Breakdown of Ten film jest gorszy niż wczorajszy serial.
Questions & Answers about Ten film jest gorszy niż wczorajszy serial.
In Polish, nouns have grammatical gender, and demonstratives must agree with that gender.
- film is masculine.
- The masculine singular form of “this/that” is ten.
- Feminine would be ta, neuter to.
So you say:
- ten film – this/that film (masc.)
- ta książka – this/that book (fem.)
- to dziecko – this/that child (neut.)
Using ta film is wrong because ta is feminine but film is masculine.
You can also say just Film jest gorszy… without ten. Then it means “The film / A film is worse…”, with the exact nuance (“the” vs “a”) coming from context, not from any article (Polish has no articles). Ten adds clarity and often a bit of contrast: this specific film, not some other one.
Both are demonstratives, but they suggest different “distance”:
- ten film – this film (physically near, or mentally “in focus” in the conversation).
- tamten film – that film (more distant: physically over there, or something mentioned before but not currently in focus, or contrasted with “this one”).
Example:
- Ten film jest gorszy niż tamten serial.
This film is worse than that series (over there / the other one).
In your sentence, ten simply points to the film you’re currently talking about, like “this / that film” in English, depending on context.
Polish distinguishes between:
Adjective comparatives (describe nouns):
gorszy – worse (as an adjective)
Used when something is worse:- Ten film jest gorszy. – This film is worse.
Adverb comparatives (describe verbs, how something is done):
gorzej – worse (as an adverb)
Used when someone does something worse:- On gra gorzej niż ona. – He plays worse than her.
In your sentence, worse describes the film (a noun), not how it “does” something. So you must use the adjective form:
- Ten film jest gorszy (not gorzej).
With adjectives after być (jest), Polish normally uses the nominative case, not instrumental:
- Ten film jest gorszy. – This film is worse.
(nominative: gorszy)
The instrumental case is used mainly with nouns indicating role, profession, function, etc.:
- On jest lekarzem. – He is a doctor. (instrumental: lekarzem)
- Ona jest nauczycielką. – She is a teacher.
So:
- Adjective after jest: nominative – gorszy, dobry, ciekawy…
- Noun after jest: usually instrumental – lekarzem, studentem, bohaterem…
That’s why gorszy (nominative) is correct, not gorszym.
The base adjective is:
- zły – bad
Its degrees are irregular:
- zły – bad
- gorszy – worse
- najgorszy – the worst
So gorszy is the comparative of zły, just like worse is the comparative of bad in English.
In the sentence:
- Ten film jest gorszy niż wczorajszy serial.
You literally have: This film is *more-bad than yesterday’s series.*
Both patterns are correct, but they work slightly differently:
gorszy niż + nominative
- Ten film jest gorszy niż wczorajszy serial.
- Literally: worse than yesterday’s series.
- After niż, you normally keep the same case as the thing you’re comparing with (here: nominative).
gorszy od + genitive
- Ten film jest gorszy od wczorajszego serialu.
- Here od (“from/than”) takes the genitive: wczorajszego serialu.
Both sentences are natural and standard. In practice:
- gorszy niż… is slightly more “purely comparative” and very common.
- gorszy od… is also very common, especially in speech.
For a learner, you can safely use gorszy niż + [same form as subject] or learn both patterns in parallel.
In:
- Ten film jest gorszy niż wczorajszy serial.
both ten film and wczorajszy serial are in the nominative singular masculine.
Reason:
- Subject: ten film – nominative.
- Predicate adjective: gorszy – nominative, agreeing with film.
- After niż in this kind of comparison, you typically use the same case as the thing you’re comparing with.
Think of it as a shortened clause:
Ten film jest gorszy niż (jest) wczorajszy serial.
So wczorajszy serial also appears in nominative.
wczorajszy is an adjective formed from wczoraj (yesterday).
It means “yesterday’s” and behaves like any regular adjective:- wczorajszy serial – yesterday’s series (masc.)
- wczorajsza gazeta – yesterday’s newspaper (fem.)
- wczorajsze spotkanie – yesterday’s meeting (neut.)
serial z wczoraj literally means “the series from yesterday”.
It’s a prepositional phrase (z wczoraj) instead of a single adjective.
Both are correct and common:
- Ten film jest gorszy niż wczorajszy serial.
- Ten film jest gorszy niż serial z wczoraj.
wczorajszy serial is a bit more compact and sounds slightly more “adjectival”/standard; serial z wczoraj is a bit more colloquial and explicit. In many contexts they are interchangeable.
In Polish, adjectives almost always come before the noun:
- wczorajszy serial – yesterday’s series
- dobry film – a good film
- ciekawa książka – an interesting book
Putting the adjective after the noun is rare and usually:
- very poetic or stylistically marked, or
- used for strong contrast/emphasis in certain set phrases.
So something like serial wczorajszy would sound unusual or literary, not normal everyday speech.
For regular communication, always put wczorajszy before serial.
Polish serial almost always means a TV series / TV show, i.e. something broadcast in episodes:
- serial kryminalny – crime series
- serial komediowy – comedy series
- oglądać serial – to watch a (TV) series
It usually does not mean “serial number” or “in a series of numbers” the way English “serial” can. For “serial number” Polish uses numer seryjny.
So in your sentence, wczorajszy serial is “yesterday’s TV series / TV show (episode)”, depending on context.