Breakdown of Publiczność wstaje i bije brawo, kiedy aktorka śpiewa swoją ulubioną piosenkę.
Questions & Answers about Publiczność wstaje i bije brawo, kiedy aktorka śpiewa swoją ulubioną piosenkę.
In Polish, publiczność is grammatically singular, even though it refers to many people (a collective noun).
So it behaves like:
- publiczność wstaje – the audience stands up
- publiczność bije brawo – the audience claps/applauds
Using plural verbs (wstają, biją) with publiczność is considered incorrect in standard Polish.
Bić brawo literally means “to beat bravo”, but idiomatically it means “to clap / to applaud.”
- bije brawo = is clapping / is applauding
Other options: - klaskać – to clap → klaszcze (he/she claps)
Bić brawo is very common and neutral; klaskać is also correct, but bije brawo is the set phrase you’ll often hear in this context.
Polish almost always uses a comma before a subordinate clause introduced by words like kiedy (when), że (that), bo (because), jeśli (if), etc.
So:
- Publiczność wstaje i bije brawo, kiedy aktorka śpiewa...
is correct because the part starting with kiedy is a separate clause explaining when the audience stands and claps.
You could also put the kiedy-clause first:
- Kiedy aktorka śpiewa swoją ulubioną piosenkę, publiczność wstaje i bije brawo.
Still with a comma between the clauses.
- gdy – You can usually replace kiedy with gdy here with no change in meaning or correctness:
Publiczność wstaje i bije brawo, gdy aktorka śpiewa swoją ulubioną piosenkę. - jak – In spoken Polish, some people might say jak instead of kiedy, but kiedy (or gdy) is safer and more standard in this type of sentence.
So:
kiedy ✔ (neutral)
gdy ✔ (slightly more formal/literary)
jak △ (colloquial in this use)
The whole sentence describes a general, repeated situation:
- Whenever she sings her favorite song, the audience stands up and claps.
Polish uses the present tense of imperfective verbs for:
- actions happening now
- habitual or repeated actions
So śpiewa fits perfectly.
If you used zaśpiewa (perfective future), it would sound like a single, one-time future event, not a general pattern.
It’s an aspect difference:
- śpiewać (imperfective) → śpiewa
Focus on the process / repeated action / overlapping with something else. - zaśpiewać (perfective) → zaśpiewa
Focus on a single, complete act (“will sing [once, fully]”).
In this sentence we talk about a typical reaction whenever she sings, so we need imperfective: śpiewa.
Aktorka is in the nominative singular (basic dictionary form).
Reason: it is the subject of the subordinate clause:
- (kiedy) aktorka śpiewa... – when the actress sings...
Subjects in Polish are normally in the nominative case.
Piosenkę is accusative singular feminine (base form: piosenka – song).
- The verb śpiewa (sings) takes a direct object in the accusative:
- śpiewa piosenkę – she sings a song
Adjectives and possessives must agree with the noun in gender, number, and case:
- swoją – feminine, singular, accusative
- ulubioną – feminine, singular, accusative
- piosenkę – feminine, singular, accusative
So the whole phrase lines up:
- swoją
- ulubioną
- piosenkę
(her + favorite + song – all fem. sg. acc.)
- piosenkę
- ulubioną
They’re all feminine singular accusative, but:
- Adjectives and possessives (like swoją, ulubioną) typically take -ą in this form.
- Many feminine nouns like piosenka change to piosenkę in the accusative singular, ending in -ę.
So:
- adjective / possessive feminine sg. acc. → -ą
- many noun feminine sg. acc. → -ę
Swoją is a reflexive possessive pronoun, used when the possessed thing belongs to the subject of the clause.
In the clause:
- Subject: aktorka
- Object: swoją ulubioną piosenkę
So swoją means “her own” (the actress’s own favorite song).
You would use jej when the owner is some other female, not the subject. For example:
- Kiedy aktorka śpiewa jej ulubioną piosenkę...
= “When the actress sings her favorite song (some other woman’s favorite song)...”
Yes, this is very normal in Polish. If the same subject performs multiple actions, you usually state the subject once and then list the verbs:
- Publiczność wstaje i bije brawo.
The audience stands up and claps.
You don’t repeat publiczność before each verb unless you want to emphasize or clarify something unusual.
You could, but it changes the nuance:
- wstaje – stands up / is getting up (focus on the movement from sitting to standing)
- stoi – is standing (state, not the act of getting up)
The original suggests that the audience rises to their feet and claps, which is why wstaje is used.
Brawo is an indeclinable neuter noun borrowed from Italian “bravo!”.
In the phrase bić brawo:
- it stays brawo in all cases and numbers; it does not change form.
- speakers don’t normally think of it as singular or plural; it’s just part of the idiom meaning applause.
You don’t say “brawa” here; you keep brawo:
- Publiczność bije brawo. ✔
Polish word order is flexible, but there are tendencies:
- The most neutral order is: possessive – descriptive adjective – noun
→ swoją ulubioną piosenkę
Other orders are possible (e.g. ulubioną swoją piosenkę), but they can sound more marked or unnatural in everyday speech. For a learner, swoją ulubioną piosenkę is the best form to use.