Przepraszam, proszę pani, czy ten paczkomat działa przez całą noc?

Because they do slightly different things.

• Przepraszam here means Excuse me and is used to get someone’s attention politely.
• Proszę pani is a respectful way to address a woman, similar to ma’am.

So together they sound very natural: Excuse me, ma’am...

Also, przepraszam can mean I’m sorry in other contexts, but here it is clearly the excuse me meaning.

Proszę pani is a fixed polite expression used when speaking to a woman in a formal or respectful way.

Common situations:

• speaking to a stranger
• speaking to an older woman
• speaking to a female employee or official
• a student speaking to a female teacher

It does not translate word-for-word very neatly. In real use, it works like ma’am or excuse me, ma’am.

The matching phrase for a man is proszę pana.

Czy introduces a yes/no question.

So:

• Ten paczkomat działa. = This parcel locker works / is operating.
• Czy ten paczkomat działa...? = Does this parcel locker work / is it operating...?

Polish does not need English-style inversion with do/does. Very often, Polish simply adds czy at the beginning to make a yes/no question.

Because Polish does not build questions the same way English does.

English often needs an auxiliary verb:

• Does it work?

Polish usually does not:

• Czy działa?

The main verb stays in its normal form, and czy marks the sentence as a question. Sometimes even czy can be omitted if the speaker’s intonation makes it clear that it is a question.

Because paczkomat is a masculine noun.

In Polish, demonstratives must agree with the noun’s gender:

• ten = masculine
• ta = feminine
• to = neuter

So:

• ten paczkomat = this parcel locker

A learner often has to memorize the gender of each noun, because that affects adjectives, pronouns, and sometimes verb forms in the past tense.

A paczkomat is an automated parcel locker: a machine with compartments where you can send, collect, or return packages.

In Poland, this is a very common everyday concept. The word is widely used in normal speech. It is strongly associated with the company InPost, but many speakers use paczkomat almost like a general word for this type of machine.

So even if you already know the meaning, it is useful to know that this is a very common modern Polish word.

Działa comes from działać, which means to work, to function, or to operate.

It is the normal verb to use for machines, devices, systems, websites, buttons, and similar things.

Examples:

• Telefon nie działa. = The phone doesn’t work.
• Internet działa. = The internet is working.
• Ten paczkomat działa? = Is this parcel locker working?

Here działa is 3rd person singular, because the subject is ten paczkomat.

Yes, depending on the exact meaning.

• działa asks whether it is functioning / operating
• jest otwarty would mean is open
• jest czynny means is open / in service
• jest dostępny means is available

So czy ten paczkomat działa przez całą noc? is specifically asking whether the machine is operating all night, not just whether the location is physically accessible.

After przez, Polish normally uses the accusative case.

Here, przez całą noc means throughout the whole night or all night long.

Breakdown:

• przez = through / for
• całą = accusative feminine singular of cała (whole / entire)
• noc = night

The noun noc is feminine. In this phrase:

• nominative: cała noc
• accusative: całą noc

The adjective changes visibly to match the case.

Yes. Czy ten paczkomat działa całą noc? is also natural Polish.

Both versions are good:

• działa całą noc
• działa przez całą noc

The version with przez can sound a little more explicitly like throughout the whole night, but in everyday use the difference is small.

Because proszę pani is a form of direct address, and it is set off with commas.

So the sentence is structured like this:

• Przepraszam,
• proszę pani,
• czy ten paczkomat działa przez całą noc?

In English, we do something similar:

• Excuse me, ma’am, does this parcel locker work all night?

The commas reflect the little pauses you would naturally hear in speech.

Yes. Polish word order is more flexible than English word order.

For example, these are possible:

• Czy ten paczkomat działa przez całą noc?
• Ten paczkomat działa przez całą noc?
• Czy przez całą noc ten paczkomat działa?

The first version is the most neutral and natural in many situations.

Polish uses word order more for emphasis than for basic grammar. English learners often expect a fixed order, but Polish allows more movement as long as the sentence remains clear.