To congratulate someone in Polish you reach for gratulować — and the moment you do, two cases land on the same sentence. The person you congratulate goes in the dative (gratuluję ci "I congratulate you," literally "I-congratulate to-you"), and the thing you congratulate them on goes in the genitive (gratuluję ci sukcesu "I congratulate you on your success"). English buries both relationships under one preposition — "congratulate you on X" — so this double case-marking is pure transfer territory. This page covers gratulować (imperfective) and its perfective partner pogratulować, the regular -ować → -uję conjugation that builds them, and the dative + genitive government that is the whole point of the verb.
Present tense (imperfective gratulować)
| Person | Form | English |
|---|---|---|
| ja | gratuluję | I congratulate |
| ty | gratulujesz | you congratulate |
| on / ona / ono | gratuluje | he / she / it congratulates |
| my | gratulujemy | we congratulate |
| wy | gratulujecie | you (pl.) congratulate |
| oni / one | gratulują | they congratulate |
Gratulować is a textbook member of the -ować → -uję class: the infinitive's -ować swaps to the present stem -uj-, giving gratuluj- + the endings -ę, -esz, -e, -emy, -ecie, -ą. This is the same machinery behind dziękować → dziękuję, pracować → pracuję, and kupować → kupuję — once you know one, you can conjugate hundreds. Watch the one-letter trap that haunts this whole class: 1sg gratuluję ends in the nasal -ę, but 3sg gratuluje ends in plain -e. The only difference between "I congratulate" and "he/she congratulates" is that final hook.
Gratuluję! Naprawdę na to zasłużyłeś.
Congratulations! You really earned it.
Wszyscy gratulują ci awansu — to wspaniała wiadomość.
Everyone is congratulating you on the promotion — it's wonderful news. (3pl → gratulują)
Z całego serca gratuluję wam ślubu.
I congratulate you both on your wedding with all my heart.
Past tense (gratulować)
| Subject | Past form | English |
|---|---|---|
| ja (m. / f.) | gratulowałem / gratulowałam | I congratulated |
| ty (m. / f.) | gratulowałeś / gratulowałaś | you congratulated |
| on / ona / ono | gratulował / gratulowała / gratulowało | he / she / it congratulated |
| my (vir. / non-vir.) | gratulowaliśmy / gratulowałyśmy | we congratulated |
| wy (vir. / non-vir.) | gratulowaliście / gratulowałyście | you (pl.) congratulated |
| oni / one | gratulowali / gratulowały | they congratulated |
The past reverts to the -owa- stem (the -uj- of the present is present-tense only): gratulowa- + the gendered endings. Virile gratulowali (men or mixed groups) contrasts with non-virile gratulowały (women or things). For a single, completed act of congratulating, the perfective pogratulować is usually the better choice (see below).
Dyrektor osobiście gratulował zwycięzcom konkursu.
The director congratulated the contest winners in person. (winners as a group → gratulował … dative zwycięzcom)
Koleżanki gratulowały mi obrony doktoratu.
My (female) colleagues congratulated me on defending my doctorate. (women → non-virile gratulowały)
Future and imperative (gratulować)
Gratulować is imperfective, so its future is the compound będę gratulował / gratulowała — for repeated or ongoing congratulating ("I'll be congratulating, I'll keep congratulating"):
Zawsze będę ci gratulować takich decyzji.
I'll always congratulate you on decisions like this.
The imperative gratuluj! (sg) / gratulujcie! (pl) does exist but is uncommon — you rarely order someone to congratulate. The contemporary adverbial participle is gratulując ("congratulating, while congratulating"):
Podszedł do niej, gratulując jej zwycięstwa.
He came up to her, congratulating her on the victory. (adverbial participle + dative jej + genitive zwycięstwa)
The perfective partner: pogratulować
Pogratulować is the prefixed perfective (po- + gratulować). It names a single, completed act — saying congratulations once, then moving on. Because it is perfective, its present-shaped forms carry future meaning:
| Person | pogratulować — future | English |
|---|---|---|
| ja | pogratuluję | I'll congratulate |
| ty | pogratulujesz | you'll congratulate |
| on / ona / ono | pogratuluje | he / she / it will congratulate |
| my | pogratulujemy | we'll congratulate |
| wy | pogratulujecie | you (pl.) will congratulate |
| oni / one | pogratulują | they'll congratulate |
| Form | pogratulować | English |
|---|---|---|
| past (m./f. 1sg) | pogratulowałem / pogratulowałam | I congratulated (once) |
| past (vir./non-vir. 3pl) | pogratulowali / pogratulowały | they congratulated |
| imperative (sg / pl) | pogratuluj! / pogratulujcie! | congratulate (them)! |
| adverbial participle | pogratulowawszy | having congratulated (literary) |
Muszę jeszcze pogratulować Ani zaręczyn.
