Learn Hardcore Polish: Muszę naprawić komputer, bo jutro mam spotkanie. - I have to repair the computer because I have a meeting tomorrow.

muszę is the 1st-person singular present tense of the modal verb musieć, meaning “must” or “have to.” It expresses necessity and is always followed by an infinitive—in this case naprawić.

Why is naprawić used instead of naprawiać?

naprawić is the perfective infinitive of “to repair,” indicating a single, completed action. With muszę, Polish typically uses the perfective form to stress that the action needs to be finished. naprawiać is imperfective and would imply an ongoing or habitual process.

Why aren’t komputer or spotkanie inflected like komputera or spotkania?

Both komputer (object of naprawić) and spotkanie (object of mam) are in the accusative case as direct objects. However, masculine inanimate nouns (like komputer) and neuter nouns (like spotkanie) have identical nominative and accusative forms in the singular, so they remain unchanged.

What part of speech is bo, and could I use ponieważ or gdyż instead?

bo is a causal conjunction meaning “because.” It’s informal and very common in speech. ponieważ and gdyż are more formal equivalents used in writing or formal contexts. All three introduce subordinate clauses of reason, but bo has the most colloquial tone.

Why isn’t there a personal pronoun ja before muszę or mam?

Polish is a pro-drop language: subject pronouns are optional because verb endings already encode person and number. ja is understood from the verb forms muszę and mam, so it’s normally omitted.

Why are there no articles before komputer and spotkanie like English “a” or “the”?

Polish does not have articles. Nouns appear without “a,” “an,” or “the.” Indefiniteness or definiteness is inferred from context, word order, or additional words (e.g. jakiś for “some,” ten for “that/the”).

Is the word order flexible, especially for jutro?

Yes. Time adverbs like jutro can appear at the beginning (“Jutro mam spotkanie”), in the middle (“Mam jutro spotkanie”), or at the end (“Mam spotkanie jutro”) without changing the core meaning—only the emphasis shifts.

Why is mam in the present tense if the meeting is tomorrow?

In Polish you often use the present tense with a clear time adverb (here jutro) to refer to future events. There’s no simple future form of mieć; you could say będę miał, but it’s not needed when the time is explicit.

Can I start a sentence with bo, like “Bo jutro mam spotkanie, muszę naprawić komputer”?

In standard Polish, bo usually does not begin a sentence; it follows the main clause. In colloquial speech you might hear it start a sentence, but in formal contexts you’d use ponieważ if you need to lead with the reason: “Ponieważ jutro mam spotkanie, muszę naprawić komputer.”