Mission—Team—FAQ—Privacy—Terms—Sponsors—Grammar—Typing Course—Donate

© 2026 Elon Automation B.V.

Learn Hardcore Polish: Mój wujek ma brodę. - My uncle has a beard.

Hardcore Polish
/Lesson 44
/Mój wujek ma brodę.

Mój wujek ma brodę.

Word

Mój wujek ma brodę.

Meaning

My uncle has a beard.

Part of speech

sentence

Pronunciation

Course

Hardcore Polish

Lesson

Breakdown of Mój wujek ma brodę.

Questions & Answers about Mój wujek ma brodę.

Why is it mój and not moja or moje?

Because wujek is a masculine singular noun, and the possessive adjective mój has to agree with it.

Polish possessive adjectives change for gender and number:

mój = my (masculine singular)
moja = my (feminine singular)
moje = my (neuter singular or some plural contexts)

So:

mój wujek = my uncle
moja ciocia = my aunt
moje dziecko = my child

Here, wujek is masculine, so mój is the correct form.

What does wujek mean exactly? Is it just uncle?

Yes, wujek means uncle.

A useful detail is that in modern Polish, wujek is the normal everyday word for uncle. Even though the ending -ek often looks diminutive in Polish, here it does not necessarily sound especially childish or cute. It is the standard word most people would use in ordinary speech.

You may also come across:

wuj — a less common or more old-fashioned/basic form
stryj — specifically a father’s brother, but this is not common in everyday modern speech

For most learners, wujek is the main word to remember.

What does ma mean, and what verb is it from?

Elon.io is an online learning platform

We have an entire course teaching Polish grammar and vocabulary.

Start learning Polish now

Ma means has and comes from the verb mieć = to have.

It is the 3rd person singular present tense form, used for:

he has
she has
it has

A few present-tense forms of mieć are:

mam = I have
masz = you have
ma = he/she/it has
mamy = we have
macie = you all have
mają = they have

So Mój wujek ma... means My uncle has...

Why is it brodę and not broda?

Because broda is the dictionary form (nominative), but here it is the direct object of the verb ma, so it changes to the accusative case.

nominative: broda = beard
accusative: brodę = beard (as the thing someone has/sees/wants, etc.)

This is very common with feminine nouns ending in -a:

mam kawę from kawa
widzę kobietę from kobieta
ma brodę from broda

So the sentence uses brodę because the uncle has a beard.

Is broda feminine? If so, does that matter here?

Yes, broda is a feminine noun, and that matters because feminine nouns often change form in the accusative singular.

For many feminine nouns ending in -a:

nominative -a
accusative -ę

So:

broda → brodę
książka → książkę
herbata → herbatę

That is exactly why the sentence has brodę.

Why is there no word for a or the in the sentence?

Because Polish does not have articles like English a/an/the.

So Polish simply says:

Mój wujek ma brodę.

Depending on context, English might translate that as:

My uncle has a beard.
My uncle has the beard. (less likely in normal context)

Usually in a sentence like this, the natural English meaning is My uncle has a beard.

Learners often need to get used to the fact that Polish leaves article meaning to context.

Is the word order fixed? Could the sentence be arranged differently?

The normal, neutral word order is:

Mój wujek ma brodę.

That is a straightforward subject–verb–object order, similar to English.

But Polish word order is more flexible than English, so other orders are possible for emphasis or style, for example:

Brodę ma mój wujek. = It’s my uncle who has a beard.
Mój wujek brodę ma. = possible, but marked/emphatic

For a beginner, the safest and most natural version is the original:

Mój wujek ma brodę.

Can I leave out mój and just say Wujek ma brodę?

Yes, you can.

Mój wujek ma brodę = My uncle has a beard
Wujek ma brodę = Uncle / My uncle has a beard, depending on context

In Polish, possessive words like mój are often omitted when the meaning is obvious from the situation.

However, including mój is perfectly correct and may be useful when you want to be clear or contrastive, for example:

Mój wujek ma brodę, ale mój tata nie. = My uncle has a beard, but my dad doesn’t.

How is mój pronounced?

Mój is pronounced roughly like mooy in English, with one syllable.

A few details:

ó sounds like Polish u — basically like oo in food
j sounds like English y in yes

So mój is approximately:

mooy

The pronunciation is not exactly English, but that is a helpful approximation.

How is brodę pronounced, especially the final ę?

A careful pronunciation is roughly:

BRO-deh with a nasalized ending

Some helpful points:

stress is on the second-to-last syllable: BRO-dę
br is rolled or tapped if possible
final ę is often not pronounced as a strong nasal vowel in everyday speech

In practice, at the end of a word, ę is often pronounced approximately like:

e
or en/em-like, depending on speech style and surrounding sounds

So for learners, a reasonable approximation is:

BRO-deh

If your pronunciation of final ę is not perfect yet, that is very normal.

Does Mój wujek ma brodę sound natural in Polish?

Yes, it sounds completely natural.

It is a simple, standard Polish sentence with:

a possessive adjective: mój
a masculine noun: wujek
a common verb in the present tense: ma
a direct object in the accusative: brodę

So it is a very good example sentence for learning basic Polish grammar.

Your questions are stored by us to improve Elon.io