Breakdown of Ja podnoszę telefon z podłogi.
Questions & Answers about Ja podnoszę telefon z podłogi.
You can (and usually would) drop ja.
- Ja podnoszę telefon z podłogi – correct, but sounds emphasized: I am picking up the phone (not someone else).
- Podnoszę telefon z podłogi – neutral, natural sentence meaning the same thing.
In Polish, personal endings of the verb (-ę in podnoszę) already show who the subject is, so pronouns like ja, ty, on are normally omitted unless you want to stress or contrast the subject.
Podnoszę is:
- Tense: present
- Aspect: imperfective (ongoing, repeated, or general action)
Depending on context, podnoszę can correspond to:
- I am picking up the phone (right now – ongoing action)
- I pick up the phone (habitually or as a general statement)
Polish does not have a separate continuous form like English. The imperfective present is used for both simple and continuous meanings.
Podnoszę comes from the imperfective verb podnosić (to pick up, to lift), which pairs with the perfective podnieść.
Present conjugation of podnosić:
- ja podnoszę – I pick up / I am picking up
- ty podnosisz – you pick up
- on/ona/ono podnosi – he/she/it picks up
- my podnosimy – we pick up
- wy podnosicie – you (pl.) pick up
- oni/one podnoszą – they pick up
The perfective partner podnieść has a different pattern and is generally used for completed actions, e.g. Podniosę telefon – I will pick up the phone (single, completed action).
This is about grammatical case:
telefon is the direct object (what you pick up), so it is in the accusative:
- nominative: telefon
- accusative: telefon
Masculine inanimate nouns often have the same form in nominative and accusative.
podłogi is used after the preposition z meaning from, which requires the genitive:
- nominative: podłoga (floor)
- genitive: podłogi (of the floor / from the floor)
So:
- telefon – accusative singular (no change in form)
- podłogi – genitive singular of podłoga
The preposition z can take different cases with different meanings:
z + genitive = from, out of, off
- z podłogi – from the floor
- z szafy – from the wardrobe
- z domu – from the house
z + instrumental = with, together with
- z podłogą would literally mean with the floor (carrying the floor along with you), which is not what you want here.
So in your sentence, z must take the genitive to express origin/source: z podłogi = from the floor.
Both can translate as from, but they are used in different contexts:
z + genitive: from a place, surface, or inside something
- z podłogi – from the floor
- z mieszkania – from the flat
- z półki – from the shelf
od + genitive: from a person or from a more abstract source
- od mamy – from my mum
- od kolegi – from a colleague
- prezent od ciebie – a gift from you
So z podłogi is correct; od podłogi would be wrong.
Yes, Polish word order is relatively flexible. All of these are grammatically correct:
- Podnoszę telefon z podłogi. – neutral, most natural.
- Podnoszę z podłogi telefon. – slight emphasis on the place: I am picking up from the floor the phone.
- Telefon podnoszę z podłogi. – emphasis on telefon.
- Z podłogi podnoszę telefon. – strong emphasis on from the floor.
The basic information does not change; only the nuance and focus change. For a simple, neutral statement, your original order is best.
You can, but it slightly changes the nuance:
podnosić / podnieść – to lift, to pick up (with focus on moving something upward, off a surface)
- Podnoszę telefon z podłogi. – I pick the phone up off the floor.
brać / wziąć – to take
- Biorę telefon z podłogi. – I take the phone from the floor (still usually means you pick it up, but less emphasis on the lifting action).
In everyday speech, biorę telefon z podłogi is understood and okay, but podnoszę highlights the physical movement from the floor more precisely.
Use the perfective partner podnieść (or podnieść in the future form):
- Podniosę telefon z podłogi. – I will pick up the phone from the floor (one specific, completed action).
Polish uses the present form of a perfective verb to talk about a one-time future action. There is no present continuous of a perfective verb in the sense of something happening right now; perfective focuses on completion, not on the ongoing process.
Approximate pronunciation (IPA):
podnoszę – /pɔdˈnɔ.ʂɛ̃/
- sz = /ʂ/, like English sh but a bit harder and more retroflex
- final ę is nasal; here it sounds close to -en but often quite weakly nasal in casual speech
podłogi – /pɔdˈwɔ.gʲi/
- ł = /w/, like English w in water
- gi = /gʲi/, a slightly softened g before i
Stress is always on the second-to-last syllable:
- podnoszę
- podłogi
Telefon on its own is generic:
- It can mean any kind of phone, including a mobile, especially in context.
- To be explicit about a mobile phone, people often say:
- telefon komórkowy (formal)
- komórka (very common colloquial form)
In your sentence, telefon will normally be understood as the phone / my phone, and in modern everyday context that is usually a mobile unless specified otherwise.
- telefon – masculine inanimate noun
- podłoga – feminine noun
Gender matters because it affects:
Adjective forms
- nowy telefon – new phone (masculine)
- nowa podłoga – new floor (feminine)
Past tense verb endings
- Telefon leżał na podłodze. – The phone (masc.) was lying on the floor.
- Podłoga była brudna. – The floor (fem.) was dirty.
Case endings (like podłoga → podłogi in the genitive).
In your sentence, gender is part of why podłoga changes to podłogi, while telefon does not change in the accusative.