Learn Hardcore Polish: W lipcu biegam rano w parku. - In July I run in the morning in the park.

being in a place: w parku (in the park), w domu (in the house)
being in a time period: w lipcu (in July), w poniedziałek is an exception – it uses accusative

So w lipiec is ungrammatical for “in July”. You must say w lipcu.

Why is lipcu written with a small letter, not a capital L like “July” in English?

In Polish, names of months are not capitalized. They are treated as common nouns, not proper names.

So we write:

styczeń, luty, marzec, kwiecień, maj, czerwiec, lipiec, sierpień, wrzesień, październik, listopad, grudzień

Similarly, days of the week and names of languages are also lower‑case:

poniedziałek (Monday)
angielski, polski (English, Polish – as languages)

Capital letters are used for real proper names:

Polska (Poland), Warszawa (Warsaw), Lipiec only if it is a surname or part of a title.

So w lipcu with a small l is normal and correct.

What nuance does biegam have? Is it “I run” generally, or “I am running” right now?

Biegam is the 1st person singular present tense of biegać (imperfective), and it usually suggests a repeated, habitual action:

W lipcu biegam rano w parku.
→ In July I (regularly) run in the park in the morning.

So it sounds like a routine or habit.

Polish has another verb biec / pobiec (imperfective / perfective pair) for the action of actually running at a given moment / running somewhere:

Biegnę do parku. – I’m running to the park (right now / on this occasion).

You normally:

use biegam for “I run (as a habit)”
use biegnę for “I am running (now), I’m in motion to somewhere”

In your sentence, because it’s about a pattern in July mornings, biegam is exactly the right choice.

Why is there no ja (“I”) in the sentence?

Polish is a “pro‑drop” language: the subject pronoun is often omitted because the verb ending already tells you who the subject is.

biegam = “I run” (the ending -am clearly marks 1st person singular)

You would normally say simply:

W lipcu biegam rano w parku.

You add ja when you want emphasis or contrast:

To ja biegam rano w parku, nie on. – I am the one who runs in the park in the morning, not him.
Ja w lipcu biegam rano w parku. – It’s me who does this, not necessarily others.

So the version without ja is the default, neutral form.

Can I change the word order, for example say Rano w lipcu biegam w parku?

Yes. Polish word order is fairly flexible, and changes mainly affect emphasis, not basic grammar.

Your original:

W lipcu biegam rano w parku.
→ Neutral, light emphasis on “in July” as the time frame.

Other natural variants:

Rano w lipcu biegam w parku.
– Focuses on mornings in July; “As for mornings in July, I run in the park.”
W lipcu rano biegam w parku.
– Slightly stronger grouping of “in July, in the morning” together.
W lipcu biegam w parku rano.
– Emphasis on “in the morning”, especially if contrasting: not in the evening.

All of these are grammatically fine; the default, most neutral version is close to what you have. Very unusual or heavily scrambled orders may sound poetic, very emphatic, or just odd, but you have quite a lot of freedom.

Why is it w parku and not w park or na parku?

Again, it’s about prepositions and cases.

w parku
- w = “in / inside”
- requires locative for a static location → park (nom.) → parku (loc.)
- means “in the park” (being there).
w park
- would be w + accusative. With w, accusative is normally used when there is movement into something:
  - włożyć coś w szafę – to put something into the wardrobe
- For going to the park, Polish usually prefers do parku, not w park:
  - Idę do parku. – I’m going to the park.
na parku
- na often means “on (top of) / at” and is used with some places:
  - na plaży (on the beach), na boisku (on the sports field), na dworcu (at the station)
- But with park, the natural preposition is w, not na.
  - w parku = in the park
  - na placu zabaw = on the playground

So for simply being in a park, you should say w parku.

What exactly is rano? Why don’t we say w rano like “in the morning”?

Rano is an adverb meaning “in the morning”. It’s not used with a preposition—it stands by itself:

Rano biegam w parku. – I run in the park in the morning.

English needs the preposition “in” and the article “the”, but Polish bundles that idea into the adverb rano, so you don’t say w rano. That is incorrect.

Some related time expressions:

rano – in the morning
wieczorem – in the evening (formally an instrumental form of “evening”)
po południu – in the afternoon (literally “after noon”)
w nocy – at night (here we do use w
- locative of “night”)

You can also hear rankiem (also “in the morning”). Both rano and rankiem are fine and quite similar in meaning:

W lipcu rano biegam w parku.
W lipcu rankiem biegam w parku.

Does w lipcu mean one specific July or “every July”?

By itself, w lipcu is ambiguous. It can mean:

A specific July (this coming July, last July, etc.), depending on context:
- W lipcu biegam rano w parku.
  → In July I run in the park in the morning. (likely about this/that July as part of a plan or description)
Every July as a recurring habit, especially if you add adverbs like zawsze (always), zwykle (usually):
- W lipcu zawsze biegam rano w parku.
  → Every July, I always run in the park in the morning.

To be very explicit about a recurring, yearly habit you might say:

Co roku w lipcu biegam rano w parku. – Every year in July I run in the park in the morning.
Każdego lipca biegam rano w parku. – Each July I run in the park in the morning.

Without such extra words, w lipcu usually refers to “in July” with the exact time understood from context.

Which grammatical cases appear in this sentence?

Sentence: W lipcu biegam rano w parku.

Word by word:

w lipcu – w
- lipcu
- lipcu is locative singular of lipiec (“July”).
- Used because w = “in” + static time → takes locative.
biegam
- verb, 1st person singular present of biegać.
rano
- adverb “in the morning” (no case, adverbs don’t decline).
w parku – w
- parku
- parku is locative singular of park.
- w = “in” + static place → locative again.

Notice there is no explicit nominative noun; the subject “I” is just encoded in the verb ending -am in biegam.

So, the only case forms you see are locatives (lipcu, parku), both governed by w.

Where is “the” in “in the park”? Why doesn’t Polish use anything before parku?

Polish has no articles like English “a/an, the”.

w parku can mean:
- in a park
- in the park

The context usually tells you whether the place is specific or not. If you really want to make it clearly specific, you can add a demonstrative like tym (“this/that”):

W tym parku biegam rano. – I run in this (particular) park in the morning.

But in normal conversation, w parku is enough, and the listener figures out whether it’s “the” or “a” from context.

Are there other natural ways to say the same thing?

Yes, you can vary it a bit while keeping essentially the same meaning:

W lipcu rano biegam w parku.
– Very close to the original, slightly emphasizes “July mornings”.
W lipcu zwykle biegam rano w parku.
– “In July I usually run in the park in the morning.” Adds zwykle (usually).
Latem biegam rano w parku.
– “In summer I run in the park in the morning.” (more general than just July)
Co rano w lipcu biegam w parku.
– “Every morning in July I run in the park.”

All of these are idiomatic; you adjust time words (w lipcu / latem / codziennie rano) depending on exactly what you want to say.

How do you pronounce lipcu, biegam, and parku, and where is the stress?

In Polish, stress is almost always on the second‑to‑last syllable.

Syllable breakdown and rough English approximations:

lipcu → LIP‑cu
- stress on LIP
- li like “lee”, pcu like “p‑tsoo” (p and c are close together)
biegam → BIE‑gam
- stress on BIE
- bie roughly like “byeh”, gam like “gahm”
parku → PAR‑ku
- stress on PAR
- par like “par” in “park” (without the final English ‘r’ sound), ku like “koo”

So you get something like:

W LIP‑cu BIE‑gam RA‑no w PAR‑ku.
(stress on the first syllable in each of these content words)