Breakdown of Kiedy byłem dzieckiem, często nocowałem u babci i dziadka.
Questions & Answers about Kiedy byłem dzieckiem, często nocowałem u babci i dziadka.
In Polish, after the verb być (to be) you often use the instrumental case to say what someone was (a role, profession, state, etc.):
- byłem dzieckiem – I was a child
- jestem nauczycielem – I am a (male) teacher
- będę lekarzem – I will be a (male) doctor
Dziecko is the nominative form (dictionary form).
Dzieckiem is the instrumental singular form.
So byłem dzieckiem is the standard, grammatically correct way to say “I was a child” in Polish. Using byłem dziecko would be incorrect.
Byłem is the past tense, 1st person singular, masculine form of być (to be).
- infinitive: być – to be
- past tense stem: był-
- masculine “I” ending: -em → był + em = byłem
In Polish past tense, the ending shows person and often gender:
- byłem – I was (speaker is male)
- byłam – I was (speaker is female)
In your sentence, byłem tells us:
- it’s first person singular (“I”)
- the speaker is male
- it refers to the past
In Polish it is very common to omit personal pronouns (ja, ty, on, etc.) because the verb ending already shows the person.
- Byłem dzieckiem = I was a child
(the -em ending already tells you “I (male)”)
You only add ja for emphasis or contrast:
- Ja byłem dzieckiem, a mój brat był już nastolatkiem.
I was a child, and my brother was already a teenager.
So in your sentence, ja is not needed. It would sound slightly more emphatic: Ja, kiedy byłem dzieckiem…
Nocowałem comes from nocować = to stay overnight / to spend the night (somewhere).
- nocowałem u babci – I stayed the night at my grandma’s
- spałem u babci – I slept at my grandma’s
The nuance:
- nocować focuses on the idea of staying overnight somewhere (as a guest, away from your own home).
- spać simply means to sleep, without saying whether it’s at home or elsewhere.
So często nocowałem u babci i dziadka suggests “I often spent the night / stayed over at my grandparents’ place,” which is exactly the idea of going there for sleepovers.
Polish verbs have aspect: imperfective (ongoing/habitual) and perfective (single, completed events).
- nocować – imperfective: to stay overnight (in general, habitually, over some time)
- zanocować / przenocować – perfective: to stay overnight once, a single completed act
In your sentence, we talk about repeated, habitual action in the past:
- często nocowałem – I often stayed the night (many times)
So the imperfective form nocowałem is correct.
A perfective form would describe a single event, e.g.:
- Raz zanocowałem u babci i dziadka. – Once I stayed the night at my grandparents’.
The preposition u usually means “at someone’s place / at someone’s house / at someone’s”.
- u babci – at Grandma’s (place)
- u dziadka – at Grandpa’s (place)
- u rodziców – at my parents’
- u kolegi – at a (male) friend’s
So nocowałem u babci i dziadka means “I stayed the night at my grandma and grandpa’s (place)” — the house or apartment where they live.
The preposition u always takes the genitive case.
Base forms (nominative):
- babcia – grandmother
- dziadek – grandfather
Genitive singular:
- babcia → babci
- dziadek → dziadka
So after u, you must use:
- u babci – at Grandma’s
- u dziadka – at Grandpa’s
In the sentence u babci i dziadka, both babci and dziadka are in the genitive singular, governed by u.
Yes:
- u dziadków – at my grandparents’
This is also correct and natural. The difference:
- u babci i dziadka – a bit more explicit, mentions each one separately.
- u dziadków – shorter, collective: “at my grandparents’ place”.
Both are very common; choice is stylistic. Your original sentence is perfectly fine and quite typical.
Często (often) is quite flexible in word order. All of these are grammatically correct, with slightly different emphasis:
Kiedy byłem dzieckiem, często nocowałem u babci i dziadka.
(neutral, very natural)Kiedy byłem dzieckiem, nocowałem często u babci i dziadka.
(small emphasis on nocowałem; still natural)Często, kiedy byłem dzieckiem, nocowałem u babci i dziadka.
(emphasis that this was often the case in that period)
In everyday speech, the original word order (często right before the verb) is probably the most common here.
Yes. In Polish, you normally must put a comma between a subordinate clause (introduced by kiedy) and the main clause:
- Kiedy byłem dzieckiem, często nocowałem u babci i dziadka.
- Często nocowałem u babci i dziadka, kiedy byłem dzieckiem.
So the comma is obligatory, even if in English you might sometimes omit it (e.g., “When I was a child I often…”).
Yes, you can say:
- Gdy byłem dzieckiem, często nocowałem u babci i dziadka.
Kiedy and gdy often overlap in the meaning “when (in time)”.
Roughly:
- kiedy – very common, neutral, used in both spoken and written language.
- gdy – sometimes feels a bit more literary or formal, but is also normal in everyday speech.
In this sentence, kiedy and gdy are practically interchangeable.
Yes, that is also correct:
- Jako dziecko często nocowałem u babci i dziadka.
Both forms are natural:
- Kiedy byłem dzieckiem, … – literally “When I was a child, …”
- Jako dziecko, … – literally “As a child, …”
The meaning is essentially the same.
Stylistically:
- Jako dziecko is a bit shorter and slightly more condensed.
- Kiedy byłem dzieckiem explicitly uses a full clause (“when I was a child”), but is just as natural.