Znam dobry skrót do pracy, ale zimą wolę główną ulicę.

In Polish, znać and wiedzieć are not used the same way.

• znać = to know someone/something by familiarity
• wiedzieć = to know a fact or piece of information

Here the speaker is familiar with a route, so znam is the natural choice.
You can say Znam ten skrót = I know this shortcut, but Wiem ten skrót is not correct.

Because znać takes the accusative, but skrót is a masculine inanimate noun. In the singular, masculine inanimate nouns usually have the same form in nominative and accusative.

So:

• nominative: dobry skrót
• accusative: dobry skrót

The case is still accusative here, even though the form does not change.

A useful comparison:

• Widzę dobry film = same-looking accusative
• but
• Widzę dobrego lekarza = masculine animate, so the form changes

Yes, skrót can mean both:

• abbreviation
• shortcut

The context tells you which meaning is intended.
In skrót do pracy, it clearly means a shortcut on the way to work.

Examples:

• skrót od słowa = abbreviation of a word
• skrót do pracy = shortcut to work

Because do requires the genitive case.

The base form is praca, but after do it becomes pracy:

• praca → nominative
• do pracy → genitive

This is the normal way to say to work in the sense of to the workplace or on the way to work.

So skrót do pracy means a shortcut to work, not a shortcut for doing work.

Zimą is a very common Polish way to say in winter. It uses the instrumental case in an adverbial time expression.

This pattern is very common with seasons:

• zimą = in winter
• latem = in summer
• jesienią = in autumn
• wiosną = in spring

You can also say w zimie, and it is natural too.
But zimą is short, common, and very idiomatic.

What you cannot say is w zimą, because after w you would need a different case.

Wolę is the 1st person singular present tense of woleć, which means to prefer.

So:

• woleć = infinitive
• wolę = I prefer

This verb may look a little irregular to learners because the infinitive and some present-tense forms do not match as neatly as in some other verbs.

A few forms:

• wolę = I prefer
• wolisz = you prefer
• woli = he/she prefers

Because woleć takes the accusative case, and ulica is a feminine noun.

So both the adjective and the noun change:

• nominative: główna ulica
• accusative: główną ulicę

This is why the sentence has wolę główną ulicę.

A similar example:

• Mam nową książkę
• nominative would be nowa książka

In Polish, adjectives must agree with the nouns they describe in:

• gender
• number
• case

Since ulicę is feminine singular accusative, the adjective must match it:

• główna → feminine singular nominative
• główną → feminine singular accusative
• ulica → nominative
• ulicę → accusative

So the whole phrase changes together.

Because Polish often omits subject pronouns when the verb form already shows who the subject is.

Both verbs make the subject clear:

• znam = I know
• wolę = I prefer

So ja is unnecessary unless you want emphasis or contrast.

For example:

• Ja wolę główną ulicę, a on skrót.
  = I prefer the main street, but he prefers the shortcut.

Not completely. Polish word order is more flexible than English because case endings show grammatical relationships.

The given order is neutral and natural:

Znam dobry skrót do pracy, ale zimą wolę główną ulicę.

You can move elements around for emphasis, for example:

• Ale zimą wolę główną ulicę.
• Zimą wolę główną ulicę.

But not every possible order sounds equally natural. The original sentence is a very normal everyday version.

Because in Polish, ale normally has a comma before it when it connects contrasting parts of a sentence.

So:

• ..., ale ...

This is standard Polish punctuation and is more regular than in English.

Examples:

• Chcę iść, ale nie mogę.
• Znam skrót, ale wolę główną ulicę.