Learn Hardcore Polish: W weekend budzę się później i słyszę tylko śpiew ptaków, a nie hałas ulicy. - On the weekend I wake up later and hear only the singing of birds, not the noise of the street.

W weekend – very common in everyday speech; means “on/at the weekend” in general.
W weekendy – literally “on weekends”, emphasizing every or most weekends (repeated action).
W weekendzie – more formal or less common; can sound like “during the weekend” in a more specific sense.

In your sentence:

W weekend budzę się później…
“On the weekend I wake up later…”

the speaker means “on weekends in general” in a conversational way, so w weekend is perfectly natural. You could say w weekendy budzę się później to stress regularity (every weekend), but w weekend is what many natives say in casual speech.

What does budzę się mean exactly, and why is się there?

Budzę się comes from the verb budzić się – “to wake up” (reflexive).

budzić (without się) – “to wake (someone) up”
- Budzę dzieci. – “I wake the children up.”
budzić się – “to wake up (oneself)”, i.e. you are the one who wakes

The -ę ending in budzę shows 1st person singular, present tense (“I wake”).
Się makes it reflexive: “I wake up.”

So budzę się = “I (myself) wake up.”
Polish uses reflexive verbs a lot where English just says “wake up” without “myself”.

Why is it budzę się and not a past tense like obudziłem się, if the sentence talks about weekends in general?

Polish, like English, uses the present tense for habits and repeated actions:

W weekend budzę się później.
“On weekends I wake up later.” (habit / general truth)

The verb budzić się is imperfective (focus on the process or repeated action). For a single completed event, you would normally use the perfective:

Obudziłem się później (m.) / Obudziłam się później (f.) –
“I woke up later (that one time).”

So:

Habit / repeated: budzę się (present, imperfective)
One specific past event: obudziłem/obudziłam się (past, perfective)

In your sentence, it’s clearly about a regular weekend habit, so budzę się is correct.

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

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

budzę ends in -ę, which clearly marks 1st person singular → “I wake”.
słyszę also ends in -ę → “I hear”.

So:

W weekend budzę się później i słyszę tylko śpiew ptaków…

already means “On the weekend I wake up later and I hear only the singing of birds…”.

You would add ja only for emphasis or contrast, e.g.:

Ja w weekend budzę się później, a ona wstaje wcześnie.
“I wake up later on weekends, but she gets up early.”

Why is it śpiew ptaków and not just ptaki or śpiew ptaki?

Śpiew ptaków literally means “the singing of birds” / “birds’ singing”.

Grammatically:

śpiew – nominative singular (subject or direct object): “singing, song”
ptaków – genitive plural of ptak (“bird”)

Polish often uses [noun] + [genitive] to mean “X of Y”:

śpiew ptaków – singing of birds
dach domu – roof of the house
kolor nieba – color of the sky

If you used ptaki (nominative plural), it would mean “birds” as a subject, not “birds’ singing”:

Słyszę ptaki. – “I hear (the) birds.”
Słyszę śpiew ptaków. – “I hear (the) birds’ singing.”

So śpiew ptaków is the natural way to say “the singing of birds.”

Why is it ptaków and ulicy? What cases are these?

Both ptaków and ulicy are in the genitive case, used here to show possession or ‘of’ relationships:

śpiew ptaków – “the singing of birds”
- ptaków = genitive plural of ptak (“bird”)
hałas ulicy – “the noise of the street” / “street noise”
- ulicy = genitive singular of ulica (“street”)

Pattern:

śpiew (nominative) + ptaków (genitive) → “singing of birds”
hałas (nominative) + ulicy (genitive) → “noise of the street”

This is very common:

drzwi samochodu – the door of the car
okna domu – the windows of the house

Why hałas ulicy and not something like hałas ulic or hałas z ulicy?

