Firma sprawdza ilość elektroodpadów.

Here firma means company or business. It is a very common everyday Polish word.

It is related to English firm, but in modern Polish firma is usually the normal word for a company in general, not just a formal or legal-sounding firm.

Depending on context, firma can mean either a company or the company, because Polish does not use articles.

Yes, firma is grammatically feminine.

That matters for agreement in some parts of Polish, especially:

• adjectives
• past tense verbs
• pronouns

In this present-tense sentence, you do not really see the gender on sprawdza, because 3rd person singular present tense looks the same for masculine, feminine, and neuter subjects.

But in the past tense, you would see it:

• Firma sprawdzała ilość elektroodpadów. = The company was checking / checked the amount of e-waste.

The ending -ała shows feminine agreement.

Because Polish has no articles.

So:

• firma can mean a company
• firma can also mean the company

You understand which one is meant from context.

This is very normal in Polish, so English speakers often need time to get used to it.

Sprawdza is the 3rd person singular present tense form of sprawdzać.

So:

• dictionary form: sprawdzać
• sentence form: sprawdza

Because the subject firma is singular, the verb is also singular.

This form can mean:

• checks
• is checking

Polish present tense often covers both a general/habitual meaning and an ongoing meaning, depending on context.

Ilość is the direct object, so it is in the accusative case.

However, for this noun, the accusative singular looks exactly the same as the nominative singular:

• nominative: ilość
• accusative: ilość

So the form does not visibly change.

This is common with many feminine nouns ending in -ość or -ść.

Because after ilość meaning amount/quantity, the next noun normally goes into the genitive case.

So the structure is basically:

• ilość = amount
• elektroodpadów = of e-waste / of electronic waste items

The base noun is:

• singular: elektroodpad
• plural: elektroodpady

After ilość, you need the genitive plural:

• elektroodpadów

So this works like English the amount of e-waste.

This is a very common learner question, and even native speakers discuss it.

Traditionally:

• liczba = number of countable things
• ilość = amount/quantity of something more mass-like

So if you are counting individual items, some teachers or style guides may prefer:

• Firma sprawdza liczbę elektroodpadów.

However, in everyday modern Polish, many people also say ilość with countable nouns, and it is very common in real usage.

So:

• liczba elektroodpadów sounds more precise if you mean how many items
• ilość elektroodpadów is common and natural, especially if the focus is on volume or general quantity

Yes. Polish word order is much more flexible than English word order because case endings show grammatical relationships.

The most neutral order here is:

• Firma sprawdza ilość elektroodpadów.

But other orders are possible for emphasis, for example:

• Ilość elektroodpadów sprawdza firma.
• Elektroodpadów ilość sprawdza firma. — possible, but much less natural in everyday use

Even when the order changes, the meaning usually stays similar, but the emphasis changes.

For learners, the safest default is the standard subject + verb + object order.

A rough English-style approximation is:

• Firma → FEER-ma
• sprawdza → SPRAV-dza
• ilość → EE-loshch
• elektroodpadów → eh-lek-tro-od-PA-doof

A few useful pronunciation notes:

• ść in ilość is a soft sound, roughly like shch, but softer
• ó sounds like u
• final w in -ów is pronounced like f, so -dów sounds roughly like -doof
• Polish stress usually falls on the second-to-last syllable, so:
  • FIR-ma
  • SPRAW-dza
  • I-lość
  • e-lek-tro-od-PA-dów

Sprawdza comes from the imperfective verb sprawdzać.

Imperfective is used for:

• ongoing actions
• repeated actions
• general actions

So Firma sprawdza ilość elektroodpadów can mean:

• The company is checking the amount of e-waste
• The company checks the amount of e-waste

If you want a completed future meaning, Polish usually uses the perfective verb sprawdzić:

• Firma sprawdzi ilość elektroodpadów. = The company will check the amount of e-waste.

Past tense:

• Firma sprawdzała ilość elektroodpadów. = imperfective, was checking / used to check
• Firma sprawdziła ilość elektroodpadów. = perfective, checked / has checked

Because firma is feminine, the past tense forms are feminine too:

• sprawdzała
• sprawdziła