Zanim odpowiem, muszę przetłumaczyć to zdanie i sprawdzić, czy nie ma w nim literówki.

Zanim means before and introduces a subordinate clause.

In this sentence:

• Zanim odpowiem = Before I answer

A very common pattern in Polish is:

• Zanim + clause, main clause
• Main clause, zanim + clause

Because zanim odpowiem is a subordinate clause placed first, it is followed by a comma.

Odpowiem is the 1st person singular form of the perfective verb odpowiedzieć.

That matters because in Polish:

• imperfective verbs are used for ongoing, repeated, or general actions
• perfective verbs are used for completed whole actions

So:

• odpowiadam = I am answering / I answer in a present, ongoing, or habitual sense
• odpowiem = I will answer / I answer once, as a completed action

Even though odpowiem looks like a present-tense form, perfective verbs in Polish do not normally have a true present meaning. Their present-form endings usually give a future meaning.

Here, after zanim, Polish naturally uses odpowiem to mean before I answer.

Because musieć works like must / have to in English.

So:

• muszę przetłumaczyć = I must translate
• muszę sprawdzić = I must check

In the sentence, one muszę controls both infinitives:

• muszę przetłumaczyć to zdanie i sprawdzić...

That is completely normal and avoids repeating muszę.

This is an aspect question.

• tłumaczyć is imperfective
• przetłumaczyć is perfective

Here the speaker means a single completed translation that has to be done before answering, so the perfective verb fits better:

• przetłumaczyć = to translate completely / to finish translating

If you used tłumaczyć, it would sound more like:

• translating in general
• being in the process of translating
• a repeated or habitual activity

So muszę przetłumaczyć to zdanie means I need to translate this sentence fully.

For the same reason: aspect.

• sprawdzać = imperfective, checking in progress, repeated checking, checking generally
• sprawdzić = perfective, one completed check

The speaker wants to do one full check before answering, so sprawdzić is the natural choice.

The structure is parallel:

• przetłumaczyć = complete the translation
• sprawdzić = complete the check

It is in the accusative, because it is the direct object of przetłumaczyć.

You translate what?

• to zdanie

However, with neuter singular nouns like zdanie, the nominative and accusative forms are the same.

So:

• nominative: to zdanie
• accusative: to zdanie

That is why nothing visibly changes here.

Here czy means whether / if and introduces an embedded yes-no question.

So:

• sprawdzić, czy nie ma w nim literówki
  = to check whether there is no typo in it = more natural English: to check that there isn’t a typo in it

This is different from sentence-initial Czy... ?, which is used to ask a direct yes-no question, for example:

• Czy jest literówka? = Is there a typo?

So in your sentence, czy does not mean or or whether... or not by itself; it simply introduces the clause being checked.

Because the speaker is checking for the absence of a typo.

• czy jest literówka = whether there is a typo
• czy nie ma literówki = whether there isn’t a typo

Both are possible, but they frame the idea slightly differently:

• czy jest literówka focuses on possible presence
• czy nie ma literówki focuses on making sure there is no typo

In English, we often smooth this out as:

• check whether there’s a typo
• check that there isn’t a typo

Also note that after nie ma, Polish uses the genitive, which is why you get literówki, not literówka.

W nim means in it.

Here:

• w = in
• nim = the pronoun it in the form required after w

The pronoun refers back to zdanie, which is a neuter noun.

After w in the meaning of location, Polish uses the locative case. So the pronoun changes form:

• ono = it
• w nim = in it

You could also say:

• w tym zdaniu = in this sentence

That would be more explicit, but w nim is perfectly natural because zdanie has just been mentioned.

Because literówki is the genitive singular form of literówka.

The base form is:

• literówka = a typo

But after nie ma, Polish normally requires the genitive:

• nie ma literówki = there is no typo

So:

• nominative: literówka
• genitive singular: literówki

This is a very common pattern in Polish:

• jest błąd = there is an error
• nie ma błędu = there is no error

There are two commas because the sentence contains two subordinate clauses.

1. Zanim odpowiem, ...

   • the clause introduced by zanim is separated by a comma

2. ..., sprawdzić, czy nie ma w nim literówki

   • the clause introduced by czy is also separated by a comma

Polish punctuation usually requires commas before subordinate clauses more consistently than English does, so learners often need to get used to that.

Yes, Polish word order is fairly flexible, although the original version is very natural.

For example, you could also say:

• Muszę przetłumaczyć to zdanie i sprawdzić, czy nie ma w nim literówki, zanim odpowiem.

That still means the same thing.

The original order puts the time frame first:

• Before I answer...

That makes sense because it sets up what must happen first. In other words, the speaker emphasizes the sequence of actions right away.