Learn Hardcore Polish: Babcia podlewa rośliny w doniczkach na parapecie codziennie rano. - Grandma waters the plants in the flowerpots on the windowsill every morning.

Infinitive (imperfective): podlewać – to water (an ongoing or repeated action)
3rd person singular present: on/ona/ono podlewa – he/she/it waters / is watering

Polish also has a perfective partner:

Infinitive (perfective): podlać – to water (once, viewed as a complete action)

Compare:

Babcia podlewa rośliny… – Grandma waters the plants (habitually, regularly).
Babcia podlała rośliny… – Grandma watered the plants (once, completed in the past).

Why is it rośliny and not roślin or roślina?

Rośliny is:

Number: plural
Case: accusative
Gender: feminine
Dictionary (nominative singular) form: roślina (a plant)

In this sentence the plants are the direct object of podlewa (who/what does she water?), so Polish uses the accusative case.

For many feminine nouns ending in -a, the nominative plural and accusative plural look the same:

Nominative plural: rośliny – (the) plants (subject)
Accusative plural: rośliny – (the) plants (object)

You would see roślin (genitive plural) after prepositions or with quantities, e.g.:

bez roślin – without plants
dużo roślin – a lot of plants

What cases are used in w doniczkach and na parapecie, and why?

Both w doniczkach and na parapecie use the locative case, because they describe a static location (where something is).

w doniczkach
- Preposition: w (in)
- Case: locative plural
- Dictionary form: doniczka (flowerpot)
- Locative plural: doniczkach
na parapecie
- Preposition: na (on)
- Case: locative singular
- Dictionary form: parapet (windowsill)
- Locative singular: parapecie

General pattern:

w + locative = in/inside somewhere (no movement)
na + locative = on/at somewhere (no movement)

That is why we say:

w doniczkach – in the pots
na parapecie – on the windowsill

Could we say w doniczki or na parapet instead? When would those be correct?

Yes, but they would mean movement to a place, not location in/on a place.

w + accusative → movement into
na + accusative → movement onto

Examples:

Wkładam rośliny w doniczki. – I’m putting the plants into pots.
- w doniczki (accusative plural) = into the pots (movement)
Kładę książkę na parapet. – I’m putting the book onto the windowsill.
- na parapet (accusative singular) = onto the windowsill (movement)

In your sentence there is no movement; the plants already are in the pots on the windowsill, so Polish uses locative:

w doniczkach – in the pots
na parapecie – on the windowsill

What are the dictionary (basic) forms of rośliny, doniczkach, and parapecie?

rośliny
- Dictionary form: roślina – a plant
- Here: accusative plural (direct object)
doniczkach
- Dictionary form: doniczka – a (flower)pot
- Here: locative plural after w (in)
parapecie
- Dictionary form: parapet – windowsill
- Here: locative singular after na (on)

Why are there no words for “the” or “a” in this Polish sentence?

Polish has no articles (no equivalents of English a/an/the).
Definiteness or indefiniteness is usually clear from:

context
word order
additional words (like ten = this/that)

So rośliny can mean:

the plants
some plants

and Babcia podlewa rośliny… can be interpreted as:

Grandma waters the plants…
Grandma waters (her) plants…

If you really need to emphasize this/those you can add a demonstrative:

Babcia podlewa te rośliny… – Grandma waters these plants…

Can the word order change, for example: Babcia codziennie rano podlewa rośliny w doniczkach na parapecie?

Yes. Polish word order is relatively flexible, because grammatical roles are shown by endings, not by position.

All of these are grammatical and natural, with slightly different emphasis:

Babcia podlewa rośliny w doniczkach na parapecie codziennie rano.
– More neutral; time phrase at the end.
Babcia codziennie rano podlewa rośliny w doniczkach na parapecie.
– Slight emphasis on the regularity/time (every morning).
Codziennie rano babcia podlewa rośliny w doniczkach na parapecie.
– Strongest focus on every morning; that time frame sets the scene.

What you usually cannot move freely is a preposition away from its noun; e.g. you cannot split w from doniczkach.

What’s the difference between codziennie rano, codziennie, and rano?

codziennie – every day
rano – in the morning
codziennie rano – every morning

So:

Babcia podlewa rośliny codziennie.
– Grandma waters the plants every day (no time of day specified).
Babcia podlewa rośliny rano.
– Grandma waters the plants in the morning (maybe not every day).
Babcia podlewa rośliny codziennie rano.
– Grandma waters the plants every morning (habit + time of day).

Why is Babcia capitalized? Is it a name here?

Two reasons it is capitalized:

It’s the first word of the sentence.
In real usage, when a family member title like Babcia, Mama, Tata is used as a form of address or as a specific person’s “name”, it is often capitalized, like Grandma in English when you mean “my Grandma”.

So Babcia podlewa… naturally feels like “Grandma waters…” (our specific grandma), not just “a grandmother waters…”.

Could we (or should we) say swoje rośliny (“her own plants”) here?

You can say:

Babcia podlewa swoje rośliny w doniczkach na parapecie…
– Grandma waters her (own) plants in pots on the windowsill…

swoje is a reflexive possessive pronoun that refers back to the subject (Babcia), roughly “her own”.

Without swoje, context usually makes it clear that these are her plants, so it’s not necessary.
With swoje, you slightly emphasize that they belong to her, not to someone else.

Both versions are correct and natural.

Why is it Babcia podlewa and not something like Babcia jest podlewająca (a progressive form)?

Polish does not form continuous tenses the way English does. The simple present often covers both:

a general/habitual action:
- Babcia podlewa rośliny… – Grandma waters the plants (habitually).
an action happening right now (with context):
- (Teraz) babcia podlewa rośliny. – (Right now) Grandma is watering the plants.

Forms like jest podlewająca are not used to imitate English “is watering”. That structure sounds unnatural in this context.

Is there a more everyday version of rośliny here, like using kwiaty or kwiatki?

Yes. In everyday speech, if we mean potted decorative plants, people often say kwiaty or the diminutive kwiatki (flowers / little flowers) instead of rośliny (plants in general).

Possible variants:

Babcia podlewa kwiaty na parapecie… – Grandma waters the flowers on the windowsill…
Babcia codziennie rano podlewa kwiatki na parapecie. – Grandma waters the little flowers on the windowsill every morning.

Rośliny is fully correct and a bit more general/neutral (could be any kinds of plants, not only flowering ones).

How do you pronounce the tricky consonants in rośliny and doniczkach?

Key points:

ś in rośliny
- Soft sh sound, produced with the tongue more toward the roof of the mouth than in English sh.
- rośliny ≈ ROSH-lee-nih (very roughly, with a soft sh).
czk in doniczkach
- cz = like English ch in church, but a bit harder.
- k follows immediately; it can feel like a small cluster: ch-k.
- doniczkach ≈ do-NEECH-kahkh (last ch is a guttural ch as in German Bach).

Stress in both words is on the second-to-last syllable, as in most Polish words:

roŚLIny
doNICZkach