tobie), and why prepositions force the n- forms (niego, niej, nim), is the subject of the next page: declining personal pronouns.

Znasz ją? To moja siostra.

Do you know her? She's my sister. (ją = accusative of ona)

Daj mi chwilę, zaraz przyjdę.

Give me a moment, I'll be right there. (mi = short dative of ja)

Common Mistakes

❌ Ja mieszkam w Warszawie i ja pracuję w banku.

Incorrect — drop the redundant subject pronouns

✅ Mieszkam w Warszawie i pracuję w banku.

I live in Warsaw and work at a bank.

The verb ending (-ę = "I") already marks the subject. Repeating ja in every clause sounds emphatic and unnatural — drop it unless you're contrasting.

❌ Czy ty masz bilet? (to a stranger at the station)

Incorrect — ty is too familiar for a stranger

✅ Czy ma pan bilet?

Do you have a ticket? (polite, to an unfamiliar man)

To a stranger, use pan / pani with a third-person verb, not the intimate ty.

❌ Ewa i Marta przyszły — oni są w kuchni.

Incorrect — an all-female group is 'one', not 'oni'

✅ Ewa i Marta przyszły — one są w kuchni.

Ewa and Marta have arrived — they're in the kitchen.

No man in the group means one (and the verb są / past przyszły). Oni is only for groups that include a man.

❌ Stół jest stary, ono stoi tu od lat.

Incorrect — stół is masculine, so the pronoun is 'on', not 'ono'

✅ Stół jest stary, on stoi tu od lat.

The table is old, it's been standing here for years.

Polish has no all-purpose "it." A masculine noun like stół is on; ono is only for grammatically neuter nouns. (More on this in third-person gender.)

Key Takeaways

The set: ja, ty, on / ona / ono, my, wy, oni / one — subject pronouns are normally dropped and added only for emphasis or contrast.
"They" splits: oni if a man is in the group, one for everyone/everything else.
The polite "you" to a stranger is pan / pani / państwo with a third-person verb — never ty / wy.
There is no generic "it": masculine nouns are on, feminine ona, neuter ono.
The pronouns decline through all six cases and have short vs long forms — the next two pages cover the details.

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