Breakdown of Na zdjęciu widać jej zmęczoną twarz i szeroki uśmiech.
Questions & Answers about Na zdjęciu widać jej zmęczoną twarz i szeroki uśmiech.
Widać is an impersonal verb form that literally means is visible or can be seen.
In this sentence:
- Na zdjęciu widać jej zmęczoną twarz i szeroki uśmiech.
= In the photo, her tired face and wide smile can be seen / are visible.
There is no grammatical subject (no ja, ty, my etc.). Polish often uses impersonal constructions where English would say you can see, we can see, or they can see. The verb widać itself already contains the idea one can see / it is possible to see, so you do not add a subject pronoun.
You could add one with another verb, e.g. Widzimy na zdjęciu... (we see…), but widać on its own is perfectly normal and very common.
Both zmęczoną twarz and szeroki uśmiech are in the accusative case, because they are the things that are seen (the “objects” of widać).
Breakdown:
twarz – face, feminine noun
- nominative: twarz
- accusative: twarz (same form as nominative for many feminine nouns)
- adjective in accusative feminine: zmęczoną
→ zmęczoną twarz = tired face (object, accusative)
uśmiech – smile, masculine inanimate noun
- nominative: uśmiech
- accusative: uśmiech (for masculine inanimate, accusative = nominative)
- adjective in accusative masculine inanimate: szeroki
→ szeroki uśmiech = wide smile (object, accusative)
So the sentence is literally:
Na zdjęciu widać [ACC] jej zmęczoną twarz i [ACC] szeroki uśmiech.
The different endings come from gender and case agreement:
twarz is feminine, accusative singular
- feminine adjective accusative singular ends in -ą
- → zmęczoną twarz
uśmiech is masculine inanimate, accusative singular
- for masculine inanimate, accusative looks like nominative
- typical nominative/accusative ending is -y / -i
- → szeroki uśmiech
So:
- feminine accusative: zmęczoną
- masculine inanimate accusative: szeroki
Both adjectives are in accusative, but they “look” different because they match different noun genders.
Jej means her (someone else’s).
Swój / swoją is reflexive – it refers back to the subject of the sentence (my own, your own, his own, her own, etc., depending on who the subject is).
In our sentence with widać, there is no subject:
- Na zdjęciu widać jej zmęczoną twarz…
There is no grammatical subject controlling the verb, so we cannot use reflexive swoją. We must use a normal possessive: jej = her.
Example where swoją is correct:
- Na zdjęciu pokazuje swoją zmęczoną twarz.
In the photo, she shows her (own) tired face.
Subject: ona (she), so swoją refers back to the subject.
So:
- No subject (impersonal widać) → use jej.
- Clear subject who owns the thing → normally use swój/swoja/swoje instead of jego/jej when it’s the subject’s own.
No, in this sentence zmęczona would be ungrammatical.
The adjective has to match both:
- Gender of the noun (twarz – feminine)
- Case of the noun (twarz is accusative here)
Feminine nominative: zmęczona
Feminine accusative: zmęczoną
We are not describing the subject (her face is tired), but the object of seeing (you can see her tired face), so we need the accusative:
- (Widać) jej zmęczoną twarz. ✅
- (Widać) jej zmęczona twarz. ❌
If you changed the structure so that twarz is the subject, then zmęczona would be correct:
- Jej twarz jest zmęczona. – Her face is tired.
Yes, you can say:
- Na zdjęciu widzimy jej zmęczoną twarz i szeroki uśmiech.
This means In the photo we see her tired face and wide smile.
The difference:
- widać – impersonal, neutral; focuses on what is visible, without saying who sees it.
- widzimy – personal, 1st person plural; explicitly says that we see it.
Both are natural, but Na zdjęciu widać… sounds slightly more descriptive/neutral (typical in captions, narratives), while Na zdjęciu widzimy… emphasizes the viewer (we).
You can say Na zdjęciu jest jej zmęczona twarz, but it sounds somewhat odd or too literal, like there exists her tired face in the photo. Native speakers strongly prefer widać when talking about what you see in a photo or picture.
Typical, natural options:
- Na zdjęciu widać jej zmęczoną twarz i szeroki uśmiech. ✅
- Na zdjęciu widzimy jej zmęczoną twarz i szeroki uśmiech. ✅
Na zdjęciu jest… is more natural when you name who / what is there as an entity, not as something you see:
- Na zdjęciu jest moja rodzina. – My family is in the photo. (OK)
But with twarz and uśmiech as “visible features”, widać feels much better.
The word order is not strictly fixed. Both are grammatically correct:
- Na zdjęciu widać jej zmęczoną twarz i szeroki uśmiech.
- Widać na zdjęciu jej zmęczoną twarz i szeroki uśmiech.
The difference is mostly about rhythm and emphasis:
- Starting with Na zdjęciu sets the scene first (In the photo...), then tells you what is visible.
- Starting with Widać slightly emphasizes the fact of visibility first (One can see... in the photo...).
In everyday speech and writing, Na zdjęciu widać… is extremely common and sounds very natural, especially in captions or descriptions.
Zdjęciu is the locative singular form of zdjęcie (photo).
The preposition na can be followed by:
locative → usually meaning on/in (where?)
- na zdjęciu – in the photo (location)
- na stole – on the table
accusative → usually meaning onto (where to?)
- na zdjęcie – would mean onto the photo (direction), e.g. put it onto the photo, which is not the meaning here.
We are talking about where something is visible – in the photo – so we use na + locative → na zdjęciu.
Yes, you can swap the order:
- Na zdjęciu widać jej zmęczoną twarz i szeroki uśmiech.
- Na zdjęciu widać jej szeroki uśmiech i zmęczoną twarz.
Both are correct and have essentially the same meaning.
Subtle nuance: in Polish (as in English), items mentioned earlier often feel slightly more prominent or more “foregrounded”. So:
- First version may very slightly highlight the tired face.
- Second version may very slightly highlight the wide smile.
But grammatically and semantically they are equivalent; the choice is mostly stylistic.
Some approximate guides for an English speaker:
Na zdjęciu – roughly na ZDJEŃ-chu
- zdj like zd
- soft dj (similar to “d” in duke when pronounced dyook)
- ę before ć sounds like en but nasal and very short
- ciu = soft chu, close to “chyoo”
- zdj like zd
zmęczoną – roughly zmen-CHO-nohn
- zm as in “zmore” (z + m together)
- ę again nasal, like very short en
- cz = ch in church
- final -ą is nasal, like a very short om/on, but usually not fully pronounced as -om
uśmiech – roughly OOSH-myech
- u = “oo” in food
- ś = soft “sh”, tongue more towards the middle of the palate
- ch = German ch in Bach, a voiceless velar fricative (not like English ch)
Polish stress is almost always on the second-to-last syllable:
- na ZDJE-ciu
- zmę-CZO-ną
- U-śmiech (only two syllables, so stress the first).