Breakdown of Mój kuzyn chodzi do szkoły średniej w mieście.
Questions & Answers about Mój kuzyn chodzi do szkoły średniej w mieście.
Polish has several verbs meaning to go, and the two most common are:
- iść (present: idzie) – going now, in one direction, one specific occasion
- chodzić (present: chodzi) – going habitually, repeatedly, or in general
In Mój kuzyn chodzi do szkoły średniej w mieście, we are talking about a regular, repeated action (he attends / regularly goes to that school), so Polish uses chodzi.
If you said:
- Mój kuzyn idzie do szkoły średniej w mieście.
it would mean My cousin is going to the high school in the city (right now / on this particular occasion), not that he studies there.
Chodzić literally means to walk / to go (on foot), but in some fixed phrases it means to attend:
- chodzić do szkoły – to attend school
- chodzić na uniwersytet – to attend university
- chodzić na kurs polskiego – to attend a Polish course
So in this sentence, chodzi do szkoły średniej is best understood as attends a high school, not walks to a high school (even though he might literally walk).
The preposition do (to) requires the genitive case.
The base forms are:
- szkoła (school)
- średnia (middle/secondary/high – the adjective agreeing with szkoła)
In the genitive singular, they change to:
- szkoła → szkoły
- średnia → średniej
So after do, you need:
- do szkoły średniej – to (the) high school
Both the noun and the adjective must be in the genitive and must agree in gender, number, and case.
The preposition w can take different cases depending on the meaning:
- w
- locative = location (in / inside)
- w
- accusative = motion into (used mostly with some verbs of motion like uderzyć w coś, wpaść w coś)
Here we mean in the city as a place where the school is, so we use the locative.
Base form: miasto (city, town)
Locative singular: mieście
So we get:
- w mieście – in the city
You would use do miasta (to the city) for motion towards the city (again, do + genitive).
Mój is a possessive pronoun: my.
It must agree with the noun it modifies in gender, number, and case.
- kuzyn is masculine singular, nominative.
- So we choose mój (masculine nominative singular).
Other forms for my:
- mój kuzyn – my (male) cousin
- moja kuzynka – my (female) cousin
- moi kuzyni – my cousins (group including at least one male)
- moje kuzynki – my (all female) cousins
Because kuzyn is grammatically masculine, so it needs the masculine possessive mój.
- mój kuzyn – my (male) cousin
- moja kuzynka – my (female) cousin
Moja is used only with feminine nouns (like kuzynka, siostra, koleżanka, etc.), not with masculine ones like kuzyn.
You can say Kuzyn chodzi do szkoły średniej w mieście, but then it usually means:
- The cousin goes to a high school in the city (some cousin already known in the context), or
- It may sound incomplete or slightly unnatural out of context, because kuzyn almost always needs clarification: whose cousin?
Polish speakers often drop possessives like mój, twój when context makes it obvious (especially with family members), but usually you need that context. On its own, Mój kuzyn... is clearer and more natural as a standalone sentence.
Not exactly, but it’s usually the closest translation.
- szkoła średnia literally: secondary school
- It’s a general term for post-primary, pre-university schooling (various types: liceum, technikum, etc.).
In many contexts, English speakers say high school when talking about szkoła średnia, even though education systems don’t match perfectly. For everyday conversation, high school is a good translation.
Both orders are grammatically possible, but:
- szkoły średniej (noun + adjective) is the usual, neutral order: a high school.
- średniej szkoły (adjective + noun) is less common here and can sound more formal, stylistic, or emphasize średniej.
In practice, people almost always say szkoły średniej in this expression, not średniej szkoły.
Yes, and it’s perfectly correct.
Mój kuzyn chodzi do szkoły średniej w mieście.
Focus: he goes/attends that school (emphasis on going/attending).Mój kuzyn uczy się w szkole średniej w mieście.
Focus: he studies/learns at that school (emphasis on studying).
Both describe the same real-world situation (he is a student at that school), but they highlight different aspects. In everyday speech, chodzi do szkoły is very common for attends school.
Each noun’s form depends on its function in the sentence and the preposition used:
- Mój kuzyn – subject → nominative case (who? what?)
- do szkoły średniej – object of do → genitive (do + genitive)
- w mieście – object of w indicating location → locative (w + locative for “in”)
So:
- kuzyn stays in nominative.
- szkoła → szkoły, średnia → średniej (genitive).
- miasto → mieście (locative).
You need the plural forms for my and cousins:
- Moi kuzyni chodzą do szkoły średniej w mieście.
Breakdown:
- Moi – my (masculine personal plural; group with at least one male)
- kuzyni – male (or mixed) cousins (nominative plural)
- chodzą – 3rd person plural of chodzić
- The rest stays the same: do szkoły średniej w mieście
Key points for an English speaker:
- ó in mój – sounds like u in boot (like Polish u).
- j – like y in yes: mój ≈ mooy.
- ch in chodzi – like the German ch in Bach or Scottish loch (voiceless kh sound).
- rz (not in this sentence, but common) – usually like the s in measure.
- sz in szkoły – like sh in shoe.
- ł in szkoły – like English w in wet.
- ś, ź, ć, ń (as in średniej, mieście) – “soft” versions of s, z, c, n, somewhat like adding a short y glide:
- ś ≈ sh but softer, like she with the tongue closer to i
- ń like Spanish ñ in señor.
So roughly:
- Mój kuzyn chodzi do szkoły średniej w mieście ≈ Mooy KOO-zin KHOD-ji do SHKWO-wih SHRED-nyei v MYESH-chye (very approximate).