Learn Hardcore Polish: Teraz wyraźnie słychać muzykę w salonie. - Now you can clearly hear music in the living room.

Słychać is a special, impersonal verb form. Literally it means something like “(it) can be heard” or “one hears”, without saying who hears it.

Polish: Teraz wyraźnie słychać muzykę w salonie.
Very literal meaning: “Now (it) is clearly heard: the music in the living room.”
Natural English: “Now you can clearly hear music in the living room.” / “The music in the living room can be clearly heard now.”

Key points:

There is no subject (no “it”, “they”, “we”) expressed.
You use słychać + object (accusative) for “something can be heard / is audible”:
- Słychać muzykę. – Music can be heard.
- Słychać dzieci na podwórku. – You can hear children in the yard.

If you want a normal verb with a subject, you use słyszeć:

Słyszę muzykę. – I hear music.
Słyszymy muzykę w salonie. – We hear music in the living room.

Using jest słyszana (is heard) is grammatically possible but sounds formal or technical; in normal speech, słychać is much more common.

Why is it muzykę, not muzyka?

Muzykę is the accusative form of muzyka (music).

Dictionary form (nominative): muzyka
Accusative: muzykę

The impersonal verb słychać takes a direct object in the accusative (kogo? co? – whom? what?):

Słychać muzykę. – (You can) hear music.
Słychać rozmowę. – (You can) hear a conversation.

If you used muzyka (nominative) here, it would be wrong, because we’re not saying “music is something”; we’re saying “(one) hears music” – music is what is being heard, so it must be in the object case, accusative: muzykę.

Why do we say w salonie, not w salon? What is this -ie ending?

W salonie is “in the living room”, and salonie is the locative case of salon.

Dictionary form (nominative): salon – living room
Locative (after w, “in”): salonie

Polish preposition w (“in”) normally requires the locative when talking about location:

w salonie – in the living room
w kuchni – in the kitchen
w szkole – at school
w mieszkaniu – in the flat

So w salon would be wrong in the sense of “in the living room”; you need the locative: w salonie.

How flexible is the word order? Can I move words around, like in English?

Polish word order is much more flexible than English. Your sentence:

Teraz wyraźnie słychać muzykę w salonie.

is neutral and natural, but other orders are also possible, with slightly different emphasis. For example:

Teraz słychać wyraźnie muzykę w salonie.
– Emphasis a bit more on wyraźnie (“clearly”).
Teraz słychać muzykę wyraźnie w salonie.
– Slight focus shift: clearly in the living room.
Muzykę wyraźnie słychać teraz w salonie.
– Fronting muzykę draws attention to the music:
“The music can clearly be heard now in the living room.”

All of these are grammatically okay. What changes is usually what you’re stressing – topic vs. focus – rather than grammatical correctness.

What you generally shouldn’t do is split phrases in a weird way, e.g.:

✗ Teraz słychać muzykę w wyraźnie salonie. – wrong; wyraźnie shouldn’t cut into w salonie.

What’s the difference between słychać muzykę and słyszymy muzykę?

They differ in subject and focus:

Słychać muzykę.
- Impersonal: no explicit subject.
- Means: “Music can be heard / You can hear music / There’s music audible.”
Słyszymy muzykę.
- Personal: subject “we” is included in the verb ending (-my).
- Means: “We hear music.”

In your sentence:

Teraz wyraźnie słychać muzykę w salonie.
– Focus: the fact that music is (clearly) audible in the living room now, not who hears it.

If you want to emphasize the listeners:

Teraz wyraźnie słyszymy muzykę w salonie.
– “Now we can clearly hear music in the living room.”

Both are correct; słychać is more anonymous and descriptive, słyszymy is about us.

How would I negate this sentence? Where do I put nie, and what happens to the cases?

You negate it by putting nie before the verb, and the object changes case:

Teraz wyraźnie nie słychać muzyki w salonie.
– “Now you clearly can’t hear music in the living room.”
– Literally: “Now (it) clearly is not heard music in the living room.”

Two important things happen:

nie goes in front of słychać:
- nie słychać – “is not heard / cannot be heard”
The object changes from accusative to genitive after negation:
- positive: słychać muzykę (accusative)
- negative: nie słychać muzyki (genitive)

This “accusative → genitive under negation” is a very common Polish rule.

What’s the nuance of wyraźnie here? How is it different from głośno?

Both are adverbs, but they describe different qualities:

wyraźnie – clearly, distinctly
- You can make out the sounds; they’re not muffled or blurred.
- Focus on clarity, not volume.
głośno – loudly, at a high volume
- The sound is strong or loud.
- Focus on volume, not clarity.

So:

Teraz wyraźnie słychać muzykę w salonie.
– You can clearly hear the music now (maybe someone opened a door).
Teraz głośno słychać muzykę w salonie.
– The music is heard loudly now (maybe somebody turned the volume up).

They can overlap (something clear is often louder), but grammatically they’re just different adverbs modifying słychać.

How does Polish express the English “the music” or “some music” here, since there’s no article?

Polish has no articles (a, an, the). The bare noun muzykę can mean:

“some music”
“the music”
simply “music” in general

The exact reading depends on context, not on grammar.

So Teraz wyraźnie słychać muzykę w salonie could be:

“Now you can clearly hear music in the living room.”
“Now you can clearly hear the music in the living room.”

If you really want to stress “some”, you can add a word like:

jakąś muzykę – some (unspecified) music
tę muzykę – this / that music (more like “the music” in a specific situation)

But normally, just muzykę is enough, and context will tell you whether it is “some” or “the”.

What are the basic forms and genders of muzyka and salon?

Muzyka:

Gender: feminine
Nominative sg.: muzyka
Accusative sg.: muzykę
Genitive sg.: muzyki

Salon:

Gender: masculine
Nominative sg.: salon
Locative sg.: salonie (used with w, “in”)
Genitive sg.: salonu

So in your sentence:

muzykę = feminine accusative singular (object of słychać)
w salonie = preposition w
- masculine locative singular (place)

These case forms are exactly what make the sentence grammatical.