Learn Hardcore Polish: Wieczorem widzę świecący przycisk w windzie. - In the evening I see the shining button in the elevator.

Wieczorem is the instrumental form of wieczór (evening), and in practice it often works like an adverb meaning “in the evening / at night (evening time)”.

wieczór – nominative (basic dictionary form)
wieczorem – instrumental; very commonly used for time expressions

Polish often uses the instrumental case (without a preposition) to say “in/at [part of the day]”:

rano – in the morning (irregular form, but same idea)
po południu – in the afternoon (here with a preposition)
wieczorem – in the evening
nocą – at night

You could say w wieczór, but it sounds unnatural in this kind of sentence. Wieczorem is the normal, idiomatic choice to express time here.

Why does the sentence start with Wieczorem? Could I also say Widzę świecący przycisk w windzie wieczorem?

Yes, you can move wieczorem around. Polish word order is quite flexible. All of these are grammatically correct:

Wieczorem widzę świecący przycisk w windzie.
Widzę wieczorem świecący przycisk w windzie.
Widzę świecący przycisk w windzie wieczorem.

Placing Wieczorem at the beginning puts a bit more emphasis on the time frame, like:

“In the evening, I see a glowing button in the elevator.”

Putting wieczorem at the end makes it sound more like extra information added after the main statement. The basic meaning is the same; the difference is nuance and emphasis, not grammar.

What exactly is widzę? How is it different from zobaczę or widziałem?

Widzę is:

1st person singular
present tense
imperfective aspect
from the verb widzieć – “to see”

So widzę = “I see / I am seeing” (right now, or generally).

Other related forms:

zobaczę – future tense, perfective aspect of zobaczyć
- “I will see (at some point, once)”
zobaczyłem / zobaczyłam – past tense, perfective
- “I (male / female) saw (once / at a specific moment)”
widziałem / widziałam – past tense, imperfective
- “I was seeing / I used to see / I saw (but with focus on duration or repetition)”

In this sentence the speaker is describing what they see in the evening in a neutral, non-completed way, so widzę (present, imperfective) is the natural choice.

What is świecący grammatically? Why does it end in -ący?

Świecący is a present active adjectival participle formed from the verb świecić (to shine / to glow).

Formation:

verb świecić → stem świec-
participle ending -ący for masculine singular → świecący

Function:

It behaves like an adjective, describing a noun:
- świecący przycisk – a glowing button
- świecąca lampka – a glowing (small) lamp (feminine)
- świecące okno – a lit window (neuter)

So świecący means “shining / glowing / lit (up)” and agrees in gender, number, and case with przycisk.

Why is it świecący przycisk, not przycisk świecący? Can I put świecący after the noun?

Both:

świecący przycisk
przycisk świecący

are grammatically correct.

Default position:
Adjectives (and participles used like adjectives) usually come before the noun, so świecący przycisk is the neutral, most common order.

After the noun:
Putting it after the noun (przycisk świecący) often gives it a slightly more descriptive / explanatory or poetic feel, like:

“the button, the glowing one”
“the button, which is glowing”

In everyday speech here, świecący przycisk is more natural.

Why doesn’t przycisk change its form? How do I know which case it is?

Przycisk (button) is:

masculine
inanimate
singular

In Polish, masculine inanimate nouns have the same form for:

nominative singular (subject)
accusative singular (direct object)

Here przycisk is the direct object of widzę, so it is in the accusative case, but it looks the same as in the dictionary.

Compare:

(Ja) widzę przycisk. – I see a button. (accusative)
Przycisk jest czerwony. – The button is red. (nominative)

The form is identical; you understand the case from the role in the sentence (object of widzę).

Why is it w windzie and not something like w winda or w windą?

The preposition w (“in”) normally takes:

locative case – when something is inside / in a place (no movement into)
accusative case – when there is movement into a place

Here, we are just saying “in the elevator”, describing location, so we use locative.

Declension of winda (elevator), singular:

nominative: winda (dictionary form)
locative: w windzie → after w (with no motion), use this form

So:

w windzie – in the elevator (locative, static)
wchodzę w windę – I’m entering the elevator (accusative, motion into) – though more natural is wchodzę do windy (“I enter the elevator”)

W winda and w windą are ungrammatical in this context.

Why does winda change to windzie? Where does the -zie come from?

The change winda → windzie is due to the locative case ending and a typical consonant softening:

Stem: wind-
Locative ending for many feminine nouns: -zie

So:

winda (nominative) → windzie (locative)

The d becomes dź (spelled dz) before -ie, which is a common sound change in Polish.

Other similar patterns:

gwiazda → gwieździe (star → in the star)
woda → wodzie (water → in the water)

So w windzie simply means “in the elevator”, using the regular feminine-locative pattern.

How do I know if świecący przycisk means “a glowing button” or “the glowing button”? There’s no article.

Polish has no articles (a, an, the), so:

świecący przycisk can be translated as:
- a glowing button
- the glowing button

The choice depends on context, not on the Polish form. English must choose an article; Polish does not.

If you really want to stress that it is “the” specific one, you can add demonstratives:

ten świecący przycisk – this / that glowing button

If you want to suggest “some (unspecified) glowing button”, you might say:

jakiś świecący przycisk – some / some kind of glowing button

But the base form świecący przycisk is neutral and can match both a and the in English depending on the situation.

Does Wieczorem widzę… mean I do this every evening, or just one particular evening?

On its own, Wieczorem widzę świecący przycisk w windzie is somewhat ambiguous and can be understood as:

describing a typical / repeated situation (“In the evenings / at night, I see a glowing button…”), or
describing a specific evening that is being talked about in context.

To make it clearly habitual / repeated, you might say:

Wieczorami widzę świecący przycisk w windzie. – In the evenings I see a glowing button in the elevator.
Co wieczór widzę… – Every evening I see…

To make it clearly one specific evening, you would typically add more context or use past tense:

Wieczorem zobaczyłem świecący przycisk w windzie. – In the evening I saw a glowing button in the elevator.

Could I say w windzie widzę świecący przycisk instead? Does the word order change the meaning?

You can absolutely say:

W windzie widzę świecący przycisk wieczorem.
Wieczorem w windzie widzę świecący przycisk.

In Polish, changing word order mostly changes emphasis, not core meaning.

Wieczorem widzę świecący przycisk w windzie.
– First emphasis on time (“In the evening…”).
W windzie widzę świecący przycisk wieczorem.
– First emphasis on place (“In the elevator, I see a glowing button in the evening.”).

All of these are grammatically correct; context decides which sounds more natural.

Could I drop the preposition and say widzę świecący przycisk windzie?

No, that would be ungrammatical.

In this meaning, “in the elevator”, Polish must use a preposition:

w windzie – in the elevator

The noun alone (windzie) without w would be understood as:

some other syntactic function (e.g. an indirect object in some verbs), or
simply incorrect in this particular sentence.

So you need the full phrase w windzie to express location “in the elevator”.