All three are possible, but they feel a bit different:

hałas ulicy – literally “the noise of the street”; generic “street noise” as one concept.
hałas ulic – “the noise of (the) streets”; more literal, emphasizing multiple streets.
hałas z ulicy – “noise from the street”; focuses on the source/origin.

In your sentence:

…i słyszę tylko śpiew ptaków, a nie hałas ulicy.

this contrasts two types of sounds:

śpiew ptaków – birds’ singing
hałas ulicy – street noise (as a type of noise)

So hałas ulicy sounds most natural and nicely parallel to śpiew ptaków.

What does tylko do here, and where can it go in the sentence?

Tylko means “only” / “just”. Here it limits what is heard:

słyszę tylko śpiew ptaków – “I hear only the singing of birds.”

Other possible positions:

Tylko śpiew ptaków słyszę. – Focus on “only the birds’ singing” (more contrastive).
Słyszę śpiew ptaków tylko w weekend. – “I hear the singing of birds only on the weekend.” (now tylko limits “w weekend”)

In your sentence, tylko is right before śpiew ptaków, so it clearly means:

the only thing I hear is birds’ singing (and not street noise).

What is the difference between a nie and something like i nie or ale nie here?

In this sentence:

…słyszę tylko śpiew ptaków, a nie hałas ulicy.

a nie works like “and not / rather than / instead of” to show contrast between two things:

I hear only birds’ singing, and not (instead of) street noise.

Rough guide:

i nie – “and not” in a neutral continuation (less contrastive)
ale nie – “but not”, stronger opposition
a nie – a soft contrast / instead of feel, very natural in such comparisons

For direct English feel here, “but not street noise” or “and not street noise” both work, and a nie nicely captures that contrast.

Why is there a comma before a in …, a nie hałas ulicy?

In Polish, you normally put a comma before the conjunction a when it connects:

two clauses, or
two parallel parts in a contrast.

Here:

…słyszę tylko śpiew ptaków, a nie hałas ulicy.

The comma before a marks the contrast between:

śpiew ptaków – birds’ singing
and
hałas ulicy – street noise

So the comma is obligatory: it signals “here comes a contrasting element introduced by a.”

Can I change the word order, for example saying Słyszę tylko ptaków śpiew or moving w weekend?

Polish word order is flexible, but not all orders are equally natural.

Time phrase placement

All of these are possible, with slightly different emphasis:

W weekend budzę się później… – very natural; time at the beginning.
Budzę się w weekend później… – okay, but less typical in this exact sentence.
Budzę się później w weekend… – also possible; emphasizes “later.”

Object & modifier

Natural:

Słyszę tylko śpiew ptaków.

Less natural / odd:

*Słyszę tylko ptaków śpiew. – grammatically possible but sounds poetic or old-fashioned at best; not normal everyday word order.

So for standard usage, keep:

W weekend budzę się później i słyszę tylko śpiew ptaków, a nie hałas ulicy.

Why is it później and not późno?

późno – “late” (adverb)
później – comparative: “later”

Your sentence describes waking up later than usual / later than on weekdays, so the comparative is right:

W weekend budzę się późno. – “On the weekend I wake up late.” (statement of time)
W weekend budzę się później. – “On the weekend I wake up later (than on other days).”

The English translation “later” suggests a comparison, so później is the logical choice.

How should I pronounce some of these tricky words, like budzę, słyszę, ptaków, ulicy?

Approximate English-friendly hints (not exact IPA):

budzę – BOO-jeh
- dz is like the ds in “kids” but smoother, often close to j in “jam”
słyszę – roughly SWI-sheh
- ł is like English w
- ś is like a soft sh (tongue more to the front)
- sz is a harder sh (as in “shark”)
ptaków – PTAH-koof
- pt is really pronounced together, not split with a vowel in between
- ó sounds like u in “rude”
ulicy – oo-LEE-tsih
- c is like ts in “cats”

The key things for learners:

ł = w sound
c = ts
ó = u sound
ś / sz are both “sh”-like, but ś is softer and more “palatal.”