Breakdown of Ten serial jest śmieszny, ale wczorajszy dziennik był bardzo smutny.
Questions & Answers about Ten serial jest śmieszny, ale wczorajszy dziennik był bardzo smutny.
In this sentence, serial means a TV series – a show made of many episodes with the same characters (e.g. a sitcom, drama series, soap opera).
Some related words:
- serial – TV series
- odcinek (serialu) – an episode of a series
- film – a movie / film (usually one complete story)
- seria – a set / series of things in general (books, products, accidents, etc.), not specifically a TV show
Grammar notes:
- serial is masculine singular.
- Nominative singular: serial
- Nominative plural: seriale
So Ten serial jest śmieszny = “This TV series is funny.”
In Polish there are two main ways to say this is X / X is Y:
Demonstrative + noun + jest + adjective
- Ten serial jest śmieszny.
- Literally: “This series is funny.”
Here ten is an adjective-like demonstrative that agrees with serial:
- ten (masc.), ta (fem.), to (neuter), ci / te (plural).
To + noun structure
- To jest śmieszny serial.
- Literally: “This is a funny series.”
Here to is a neutral demonstrative pronoun, not agreeing in gender; it stands on its own.
Why not To serial?
You could say:
- To jest serial. – “This is a series.” But To serial jest śmieszny is ungrammatical in standard Polish; you either say:
- Ten serial jest śmieszny. or
- To jest śmieszny serial.
Yes, you can say:
- Serial jest śmieszny.
That would usually translate as “The series is funny” or “A series is funny”, depending on context.
Nuance:
- Ten serial jest śmieszny – you are pointing to a specific series, often “this one we’re watching / talking about”.
- Serial jest śmieszny – more general, or you already clearly know which series you mean from context; it just feels less “pointed” or less demonstrative.
Because Polish has no articles (a/an, the), adding ten/ta/to is often the way to make something feel like English “this/that” or emphasize that it’s specific.
They all agree with masculine singular, nominative nouns:
- serial – masculine singular nominative
- śmieszny serial – “funny series”
- dziennik – masculine singular nominative
- wczorajszy dziennik – “yesterday’s news program”
- smutny dziennik – “a sad news program”
So the pattern is:
- Masculine singular nominative: -y / -i
- śmieszny serial, smutny film, wczorajszy dziennik
- Feminine singular nominative: -a
- śmieszna komedia, smutna piosenka, wczorajsza gazeta
- Neuter singular nominative: -e
- śmieszne wideo, smutne zakończenie, wczorajsze wydanie
In this sentence, both serial and dziennik are masculine, so the adjectives are śmieszny, smutny, wczorajszy.
- jest – present tense of być (“to be”)
- był – past tense (masculine singular) of być
So:
- Ten serial jest śmieszny – “This series is funny” (now, in general).
- wczorajszy dziennik był bardzo smutny – “yesterday’s news was very sad” (it happened in the past).
The word wczorajszy (“yesterday’s”) places the news program clearly in the past, so Polish naturally uses był (past tense), not jest.
In standard spoken and written Polish, you normally keep the verb być (“to be”) in all tenses:
- Ten serial jest śmieszny. – correct
- Wczorajszy dziennik był bardzo smutny. – correct
Leaving it out in normal sentences is considered non‑standard or very colloquial. You might see something like:
- Serial śmieszny, dziennik smutny.
in a note, title, or very telegraphic speech, but you should not imitate this in normal conversation or writing. For learners, always include jest / są / był / była / było / byli etc.
Both can mean “funny”, but they have different nuances:
- zabawny – “amusing, entertaining”
- usually positive: zabawny film, zabawna historia
- śmieszny – “funny” but also “silly / ridiculous”, depending on context
- śmieszny serial – here: “funny series” (positive)
- śmieszny człowiek – can be “funny person”, but also “ridiculous person”
- To jest śmieszne. – either “That’s funny” or “That’s ridiculous.”
In this sentence, śmieszny is clearly positive (it’s contrasted with smutny, “sad”), so it means “funny, making you laugh.”
dziennik has several meanings in Polish:
TV or radio news program
- dziennik telewizyjny, dziennik o 19:00 – a news broadcast
- That’s the meaning in this sentence:
wczorajszy dziennik ≈ “yesterday’s news program / news broadcast”.
- newspaper (less common nowadays; more often gazeta is used)
- diary / logbook / journal (e.g. dziennik pokładowy – ship’s log)
- grade book / class register in school (dziennik lekcyjny)
Because it’s contrasted with a serial and described as smutny, the natural interpretation is “yesterday’s TV news broadcast was very sad.”
Yes, wczorajszy is an adjective built from wczoraj (“yesterday”), and it behaves like a regular adjective:
- wczorajszy dziennik – “yesterday’s news”
- wczorajsza gazeta – “yesterday’s newspaper”
- wczorajsze wydanie – “yesterday’s edition”
You can also say:
- dziennik z wczoraj – literally “the news from yesterday”
Both are correct.
Nuance:
- wczorajszy dziennik – a bit more compact, more idiomatic in speech.
- dziennik z wczoraj – slightly more descriptive, can emphasize the origin in time (“from yesterday”) a bit more, but in most contexts the difference is minimal.
The form of the verb and adjective must agree with the gender and number of the subject:
- Subject: dziennik
- masculine singular
- Therefore:
- był (masc. sg.) – not było (neuter sg.)
- smutny (masc. sg.) – not smutne (neuter sg.)
So:
- Wczorajszy dziennik był bardzo smutny. – correct
- Wczorajsze wydanie było bardzo smutne. – also correct, but now the subject is wydanie (neuter), so verb and adjective change accordingly.
The default position of intensifiers like bardzo (“very”) is before the adjective or adverb:
- bardzo smutny, bardzo śmieszny, bardzo dobry
You can say smutny bardzo, but:
- it sounds unusual or emphatic, like you’re stressing how sad it was:
- Był smutny, bardzo. – “He was sad, very (much so).”
In neutral sentences (including this one), you should place bardzo before the adjective:
- Wczorajszy dziennik był bardzo smutny. – natural, standard word order.
ale = “but / however”, expressing contrast:
- Ten serial jest śmieszny, ale wczorajszy dziennik był bardzo smutny.
- “This series is funny, but yesterday’s news was very sad.”
Other options:
a – often translated as “and / but”, weaker contrast, can simply switch topics:
- Ten serial jest śmieszny, a wczorajszy dziennik był bardzo smutny.
- Still OK, sounds a bit more neutral, like “and whereas / and meanwhile”.
lecz – a bit more formal or literary; often similar to ale:
- Ten serial jest śmieszny, lecz wczorajszy dziennik był bardzo smutny.
In everyday speech, ale is by far the most common choice for a clear “but”.
Polish word order is fairly flexible, but not all orders sound natural.
Ten serial jest śmieszny.
- neutral, standard
Ten serial śmieszny jest.
- possible but sounds emphatic / poetic / stylized, not neutral speech.
For the second clause:
Wczorajszy dziennik był bardzo smutny.
- neutral
Bardzo smutny był wczorajszy dziennik.
- also correct, but with emphasis on bardzo smutny (“very sad it was, that news…”).
- You might use this in storytelling or to dramatize the sadness.
As a learner, prefer the neutral orders from the original sentence; use unusual orders only after you develop a feel for the emphasis they create.