On pracuje dobrze.

He works well.

Breakdown of On pracuje dobrze.

• on: he
• pracować: to work
• dobrze: well

Questions & Answers about On pracuje dobrze.

What is the function of on in this sentence and do I always need to include it?

on is the 3rd person masculine singular pronoun in the nominative case, serving as the subject (“he”). Because Polish verbs are conjugated, you can drop on and still say Pracuje dobrze (“He works well”). Including on adds clarity or emphasis, especially in contrastive contexts.

Why do we use dobrze instead of dobry?

dobrze is an adverb meaning “well,” and adverbs modify verbs. dobry is an adjective meaning “good” and would modify a noun. Since we’re describing how he works, we need the adverb dobrze.

How do I know that pracuje is the present tense, 3rd person singular form of pracować?

Polish verbs change their endings for person and number. For pracować (“to work”) the present-tense paradigm is: • ja pracuję (I work)
• ty pracujesz (you work)
• on/ona/ono pracuje (he/she/it works)
The ending -uje signals 3rd person singular present.

Why is there no direct object after pracuje? Doesn’t “to work” require something to work on?