Oni chcą usłyszeć muzykę.

They want to hear music.

Breakdown of Oni chcą usłyszeć muzykę.

• oni: they
• muzyka: the music
• chcieć: to want
• usłyszeć: to hear

Questions & Answers about Oni chcą usłyszeć muzykę.

What is Oni and why is it used here?

Oni is the third-person plural pronoun meaning “they.” In Polish you distinguish gender in the third person plural:

• Oni for a group of men or a mixed-gender group
• One for a group of women only

What does chcą mean and how is it formed?

Chcą is the 3rd-person plural present tense of chcieć (“to want”). The full present-tense paradigm for chcieć is:

• chcę (I want)
• chcesz (you want)
• chce (he/she/it wants)
• chcemy (we want)
• chcecie (you plural want)
• chcą (they want)

Why is usłyszeć used after chcą?

In Polish, many verbs of desire, ability or permission (like chcieć, móc, musieć) are followed by an infinitive. Here chcą (“they want”) governs the infinitive usłyszeć (“to hear”), giving “they want to hear.”

What’s the difference between słyszeć and usłyszeć?

They are two aspects of the same verb root:

• słyszeć – imperfective aspect, “to be hearing” or “to hear” in an ongoing or habitual sense.
• usłyszeć – perfective aspect, “to hear” as a completed event (at least once).

By using usłyszeć, the sentence focuses on the result: they want to succeed in hearing the music.

Could we have used słuchać instead? How would the meaning change?

Yes, słuchać is “to listen to” (imperfective).

• Oni chcą słuchać muzyki would mean “they want to listen to music” (emphasis on the act of listening).
• Oni chcą usłyszeć muzykę means “they want to hear music” (emphasis on actually perceiving the music, perhaps from a distance or through a barrier).

Why is muzyka in the form muzykę?

Muzyka is a feminine noun. As the direct object of a perfective infinitive (usłyszeć), it takes the accusative case. For most feminine nouns ending in -a, the accusative singular ending is -ę, thus muzyka → muzykę.

How do you pronounce chcą usłyszeć muzykę?

A close phonetic transcription:
• chcą [xt͡sɔ̃] – the cluster chc is /x/ + /t͡s/, and ą is a nasal vowel [ɔ̃].
• usłyszeć [usˈwɨʂɛt͡ʂ] – ł is like English w, y is /ɨ/, and sz is /ʂ/.
• muzykę [muˈzɨkɛ] – y = /ɨ/, ę here is /ɛ/ before a consonant.
Put together: [xt͡sɔ̃ usˈwɨʂɛt͡ʂ muˈzɨkɛ].

Is word order flexible in this sentence?

Yes. Polish allows relatively free word order since case endings show function. You could say:

• Oni chcą muzykę usłyszeć
• Muzykę chcą usłyszeć oni
  …to shift emphasis. However, the neutral, most common order is Oni chcą usłyszeć muzykę with the object last.