Breakdown of Jeśli szef nie przyjedzie, księgowy wyśle umowę pocztą.
nie
not
jeśli
if
przyjechać
to arrive
szef
the boss
Questions & Answers about Jeśli szef nie przyjedzie, księgowy wyśle umowę pocztą.
What does jeśli mean and how is it used to introduce a condition?
jeśli is a conjunction meaning if. It introduces a condition clause describing something that may happen. In Polish, when you talk about a real or likely situation you use jeśli followed by the indicative mood. For hypothetical or counterfactual conditions you’d use gdyby + conditional instead.
Why is przyjedzie in the present tense form even though it refers to a future event?
przyjedzie is the present-tense form of the perfective verb przyjechać. In Polish, perfective verbs use their present-tense form to express a simple future action. So even though it looks like “he comes” in Polish, here it means “he will come.”
Why is the indicative mood used after jeśli rather than a special subjunctive form?
Polish doesn’t have a separate subjunctive mood. For real or possible conditions you always use the indicative. Only for unreal or purely hypothetical situations do you use gdyby + the conditional particle -by on the verb (e.g. gdyby szef przyjechałby – “if the boss were to come,” counterfactual).
What case is szef in Jeśli szef nie przyjedzie, and why?
szef is in the nominative case because it’s the subject of the subordinate clause. Subjects in Polish are always nominative unless affected by a preposition or passive construction.