Breakdown of Kiedy jestem chory, mam gorszy nastrój, chociaż rodzina opowiada mi żarty.
Questions & Answers about Kiedy jestem chory, mam gorszy nastrój, chociaż rodzina opowiada mi żarty.
Chory is an adjective that must agree with the subject (ja – “I”) in gender and number.
- If the speaker is a man:
- jestem chory = I am ill (male speaker)
- If the speaker is a woman:
- jestem chora = I am ill (female speaker)
Forms like chorzy are plural (e.g. “ill people”) and cannot be used with jestem (“I am”).
So:
- Ja jestem chory (male)
- Ja jestem chora (female)
Polish, like English, uses the present tense for:
- General truths / habits
- Kiedy jestem chory, mam gorszy nastrój…
= “When I am ill, I have a worse mood…” (whenever this situation happens)
- Kiedy jestem chory, mam gorszy nastrój…
You could also talk about a specific, current situation:
- Teraz, kiedy jestem chory, mam gorszy nastrój…
(“Right now, when I am ill…”)
So the present tense here is natural: it describes what usually happens when you are ill, not one specific past event.
Yes, you can say:
- Kiedy jestem chory, …
- Gdy jestem chory, …
Both usually mean “when”.
Differences:
- kiedy – completely neutral, very common in spoken and written Polish.
- gdy – a bit more literary/formal or “bookish”, but still used in everyday speech.
In this sentence, kiedy and gdy are interchangeable.
In Polish, conjunctions that introduce a subordinate clause (like chociaż, ponieważ, że, gdy, kiedy, etc.) always take a comma.
Your sentence has three clauses:
- Kiedy jestem chory – subordinate clause of time
- mam gorszy nastrój – main clause
- chociaż rodzina opowiada mi żarty – subordinate concessive clause (“although…”)
So commas separate them:
- Kiedy jestem chory, mam gorszy nastrój, chociaż rodzina opowiada mi żarty.
Chociaż here means “although / even though”.
- chociaż – introduces a clause that expresses contrast or something unexpected:
- “…I’m in a worse mood although my family tells me jokes.”
You could also say:
- …mam gorszy nastrój, mimo że rodzina opowiada mi żarty.
(very similar meaning, “even though”)
But ale (“but”) works differently in structure:
- Rodzina opowiada mi żarty, ale mam gorszy nastrój.
(“My family tells me jokes, but I’m in a worse mood.”)
So ale typically connects two main clauses, while chociaż / mimo że start a subordinate clause.
In Polish, rodzina is grammatically:
- singular
- feminine
So it takes singular verb forms:
- rodzina opowiada (NOT rodzina opowiadają)
Even though in meaning it’s a group, grammatically it behaves like one singular noun:
- Moja rodzina jest duża. (“My family is big.”)
- Ta rodzina mieszka w Warszawie. (“This family lives in Warsaw.”)
Mi is the dative form (“to me / for me”) used with verbs like dawać (to give), opowiadać (to tell), pokazywać (to show), etc.
- opowiadać komuś coś = “to tell someone something”
- rodzina opowiada mi żarty = “my family tells me jokes”
Forms:
- mnie – stressed form (“me”), used for emphasis or after prepositions:
- To dla mnie. = “This is for me.”
- O mnie nie zapominaj. = “Don’t forget about me.”
- mi – unstressed, typical in the middle of a sentence:
- Rodzina opowiada mi żarty.
„Rodzina opowiada mnie żarty” is ungrammatical.
„Rodzina opowiada żarty dla mnie” is understandable but sounds unnatural here. The normal way is „opowiada mi żarty”.
The verb mieć (“to have”) takes an object in the accusative case.
- mam (kogo? co?) gorszy nastrój = I have a worse mood
Nastrój is masculine inanimate, and for this gender the nominative and accusative forms are identical in the singular:
- Nominative: nastrój
- Accusative: nastrój
So it looks like nominative, but in the sentence it functions as accusative (direct object of mam).
Gorszy is the matching accusative form of the adjective (again, identical in form here).
Literally:
- gorszy nastrój = a worse mood
- zły nastrój = a bad mood
Differences:
- gorszy nastrój – comparative; implies comparison: compared to your normal state your mood is worse.
- zły nastrój – simply states the mood is bad, without explicit comparison.
Your sentence emphasizes that when you’re ill, your mood is worse than usual, not just neutrally describing it as “bad”.
- żart = “a joke”
- żarty = “jokes” (plural)
In the sentence:
- rodzina opowiada mi żarty
= “my family tells me jokes” (more than one, in general)
You could say:
- rodzina opowiada mi jeden żart – “my family tells me one joke”
- rodzina opowiada mi żart – “my family tells me a joke” (one specific joke)
But usually when you talk about cheering someone up, plural sounds more natural: żarty / dowcipy.
Both can relate to speech, but they’re used differently:
opowiadać – “to tell, to narrate”
Typical objects: historię, bajkę, dowcip, żart (a story, fairy tale, joke)- opowiadać żarty/dowcipy = “to tell jokes”
mówić – “to say, to speak”
Very general: mówić prawdę, mówić po polsku, mówić coś komuś
In this sentence, telling jokes is best with opowiadać:
- rodzina opowiada mi żarty (very natural)
- rodzina mówi mi żarty (understandable but unnatural/odd)
Yes, Polish word order is relatively flexible, and these variants are acceptable:
- Mam gorszy nastrój, kiedy jestem chory, chociaż rodzina opowiada mi żarty.
- Kiedy jestem chory, mam gorszy nastrój, chociaż mi rodzina opowiada żarty.
Notes:
- Moving mi (clitic) around is possible: rodzina mi opowiada żarty / rodzina opowiada mi żarty / chociaż mi rodzina opowiada żarty. All are grammatical; they just change subtle emphasis.
- The basic, neutral word order is the original:
…chociaż rodzina opowiada mi żarty.
Yes, this is also natural, with slight nuances:
- zły nastrój – “a bad mood” (not explicitly comparative)
- dowcipy – another common word for “jokes” (often a bit more like “gags”/“punchline jokes”)
So:
- Kiedy jestem chory, mam zły nastrój, chociaż rodzina opowiada mi dowcipy.
is correct and sounds fine.
Your original sentence with gorszy nastrój highlights the comparison (“worse than usual”), while zły nastrój just states that the mood is bad.