Strażak szybko gasi pożar.

quickly

Breakdown of Strażak szybko gasi pożar.

• strażak: the firefighter
• gasić: to put out
• pożar: the fire

Questions & Answers about Strażak szybko gasi pożar.

What does each word in Strażak szybko gasi pożar mean?

A word-by-word breakdown is:

• strażak = firefighter
• szybko = quickly
• gasi = puts out / is extinguishing
• pożar = fire, especially a blaze or serious fire

So the sentence is literally something like:

• Firefighter quickly extinguishes fire
• more natural English: The firefighter quickly puts out the fire or The firefighter is quickly extinguishing the fire

Why is there no word for the or a?

Because Polish does not use articles like English a/an and the.

So strażak can mean:

• a firefighter
• the firefighter

And pożar can mean:

• a fire
• the fire

Which one is meant depends on the context.

How do I know that strażak is the subject?

There are two main clues:

• it is in the nominative case, which is the basic subject form
• it comes first in a very normal Polish word order: subject + adverb + verb + object

So in this sentence:

• strażak = the person doing the action
• pożar = the thing affected by the action