Najpierw biorę łopatę, przygotowuję ziemię i usuwam każdy chwast.

In Polish, subject pronouns are often omitted because the verb ending already shows who is doing the action.

Here, all three verbs are 1st person singular:

• biorę = I take
• przygotowuję = I prepare
• usuwam = I remove

So ja is not necessary. You could add it for emphasis, for example if you want to contrast yourself with someone else:

• Ja najpierw biorę łopatę... = I take the shovel first...

Najpierw means first or first of all.

Putting it at the beginning is the most natural choice here because it sets up the sequence of actions:

• Najpierw biorę łopatę...

It can be moved, but the emphasis changes:

• Biorę najpierw łopatę... = still correct, but now najpierw is attached more closely to taking the shovel

So the original order is the most neutral and natural.

Polish verbs belong to different conjugation patterns, so I does not always look the same at the end of the verb.

In this sentence:

• biorę = I take
• przygotowuję = I prepare
• usuwam = I remove

They are all 1st person singular present tense, but each verb follows its own conjugation pattern.

So unlike English, where I is a separate word, Polish often shows the subject through the verb ending itself.

Because these words are direct objects, so they are in the accusative case.

The dictionary forms are:

• łopata = shovel
• ziemia = earth / soil / ground

In the accusative singular, many feminine nouns ending in -a change to -ę:

• łopata → łopatę
• ziemia → ziemię

That is why the sentence says:

• biorę łopatę
• przygotowuję ziemię

Because chwast is a masculine inanimate noun.

In Polish, masculine nouns behave differently depending on whether they are animate or inanimate. For masculine inanimate nouns, the accusative singular usually looks the same as the nominative singular.

So:

• chwast = nominative
• chwast = accusative

And the adjective matches it:

• każdy chwast = every weed

If the noun were masculine animate, you would usually see a different accusative form, often like -ego in the adjective.

These verbs are imperfective because the sentence describes a process, routine, or sequence of actions in a general present-time way.

Here we have:

• biorę from brać
• przygotowuję from przygotowywać
• usuwam from usuwać

If you used the perfective verbs, the present-tense forms would normally refer to the future, not the present:

• wezmę = I will take
• przygotuję = I will prepare
• usunę = I will remove

So the original sentence is natural for describing what someone does as part of a task or routine.

Yes, but not directly as the same aspect.

Polish often has an aspect pair:

• przygotowywać = imperfective
• przygotować = perfective

From these, you get:

• przygotowuję = I am preparing / I prepare
• przygotuję = I will prepare

So in this sentence, przygotowuję matches the imperfective meaning. Learners often expect the present form to come from the infinitive they learned first, but in Polish the imperfective and perfective forms may have slightly different stems.

Usually not in the same way English does.

Polish present tense often covers both:

• I take
• I am taking

So:

• biorę can mean either, depending on context.

The same is true for:

• przygotowuję
• usuwam

English forces you to choose between simple and continuous forms, but Polish normally does not. Context tells you which reading is more natural.

Because brać is an irregular verb.

Its present-tense stem changes:

• brać = infinitive
• biorę = I take
• bierzesz = you take
• bierze = he/she/it takes

This kind of stem change is common in Polish and has to be learned as part of the verb’s conjugation.

So even though biorę may not look very similar to brać, it is the correct present-tense form.

Yes. Polish word order is fairly flexible because case endings show what role each noun plays.

The original:

• Najpierw biorę łopatę, przygotowuję ziemię i usuwam każdy chwast.

is neutral and natural.

You can move things around for emphasis, for example:

• Łopatę biorę najpierw... = emphasizes the shovel
• Najpierw przygotowuję ziemię... = emphasizes that this step comes first

But not every possible order sounds equally natural, so the original version is a very good default pattern.

Ziemia can mean several things depending on context:

• earth
• ground
• soil
• even the Earth as a planet in other contexts

Here, because the sentence is about using a shovel and removing weeds, ziemia most naturally means soil or ground.

So przygotowuję ziemię is best understood as I prepare the soil.

This sentence lists actions:

• biorę łopatę
• przygotowuję ziemię
• usuwam każdy chwast

In Polish, items in a list are normally separated by commas, but you usually do not put a comma before the final i meaning and.

So this punctuation is standard:

• Najpierw biorę łopatę, przygotowuję ziemię i usuwam każdy chwast.