Młody mężczyzna czeka przy okienku.

to wait

Breakdown of Młody mężczyzna czeka przy okienku.

• przy: at
• okienko: the counter window
• mężczyzna: the man

Questions & Answers about Młody mężczyzna czeka przy okienku.

Why does mężczyzna end in -a if it means man?

Because Polish has a small group of masculine nouns for male people that end in -a.

So mężczyzna is grammatically masculine, even though its ending may look feminine to an English-speaking learner.

You can see that it is masculine from agreement:

• ten mężczyzna = this man
• młody mężczyzna = young man
• in the past tense: mężczyzna czekał = the man was waiting

So the ending can be misleading, but the grammar is masculine.

Why is it młody mężczyzna, not młoda mężczyzna?

Because adjectives in Polish agree with the noun’s grammatical gender, not just with how the noun looks.

Even though mężczyzna ends in -a, it is still a masculine noun, so the adjective must also be masculine:

• młody mężczyzna = young man
• młoda kobieta = young woman

This is a very common pattern with male-person nouns like mężczyzna.

What form is czeka?