Questions & Answers about Mój bilet powrotny jest drogi.
In Polish, possessive adjectives like mój agree with the gender and number of the noun.
- bilet is a masculine singular noun.
- The masculine singular form of my is mój.
Other forms of my are:
- moja – feminine singular (e.g. moja książka – my book)
- moje – neuter singular (e.g. moje okno – my window)
- moi – masculine personal plural (e.g. moi koledzy – my (male) friends)
- moje – non-masculine-personal plural (e.g. moje psy – my dogs)
So with bilet (masculine singular), you must use mój.
Powrotny is an adjective derived from powrót (return). So bilet powrotny literally means return ticket (a ticket for coming back).
About the position:
- In Polish, adjectives normally come before the noun: nowy bilet (a new ticket).
- But some fixed expressions and “relational” adjectives commonly come after the noun, and bilet powrotny is a very standard collocation.
You can say powrotny bilet, and it’s grammatically correct, but bilet powrotny is far more common and sounds more natural.
Mostly, yes, but there’s a nuance:
- bilet powrotny = a ticket for the return journey (the “back” leg).
If you mean a ticket that covers both outward and return journeys (round-trip):
- More precise Polish is bilet w obie strony (ticket both ways) or bilet tam i z powrotem (there and back ticket).
In everyday speech, people sometimes use bilet powrotny loosely, but strictly speaking:
- bilet powrotny = just the return leg
- bilet w obie strony = round-trip ticket
Adjectives in Polish agree in gender, number and case with the noun they describe.
- bilet is masculine singular nominative.
- Therefore the adjective must also be masculine singular nominative: powrotny.
Other examples, changing only the gender of the noun:
- bilet powrotny – masculine: return ticket
- podróż powrotna – feminine: return journey
- połączenie powrotne – neuter: return connection (e.g. a flight)
Again, agreement and word type:
drogi here is an adjective meaning expensive, agreeing with bilet:
- bilet – masculine singular
- → drogi – masculine singular adjective
Other forms:
- droga – feminine singular (e.g. droga książka – an expensive book (fem.))
- drogie – neuter singular or non‑masculine plural (e.g. drogie auto, drogie buty)
- drogo – an adverb, meaning expensively (e.g. Tu jest drogo – It’s expensive here)
So in Mój bilet powrotny jest drogi, masculine bilet requires masculine drogi.
Yes. Drogi has two common meanings, both as an adjective:
expensive – the meaning in your sentence:
- Mój bilet powrotny jest drogi. – My return ticket is expensive.
dear / beloved – often in emotional or polite contexts:
- Drogi przyjacielu – Dear friend
- Droga Anno – Dear Anna (in a letter or email)
The meaning is clear from context. When it describes a price or a thing you pay for, it almost always means expensive.
Jest is the 3rd person singular of być (to be). In this kind of simple statement, it is normally included:
- Mój bilet powrotny jest drogi. – My return ticket is expensive.
Unlike in some languages, in Polish you can’t normally omit jest in a present‑tense declarative sentence like this. If you dropped it:
- Mój bilet powrotny drogi. – sounds incomplete or wrong in standard modern Polish.
You can omit być in some special patterns (e.g. headlines, very short descriptions, or in past/future tenses with compound forms), but not here.
It’s in the nominative case.
The structure is:
- [Subject]: Mój bilet powrotny
- [Verb]: jest
- [Predicate adjective]: drogi
In a simple X is Y sentence, both X (subject) and the adjective Y are typically in the nominative:
- Bilet jest drogi. – The ticket is expensive.
- Mój bilet powrotny jest drogi. – My return ticket is expensive.
So mój, bilet, powrotny, and drogi all appear in their nominative singular masculine forms.
One natural way to say that is:
- Kupiłem bilet powrotny, był drogi. (said by a man)
- Kupiłam bilet powrotny, był drogi. (said by a woman)
Notes:
- Kupiłem / Kupiłam – I bought (past tense, masculine/feminine speaker).
- bilet powrotny – here is in the accusative (direct object). For masculine inanimate nouns, accusative = nominative, so it looks the same as before.
- był drogi – was expensive, masculine singular past tense.
You could include mój:
- Kupiłem mój bilet powrotny, był drogi.
But often mój is omitted when it’s obvious from context that the ticket is yours.
Yes, and it’s perfectly natural.
- Bilet powrotny jest drogi. – The/that return ticket is expensive.
Without mój, the sentence talks about a return ticket in general, or the return ticket that’s currently in context (e.g. the one you’re about to buy).
You add mój when you want to make it explicit that it is your ticket:
- Mój bilet powrotny jest drogi. – My (particular) return ticket is expensive.
In many real conversations, speakers rely on context and skip mój if it’s obvious.
The basic, neutral word order is:
- Mój bilet powrotny jest drogi.
Other orders are possible but change emphasis and may sound more stylized or unusual:
- Drogi jest mój bilet powrotny. – Grammatically OK, but sounds marked / poetic / strongly emphatic: Expensive is my return ticket.
- Bilet powrotny mój jest drogi. – Also possible, but this kind of reordering is very unusual in everyday speech and used mainly for special emphasis or poetic effect.
For normal communication, stick with:
- Mój bilet powrotny jest drogi.
or, without mój: - Bilet powrotny jest drogi.
Approximate pronunciation (with English-friendly hints):
Mój – /muj/
- ó is pronounced like English oo in food.
- j is like English y in yes → “mooy”.
bilet – /ˈbilɛt/
- bi like bee, let like let → “BEE-let”.
powrotny – /pɔvˈrɔtnɨ/
- po like poh in Poland
- w is like English v
- ro like raw, but shorter
- tny – t
- n together, y like the vowel in myth → roughly “pov-ROHT-nih”.
jest – /jɛst/
- like yest (as in yesterday without erday).
drogi – /ˈdrɔgʲi/
- dr like dr in drop
- o as in off
- gi like gee in geese → “DROH-gee”.
Main stress in Polish falls on the second-to-last syllable of each multi-syllable word: BI-let, pow-ROT-ny, DRO-gi.