Learn Hardcore Polish: Dzisiaj boli mnie ręka.

Formality/emphasis
- mnie – full, stressed form (more emphatic or neutral)
- mi – clitic, unstressed form, common in everyday speech
Position in the sentence
- At the beginning or in a strongly stressed position, you usually use mnie.
- In the middle of the sentence, especially after the verb, mi is very common.

In your sentence:

Boli mnie ręka. – very standard, neutral.
Boli mi ręka. – used in colloquial speech, but many teachers mark it as less correct or regional. Safest is “Boli mnie ręka.”

Grammatically, here “mnie” is the accusative form of “ja” (I):
ja → mnie (acc./gen.), mi/mnie (dat.)

Why is it “ręka” and not “rękę”? Shouldn’t a direct object be accusative?

With boleć, Polish uses this pattern:

coś kogoś boli
something hurts someone

coś (something that hurts) = subject → nominative
kogoś (person who feels the pain) = object → accusative

In Dzisiaj boli mnie ręka:

ręka is what hurts → nominative (dictionary form)
mnie is whom it hurts → accusative (same form as genitive for ja)

So:

Boli mnie ręka. = “My arm/hand hurts (me).”
Ręka mnie boli. = literally “The arm hurts me.”

You do not say “Boli mnie rękę” – that would be ungrammatical.

Why don’t we say “Moja ręka”? Where is “my” in this sentence?

In Polish, with body parts and close personal belongings, the possessive pronoun is often omitted if it’s obvious whose body part it is.

So:

Boli mnie ręka. literally: “An arm hurts me.”
But by default it means “My arm hurts.”

You only add moja / moje / mój if you need to contrast or emphasize:

Boli mnie prawa ręka, nie lewa. – My right arm hurts, not my left.
Boli mnie moja ręka, nie twoja. – My arm hurts, not yours.

In normal, neutral sentences about your own body, you usually skip moja.

What is the difference between “dzisiaj” and “dziś”?

Both mean “today” and are interchangeable in this sentence.

dzisiaj – slightly more common in everyday speech.
dziś – a bit shorter; feels a touch more literary or stylistic, but is also widely used in normal speech.

You can say:

Dzisiaj boli mnie ręka.
Dziś boli mnie ręka.

Both are correct and natural.

Where can I put “dzisiaj” in the sentence? Is the position fixed?

It’s flexible. All of these are acceptable, with subtle differences in emphasis:

Dzisiaj boli mnie ręka. – neutral, “Today, my arm hurts.”
Dzisiaj mnie boli ręka. – light emphasis on me.
Boli mnie dzisiaj ręka. – neutral, very natural.
Ręka mnie dzisiaj boli. – more emphasis on ręka (the arm).
Dzisiaj ręka mnie boli. – also possible, somewhat conversational.

Meaning stays the same; word order mainly affects what you emphasize.

How would I say “My hands/arms hurt” (plural)?

Just change the noun and the verb to plural:

Boli mnie ręka. – One arm/hand hurts.
Bolą mnie ręce. – Both arms/hands hurt.

Pattern:

boleć (to hurt) changes:
- boli – 3rd person singular
- bolą – 3rd person plural

Other examples:

Boli mnie ząb. – One tooth hurts.
Bolą mnie zęby. – My teeth hurt.

How do I ask someone “Does your arm hurt today?” using the same structure?

Replace mnie (“me”) with cię (“you” – informal, singular):

Czy dziś boli cię ręka?
or more neutral word order:
Czy dziś ręka cię boli?

Other useful forms:

Boli cię ręka? – Does your arm hurt? (informal)
Boli pana/panią ręka? – Does your arm hurt, sir/ma’am? (formal)

Is “boleć” only for physical pain, or can it be used figuratively too?

It can be used for both physical and emotional/figurative pain.

Physical:

Boli mnie głowa. – I have a headache.
Bolą mnie plecy. – My back hurts.

Figurative:

Boli mnie to, co powiedział. – It hurts me, what he said.
Boli mnie jego obojętność. – His indifference hurts me.

Your sentence Dzisiaj boli mnie ręka is clearly about physical pain, because it names a body part.

Is there a more “medical” or formal way to say this, like English “I have pain in my arm”?

Spontaneous, natural Polish is:

Boli mnie ręka.

You can make it sound more clinical or descriptive:

Odczuwam ból ręki. – I feel pain in the arm. (formal/medical style)
Mam ból ręki. – grammatically possible but sounds stiff and unnatural in everyday speech; more like something from a written medical description.

In conversation with a doctor, you’d normally just say:

Panie doktorze, boli mnie ręka od wczoraj. – Doctor, my arm has been hurting since yesterday.

How do you pronounce “dzisiaj” and “ręka”?

Approximate pronunciation:

dzisiaj → roughly “JEE-shy”
- dzi before a vowel sounds like soft “jee”
- stress on the first syllable: DZI-siaj
ręka → roughly “REN-kah”
- ę is a nasal vowel, similar to “en” in French “en” or English “hen”, but nasalised
- stress on the first syllable: RĘ-ka

Polish always stresses the second-from-last (penultimate) syllable in regular words, so:

DZIsiaj, RĘka, BOli.

How do I say this in the past or future, like “Yesterday my arm hurt” or “Tomorrow my arm will hurt”?

Change the tense of boleć and the time word:

Yesterday my arm hurt.
→ Wczoraj bolała mnie ręka.
(feminine past: bolała, because ręka is feminine)
Tomorrow my arm will hurt.
→ Jutro będzie mnie bolała ręka.
(future of być
- infinitive: będzie bolała)

Basic pattern:

Present: Boli mnie ręka.
Past: Bolała mnie ręka.
Future: Będzie mnie bolała ręka.

Why is “ręka” sometimes translated as “arm” and sometimes as “hand”?

In Polish, ręka covers both what English splits into:

hand
arm

Context decides the best English translation:

Boli mnie ręka. – could be either my arm or my hand hurts; usually understood from context or gesture.
If you need to be very specific:
- dłoń – palm/hand itself
- ramię – upper arm/shoulder area

But in everyday speech, ręka is used broadly.