Chcę pracować na etat, a nie tylko kilka godzin w tygodniu.

After chcieć (to want), Polish normally uses the infinitive of the second verb, just like English:

Chcę pracować = I want to work
Chcę odpocząć = I want to rest
Chcę iść = I want to go

So pracować stays in the infinitive because it depends on chcę.

Chcę is the 1st person singular present tense form of chcieć (to want), so it means I want.

Some present-tense forms are:

• chcę = I want
• chcesz = you want
• chce = he/she/it wants
• chcemy = we want
• chcecie = you want
• chcą = they want

So the sentence starts with Chcę... because the speaker is saying what I want.

Na etat is an employment expression. It means working in a regular, established position, usually understood as full-time employment or a standard salaried job, depending on context.

Very often you will also hear:

• na pełen etat = full-time
• na pół etatu = half-time / part-time

In this sentence, na etat contrasts with tylko kilka godzin w tygodniu, so the idea is that the speaker wants a regular full-time job, not just a few hours a week.

Here na takes the accusative.

The expression is pracować na etat / na pełen etat. In this sentence, etat is masculine inanimate, and in the singular its accusative form looks the same as the nominative, so you do not see a change.

You can see the accusative more clearly in:

• na pełen etat
  not na pełny etat in the standard fixed phrase

So even though etat looks unchanged, grammatically it is functioning as accusative after na.

Both a and ale can contrast ideas, but a is often the more natural choice when you are simply setting one option against another.

Here the structure is:

Chcę pracować na etat, a nie tylko kilka godzin w tygodniu.

This means something like:

I want to work full-time, rather than just a few hours a week.

Using a nie creates a neat contrast: this, not that.

Ale often sounds stronger, more like but in the sense of contradiction or objection. In this sentence, a nie is the usual and smoother choice.

In Polish, a comma is normally used before the conjunction a when it connects two contrasting parts of a sentence.

So:

Chcę pracować na etat, a nie tylko kilka godzin w tygodniu.

That comma is standard punctuation.

Because kilka (a few / several) requires the genitive plural.

The noun is godzina (hour).
Its genitive plural form is godzin.

So:

• kilka godzin = a few hours
• pięć godzin = five hours
• dużo godzin = many hours

This is a very important Polish pattern: after quantity words like kilka, you often need the genitive plural.

Because w here means in or within, and after w Polish usually uses the locative case when talking about location or time within something.

The noun is tydzień (week).
The locative singular is tygodniu.

So:

• w tygodniu = in the week / during the week / per week in this context

In this sentence, kilka godzin w tygodniu is the natural way to say a few hours a week.

Yes. Kilka godzin tygodniowo is also correct and natural.

Compare:

• kilka godzin w tygodniu = a few hours a week
• kilka godzin tygodniowo = a few hours weekly

They are very close in meaning.
Tygodniowo is a bit more compact and adverb-like, while w tygodniu feels slightly more literal. Both work well.

Not always perfectly. It often corresponds to full-time in everyday translation, especially in a sentence like this, but the Polish expression also carries the idea of a regular employment position.

So depending on context, na etat can suggest:

• full-time work
• a regular salaried position
• employment as a staff member rather than occasional hourly work

That is why the contrast with tylko kilka godzin w tygodniu is important: it tells you the speaker means a proper regular job, not just limited hourly work.

Yes, and that would be very common:

Chcę pracować na pełen etat, a nie tylko kilka godzin w tygodniu.

This sounds slightly more explicit than na etat, because pełen makes the full-time idea unmistakable.

So:

• na etat = on a regular/full-time basis, depending on context
• na pełen etat = full-time, very explicit
• na pół etatu = part-time / half-time

You would put nie before chcę:

Nie chcę pracować na etat, a tylko kilka godzin w tygodniu.

That means I don’t want to work full-time, only a few hours a week.

Notice that the original sentence is not fully negative. It is affirmative at the start:

Chcę pracować na etat...

and then it rejects the alternative:

...a nie tylko kilka godzin w tygodniu.

So the original is more like I want X, not just Y.