Breakdown of Na kursie poznajemy nowe słowa i ćwiczymy mówienie w małych grupach.
Questions & Answers about Na kursie poznajemy nowe słowa i ćwiczymy mówienie w małych grupach.
Both na and w can translate as in/on/at, but they’re used with different kinds of nouns and situations.
- na kursie is the normal, idiomatic way to say “on the course / in the course / during the course”.
- w kursie is not idiomatic here and would sound wrong to a native speaker.
Very roughly:
- na is often used with:
- events and activities: na kursie (on a course), na lekcji (in class), na koncercie (at a concert)
- open surfaces/areas: na stole (on the table), na plaży (on the beach)
- w is often used with:
- enclosed spaces: w pokoju (in the room), w szkole (in the school/building)
- countries, cities: w Polsce (in Poland), w Warszawie (in Warsaw)
So na kursie is “at the course / in the course” in the sense of participating in that organized activity.
kursie is the locative singular form of the noun kurs (a course).
In Polish, certain prepositions (like na, w, o) require the locative case to express location or topic. The locative of many masculine nouns ends in -e or -ie.
- Nominative (dictionary form): kurs – “course”
- Locative singular: kursie – “(on/in) the course”
You use this form because of the preposition na indicating location: na kursie = “on / during the course”.
Polish usually drops subject pronouns, because the verb ending already shows who the subject is.
- poznajemy and ćwiczymy both end in -my, which marks 1st person plural (“we”).
So:
- poznajemy = “we get to know / we are learning”
- ćwiczymy = “we practice”
You can say my poznajemy, my ćwiczymy, but that’s only used for emphasis (like “we get to know… we practice…”). Normally, just the verb is enough.
poznajemy is:
- 1st person plural, present tense
- imperfective aspect
- from the verb poznawać – “to get to know / to become familiar with / to learn (gradually)”
So poznajemy nowe słowa means:
- “we are getting to know new words”
- or more naturally in English: “we are learning new words”.
Note the aspect pair:
- poznawać (imperfective) – ongoing or repeated process
- poznać (perfective) – one completed act (“to get to know, to come to know, to learn (completely)”)
You would not use poznamy (future of poznać) here, because the sentence describes a typical ongoing activity in the course, not a single completed event.
nowe słowa is in the accusative plural, because it’s the direct object of the verb poznajemy.
- Verb: poznajemy – we learn / we are getting to know
- Object: co? (what?) → nowe słowa – new words
Grammar details:
- słowo (word) is neuter.
- Nominative singular: słowo
- Nominative/Accusative plural: słowa
- nowy (new) as an adjective:
- neuter plural nominative/accusative: nowe
So together in accusative plural (direct object): nowe słowa.
You would use nowych słów in contexts that require the genitive plural, for example:
- after some numbers or expressions of quantity: dużo nowych słów – “a lot of new words”
- after negation in some constructions: nie znam nowych słów – “I don’t know (any) new words”
Polish usually uses a verbal noun (gerund) after ćwiczyć when you mean “practice (the skill of) doing something”.
- mówić = “to speak” (infinitive verb)
- mówienie = “speaking” (verbal noun, “the act/skill of speaking”)
So:
- ćwiczymy mówienie = “we practice speaking” (we practice the skill of speaking)
Using ćwiczyć + infinitive (e.g. ćwiczymy mówić) is not idiomatic in this meaning. It can sound wrong or at least very unusual. For practicing skills, Polish strongly prefers ćwiczyć + verbal noun:
- ćwiczyć czytanie – practice reading
- ćwiczyć pisanie – practice writing
- ćwiczyć słuchanie – practice listening
mówienie here is a verbal noun (sometimes called a gerund-like form). It is grammatically a noun, formed from the verb mówić (“to speak”).
So:
- Verb: mówić – to speak
- Verbal noun: mówienie – (the act of) speaking
Because it behaves like a noun, it can be:
- an object: ćwiczymy mówienie – “we practice speaking”
- described by adjectives: płynne mówienie – fluent speaking
- used with prepositions: w mówieniu – in speaking
In English we use the -ing form directly as a verb form; in Polish this -nie/-cie form is a separate noun.
w małych grupach is in the locative plural, because the preposition w (“in”) requires the locative case when talking about location.
Breakdown:
- Preposition: w – in
- Noun: grupa (group), feminine
- Locative plural: w grupach – “in (the) groups”
- Adjective: mały (small)
- Locative plural feminine: w małych grupach – “in small groups”
So:
- małych – locative plural form of mały
- grupach – locative plural form of grupa
The whole phrase means “in small groups” and emphasizes that there are several groups, not just one.
This is largely idiomatic and depends on how Polish speakers conceptualize each noun:
na kursie – we use na with many organized events / activities:
- na kursie (on the course)
- na lekcji (in class)
- na konferencji (at the conference)
- na zajęciach (in classes)
w grupach – we use w with containers / enclosed or delimited spaces / sets:
- w grupach (in groups)
- w klasie (in the classroom)
- w pokoju (in the room)
- w drużynie (on the team / in the team)
So the pattern is:
- na
- event/activity
- w
- group, place, physical or conceptual “space”
grupach is plural because the sentence describes a typical way of working in the course: students split into several small groups.
- w małych grupach – “in small groups” (many groups)
- w małej grupie – “in a small group” (one small group)
Both phrases are grammatically correct, but the meaning changes:
- The original w małych grupach suggests the class is divided into multiple small groups (the usual situation in language courses).
- w małej grupie would sound like you specifically study in one small group (maybe a small-group course versus individual lessons).
In Polish, the present tense of imperfective verbs like poznajemy and ćwiczymy can mean:
- something happening right now (“we are learning/practising right now”), or
- a habitual / regular activity (“we (normally) learn/practise on the course”).
Context decides which one is intended. In this sentence, describing what happens on the course, the natural reading is habitual/general:
- “On the course, we learn new words and we practise speaking in small groups.”
Polish doesn’t have a separate “present continuous” form; the same present tense covers both “we learn” and “we are learning”.
Yes, you can say:
- Poznajemy nowe słowa na kursie i ćwiczymy mówienie w małych grupach.
This is grammatically correct. Polish word order is more flexible than in English, and often used to change emphasis rather than core meaning.
- Na kursie poznajemy… puts emphasis on “On the course…” (setting the context first).
- Poznajemy nowe słowa na kursie… puts slightly more focus on the actions (“we learn new words”) and then adds where it happens.
Both versions are fine. The original one sounds very natural as a general description of what happens on the course.