Domowy ketchup jest lepszy niż ketchup ze sklepu.

In Polish, adjectives usually come before the noun they describe, so domowy ketchup is the normal order.

• domowy = homemade / home-style / domestic
• ketchup = ketchup

So the basic pattern is:

• adjective + noun
• domowy ketchup

You may sometimes see an adjective after the noun in Polish, but that is less common and usually sounds more formal, stylistic, or specialized. For everyday speech, domowy ketchup is the natural choice.

Here, domowy means homemade or made at home.

It comes from dom (house/home), so the core idea is connected with the home. Depending on context, domowy can mean things like:

• homemade
• home
• domestic
• for the home

In this sentence, domowy ketchup is best understood as homemade ketchup.

Jest means is.

The sentence structure is:

• Domowy ketchup = homemade ketchup
• jest lepszy = is better
• niż ketchup ze sklepu = than store-bought ketchup / than ketchup from the store

So jest works as the verb to be, just like English is.

Polish often drops subject pronouns like he, she, it, I, etc., but it does not normally drop the verb here. So you need jest in a standard sentence like this.

Because lepszy is the comparative form of dobry (good), and it is irregular.

So:

• dobry = good
• lepszy = better
• najlepszy = best

This is similar to English:

• good
• better
• best

So jest lepszy means is better.

The ending -y shows agreement with ketchup, which is a masculine singular noun in Polish.

Polish adjectives must agree with the noun in:

• gender
• number
• case

Here:

• ketchup is masculine singular
• so the adjective is lepszy

Compare:

• sok jest lepszy = the juice is better
• zupa jest lepsza = the soup is better
• wino jest lepsze = the wine is better

So lepszy matches the grammatical gender of ketchup.

Yes. Ketchup is treated as a masculine inanimate noun in Polish.

That is why the adjectives are masculine:

• domowy ketchup
• ketchup jest lepszy

Many borrowed nouns ending in a consonant are masculine in Polish, and ketchup follows that pattern.

Niż means than and is used in comparisons.

So:

• lepszy niż = better than
• gorszy niż = worse than
• większy niż = bigger than

In this sentence:

• Domowy ketchup jest lepszy niż ketchup ze sklepu.
• Homemade ketchup is better than store-bought ketchup.

So niż is the normal word for than after a comparative.

Yes, often it can.

For example:

• Domowy ketchup jest lepszy niż ketchup ze sklepu.
• Domowy ketchup jest lepszy od ketchupu ze sklepu.

Both mean roughly the same thing: Homemade ketchup is better than ketchup from the store.

A useful difference for learners:

• niż is followed by the same basic form here: niż ketchup
• od requires the genitive case: od ketchupu

So niż is often easier for beginners because you do not have to change the noun after it in the same way.

Both z and ze mean from or with, depending on context. Here it means from.

Polish uses ze instead of z before some consonant combinations when it is easier to pronounce.
Since sklepu begins with skl-, Polish prefers:

• ze sklepu

rather than:

• z sklepu

So this is mainly about pronunciation and natural sound.

Because the preposition z / ze meaning from requires the genitive case.

The basic noun is:

• sklep = store / shop

After ze (from), it becomes:

• ze sklepu = from the store

So the change is:

• sklep → sklepu

This is a very common pattern in Polish:

• z domu = from the house
• ze sklepu = from the store
• z ogrodu = from the garden

Yes, literally it means ketchup from the store.

In natural English, you would often translate that more smoothly as:

• store-bought ketchup

So:

• domowy ketchup = homemade ketchup
• ketchup ze sklepu = ketchup from the store / store-bought ketchup

Both the literal and natural translations are fine, depending on what you want to emphasize.

Yes, Polish could leave it out, but repeating it is clear and natural.

The full sentence:

• Domowy ketchup jest lepszy niż ketchup ze sklepu.

This explicitly compares homemade ketchup with store-bought ketchup.

You could also say something like:

• Domowy jest lepszy niż ten ze sklepu.
  = The homemade one is better than the one from the store.

But that version depends more on context. Repeating ketchup makes the sentence clear even if it stands alone.

Because Polish has no articles.

English distinguishes between:

• a ketchup / the ketchup / just ketchup

Polish does not use separate words for a or the, so ketchup can mean different things depending on context.

In this sentence, English naturally uses no article in the general sense:

• Homemade ketchup is better than store-bought ketchup.

That matches Polish well.

A simple approximate pronunciation for an English speaker is:

• do-MO-vih KETCH-oop yest LEP-shih nizh KETCH-oop zeh SKLEH-poo

A few useful pronunciation notes:

• domowy: stress on MO
• jest sounds roughly like yest
• lepszy: psz sounds like psh
• niż sounds like neezh or nizh
• ze sklepu: skl is a consonant cluster, which is one reason ze is used

Polish stress is usually on the second-to-last syllable, and that works here too:

• doMOwy
• KETchup
• jest
• LEPszy
• niż
• KETchup
• ze SKLEpu

Yes, you may see both spellings.

• ketchup is the traditional borrowing from English
• keczup is a more phonetic Polish spelling

In modern usage, ketchup is very common, and many dictionaries accept both. In your sentence, ketchup is perfectly normal.

So learners should recognize both:

• domowy ketchup
• domowy keczup

They mean the same thing.