Droga do muzeum jest szeroka.

The road to the museum is wide.

Breakdown of Droga do muzeum jest szeroka.

• być: to be
• do: to
• muzeum: the museum
• droga: the road
• szeroki: wide

Questions & Answers about Droga do muzeum jest szeroka.

Why is muzeum unchanged after do? Shouldn't the genitive case change the word?

In Polish, muzeum is a neuter noun ending in -um. Nouns with this ending have the same form in the nominative and genitive singular. Thus, after do (which always requires the genitive), muzeum remains unchanged.

Why do we use do + genitive to express “to” or “towards”? How does that compare to English?

Polish uses different prepositions and cases than English. To express movement or direction towards something, Polish uses the preposition do, which always requires the genitive case. In English, we simply use to before a noun, but English doesn’t have case endings, so the noun form doesn’t change.
Examples of other Polish preposition + case combinations:

• na
  • accusative = “onto”
• w
  • accusative = “into”
• z
  • instrumental = “with”

Why does the adjective szeroka end in -a instead of -e or -y?

Adjectives in Polish must agree with the noun they modify in gender, number, and case. Droga is a feminine noun in the nominative singular, so the matching adjective form is szeroka (feminine nominative singular).

• Masculine nominative singular would be szeroki
• Neuter nominative singular would be szerokie

Why can’t we say szeroko instead of szeroka?

Szeroko is an adverb (“widely”), used to describe how an action is performed (e.g., mówić szeroko o czymś – “to speak widely about something”). Here we need an adjective to describe the noun droga (“the road”), so we use szeroka (“wide”).

How would you turn this sentence into a question in Polish?

Add czy at the beginning for a standard yes/no question:
Czy droga do muzeum jest szeroka?
In informal speech you can also just use rising intonation:
Droga do muzeum jest szeroka?

Can you invert the word order, for example say Szeroka jest droga do muzeum?

Yes. Inverting adjective and noun adds emphasis or a poetic touch:
Szeroka jest droga do muzeum.
The neutral, more common word order remains:
Droga do muzeum jest szeroka.

What’s the difference between droga and ulica in Polish?

• Droga: a general road or route, can be rural or urban, connecting places.
• Ulica: a street within a town or city, usually lined with buildings and paved.
  Use droga for highways, country roads or any route; use ulica for city streets.