Learn Hardcore Polish: Mam kaszel i katar, ale nie mam gorączki. - I have a cough and a runny nose, but I don’t have a fever.

Why does Polish use mam here? In English we say “I have a cough”, but sometimes also “I’m coughing” or “I have a cold”. How does this work in Polish?

Polish normally uses mieć (mam = I have) with many illnesses and symptoms, just like English “have”:

Mam kaszel. – I have a cough.
Mam katar. – I have a runny nose / I have a cold (mild, stuffy/runny-nose type).
Mam gorączkę. – I have a fever.

You do not say jestem kaszlem or jestem katarem (I am a cough / I am a runny nose), just as in English that sounds wrong.

However, for general states you can also use adjectives with być (to be):

Jestem chory. – I am ill/sick.
Jestem przeziębiony. – I have a (mild) cold / I am chilled/snippling.

So:

For specific symptoms or illnesses: usually mam
- noun.
For overall condition: jestem
- adjective (chory, przeziębiony, osłabiony, etc.).

Why is it gorączki here, but the dictionary form is gorączka?

Gorączka is the basic (nominative singular) form: fever.
In the sentence you have nie mam gorączki.

Two things are going on:

The verb is negated: nie mam (I do not have).
In Polish, a direct object of a negated verb is usually in the genitive, not the accusative.

Compare:

Mam gorączkę. – I have a fever. (gorączkę = accusative singular)
Nie mam gorączki. – I don’t have a fever. (gorączki = genitive singular)

This pattern is extremely common:

Mam pieniądze. – I have money.
Nie mam pieniędzy. – I don’t have any money.

So gorączki is the genitive singular of gorączka, used because mam is negated by nie.

Why is nie in front of mam and not in front of gorączki?

In Polish, clause negation is usually placed directly before the main verb:

nie mam, nie widzę, nie lubię …

Putting nie in front of the noun would be wrong here:

❌ mam nie gorączkę – incorrect in this meaning.

However, you can move gorączki nie mam as a chunk for emphasis:

Gorączki nie mam. – As for fever, I don’t have (it).

Here nie still negates mam, but the word order puts focus on gorączki (“Fever I don’t have, but…”).

So:

Neutral negation: nie mam gorączki.
Focused / contrastive: gorączki nie mam, gorączki to ja nie mam, etc.

Could I say Mam kaszel i katar, ale gorączki nie mam instead?

Yes, that’s perfectly correct and quite natural.

Mam kaszel i katar, ale nie mam gorączki. – neutral word order.
Mam kaszel i katar, ale gorączki nie mam. – slightly more contrastive: “I do have cough and runny nose, but fever I do not have.”

Both mean the same in everyday use; the second just emphasizes the lack of fever a bit more.

What are the grammatical genders and cases of kaszel, katar, and gorączka / gorączki in this sentence?

In this sentence:

kaszel – masculine inanimate noun, accusative singular
katar – masculine inanimate noun, accusative singular
gorączki – feminine noun, genitive singular

Why accusative for the first two? They are direct objects of mam:

(Ja) mam kaszel i katar.

For masculine inanimate nouns, accusative singular = nominative singular, so kaszel and katar don’t change form.

For a positive sentence with gorączka, you’d get:

Mam gorączkę. – accusative singular (different form)

But after negation:

Nie mam gorączki. – genitive singular

In English we say “I have a cough / a fever”. Why is there no word for a or the in Polish?

Polish has no articles at all – no equivalents of “a/an” or “the”.

The bare noun kaszel, katar, gorączka can correspond to:

a cough / fever
the cough / fever
just cough / fever (uncounted)

Context tells you whether you would translate it with “a” or “the” in English. So:

Mam kaszel. – I have a cough. / I have the cough. (depending on situation)
Nie mam gorączki. – I don’t have a fever. / I don’t have any fever.

You never add an article-like word; Polish simply doesn’t use them.

What’s the difference between kaszel and kaszlę?

They are different parts of speech:

kaszel – noun, a cough
- Mam kaszel. – I have a cough.
kaszlę – verb form, I am coughing
- Kaszlę. – I’m coughing.

So, roughly:

mam kaszel ≈ “I have a cough” (describes a symptom as a thing you have)
kaszlę ≈ “I’m coughing” (describes what you’re doing right now)

Both are correct but slightly different in focus. In your sentence, we’re listing symptoms, so the noun with mam is natural.

What exactly does katar mean? Is it “cold” or “runny nose”?

Katar is literally a runny or stuffy nose – nasal congestion, nasal discharge. In practice:

Often translated as a runny nose.
In everyday speech it can also loosely mean a mild cold where the main symptom is a runny/stuffy nose.

Examples:

Mam katar. – I have a runny nose / I’ve got a (mild) cold.
Leki na katar – medicine for a runny/stuffy nose.

English “a cold” is usually broader (sore throat, fatigue, etc.). Polish for that overall condition is often:

Jestem przeziębiony. – I’ve got a cold / I’m under the weather.

Can you use plurals like mam kaszle or mam katary?

In everyday speech, no – that would sound very strange in this context.

Symptoms like kaszel, katar, gorączka are normally treated as uncountable medical conditions:

Mam kaszel. – correct and natural.
❌ Mam kaszle. – wrong in normal modern usage.
Mam katar. – correct.
❌ Mam katary. – wrong in this sense.
Mam gorączkę. – correct.

Plural forms exist grammatically (you could see them in very specific or historical/medical contexts), but you should treat these common symptoms as uncountable and keep them singular in standard everyday speech.

What does ale mean exactly, and could I replace it with something else like jednak?

Ale is the basic coordinating conjunction meaning but:

Mam kaszel i katar, ale nie mam gorączki.
– I have a cough and a runny nose, but I don’t have a fever.

Other options and nuances:

jednak – closer to “however / nevertheless”. It’s usually not a conjunction but an adverb, and the punctuation/word order changes:
- Mam kaszel i katar. Jednak nie mam gorączki.
ale za to – “but on the other hand”:
- Nie mam gorączki, ale za to mam kaszel i katar.
  – I don’t have a fever, but on the other hand I have a cough and a runny nose.

In your simple sentence, ale is the most natural and neutral choice.

Why is there a comma before ale?

Polish punctuation rules require a comma before most coordinating conjunctions (like ale, bo, więc, czy, albo) when they join two clauses.

Your sentence has two clauses:

Mam kaszel i katar – main clause 1
nie mam gorączki – main clause 2

They are joined by ale:

Mam kaszel i katar, ale nie mam gorączki.

So the comma is obligatory here. If ale were joining just two words or phrases inside one clause, there might be no comma, but between full clauses you need it.

How do you pronounce gorączki, especially the ą, cz, and -ki parts?

Approximate guide (for an English speaker):

go- – like “go” in got, not in goat (short o).
-rą- – r is rolled or tapped; ą is a nasal vowel. Before czk it sounds a bit like on/om in French bon, but very short: something between “gonch” and “gwonch”.
-cz- – like ch in chocolate, but harder, closer to English “tch” in catch.
-k- – normal k.
-i – like ee in see.

Very rough English approximation: [go-RONCH-kee], but with:

a rolled r,
a shorter, tighter nasal vowel in ą,
a single sharp tch sound for cz.

Polish stress is always on the second-to-last syllable, so: go-RĄCZ-ki.