I still need to congratulate Ania on her engagement. (one act → perfective; zaręczyn = genitive)
Pogratulowałem mu i wróciłem na miejsce.
I congratulated him and went back to my seat. (a single completed act → perfective)
Zadzwoń i pogratuluj jej zdanego egzaminu!
Call her and congratulate her on passing the exam! (imperative pogratuluj + dative jej + genitive zdanego egzaminu)
Note that pogratulować has no everyday passive participle in use — there is no natural *pogratulowany applied to a person, because the grammatical object here is the dative, not an accusative that could be promoted to subject. This is a direct consequence of the government pattern, which we turn to now.
Government: dative person + genitive occasion
This is the structural heart of the page. Gratulować does not take a direct (accusative) object at all. Its frame is:
gratulować + [person in the DATIVE] + [occasion in the GENITIVE]
So "I congratulate you on your success" is, slot by slot, "I-congratulate to-you of-success": Gratuluję ci sukcesu. The person is dative; the occasion is genitive — no preposition between them.
| Slot | Case | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| whom you congratulate | dative | ci, panu, pani, mu, jej, wam, im, Ani, rodzicom |
| what you congratulate them on | genitive | sukcesu, awansu, ślubu, zwycięstwa, dziecka, zdanego egzaminu |
Gratuluję pani znakomitego wyniku.
Congratulations on the excellent result, madam. (formal; pani = dative, wyniku = genitive)
Serdecznie gratulujemy państwu narodzin córki.
We warmly congratulate you on the birth of your daughter. (państwu = dative, narodzin = genitive plural)
Chciałbym pogratulować całej drużynie awansu do ekstraklasy.
I'd like to congratulate the whole team on promotion to the top division.
Why these two cases? The dative marks the person as the recipient of something directed at them — congratulations are sent to someone, exactly like thanks (dziękować), good wishes (życzyć), and help (pomagać). The genitive marks the occasion as the thing the congratulation is about / on account of — a partitive-flavoured "concerning" sense that Polish also uses after verbs like gratulować, życzyć, and zazdrościć (envy). So the whole construction is "to-you, of-the-success." For the dative half, see the dative as indirect object; for the genitive half, see the genitive after verbs and the broader logic at verb government. The verb sits in the same dative family as dziękować.
gratulować vs życzyć: the same two cases
It helps to see gratulować beside życzyć ("to wish"), because they share the identical dative + genitive frame. The difference is only one of timing: you congratulate someone on something that has already happened, but you wish someone something yet to come.
| Polish | English | |
|---|---|---|
| already happened | Gratuluję ci sukcesu. | I congratulate you on your success. |
| still to come | Życzę ci sukcesu. | I wish you success. |
Gratuluję nowej pracy i życzę powodzenia!
Congratulations on the new job, and I wish you good luck! (gratuluję … pracy = past event; życzę … powodzenia = future hope)
Common Mistakes
❌ Gratuluję cię sukcesu.
Incorrect — the person is dative ci, not accusative cię.
✅ Gratuluję ci sukcesu.
I congratulate you on your success.
❌ Gratuluję ci sukces.
Incorrect — the occasion takes the genitive sukcesu, not the accusative/nominative sukces.
✅ Gratuluję ci sukcesu.
I congratulate you on your success.
❌ Gratuluję ci za awans.
Incorrect — gratulować takes a bare genitive of the occasion, not 'za + accusative' (that's the dziękować pattern).
✅ Gratuluję ci awansu.
Congratulations on the promotion.
❌ Gratuluje wam ślubu. — meaning 'I congratulate you'
Incorrect — 'I congratulate' is gratuluję with -ę; gratuluje (with -e) means 'he/she congratulates'.
✅ Gratuluję wam ślubu.
I congratulate you both on your wedding.
❌ Koleżanki gratulowali jej zwycięstwa. — about a group of women
Incorrect — a group of only women takes non-virile gratulowały, not gratulowali.
✅ Koleżanki gratulowały jej zwycięstwa.
Her (female) colleagues congratulated her on the victory.
Key Takeaways
- Present: gratuluję, gratulujesz, gratuluje, gratulujemy, gratulujecie, gratulują — the -ować → -uję class; mind gratuluję (I, -ę) vs gratuluje (he/she, -e).
- Past: gratulował / gratulowała (stem gratulowa-), virile gratulowali vs non-virile gratulowały; future będę gratulował / gratulowała.
- Perfective pogratulować = one completed act: future pogratuluję … pogratulują, past pogratulowałem, imperative pogratuluj!.
- Government: gratulować + DATIVE of the person + GENITIVE of the occasion — Gratuluję ci sukcesu, never gratuluję cię sukces and never za awans.
- Question frame komu? czego? — same dative + genitive as życzyć; the only difference is that you congratulate on what has happened and wish for what is still to come.
- Stand-alone Gratuluję! / Gratulacje! = "Congratulations!" with no case marking needed.
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