Dziecko zrobiło pierwszy krok.

In Polish, grammatical gender and natural gender are not always the same thing. Dziecko is grammatically neuter, so adjectives and past-tense verbs must agree with it as neuter.

That is why you get:

• dziecko zrobiło
• not dziecko zrobił or dziecko zrobiła

This is very common with some nouns referring to young humans, for example niemowlę is also neuter.

Because this is the past tense, and in Polish past-tense forms agree with the subject in gender and number.

The subject is dziecko, which is:

• singular
• neuter

So the correct past-tense form is zrobiło.

Compare:

• mężczyzna zrobił = a man did/made
• kobieta zrobiła = a woman did/made
• dziecko zrobiło = a child did/made

Because pierwszy describes krok, not dziecko.

The noun krok is masculine, so the adjective must also be masculine:

• pierwszy krok

Even though dziecko is neuter, that does not affect the adjective here, because pierwszy is linked to krok, not to dziecko.

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

The basic pattern is:

• zrobić co? = to do/make what?
• zrobić krok = to take/make a step

For masculine inanimate nouns like krok, the accusative singular looks the same as the nominative singular, so you see:

• nominative: pierwszy krok
• accusative: pierwszy krok

So it looks unchanged, even though grammatically it is accusative.

Yes, zrobić often means to do or to make, but in Polish it is also used in many set expressions. One of them is:

• zrobić krok = to take a step

So this sentence is completely natural Polish.

Depending on context, zrobić pierwszy krok can mean:

• literally taking a first step, as a child learning to walk
• figuratively making the first move or taking the first action

This is about aspect, which is very important in Polish verbs.

• zrobić is perfective
• robić is imperfective

Here, the sentence refers to a completed event: the child successfully took that first step. Because of that, Polish uses the perfective verb zrobić, and in the past tense: zrobiło.

If you used robiło, it would suggest an ongoing, repeated, or unfinished action, which does not fit as well with the idea of a first completed step.

Dziecko is singular. It means child.

Its plural is dzieci.

This noun is a little irregular, so it is worth learning as a pair:

• singular: dziecko
• plural: dzieci

Because dziecko is singular neuter, the sentence uses singular neuter agreement:

• dziecko zrobiło

Yes. Polish word order is more flexible than English because case endings show the grammatical roles.

The neutral, straightforward order is:

• Dziecko zrobiło pierwszy krok.

But other orders are possible, for example:

• Pierwszy krok zrobiło dziecko.
• Zrobiło dziecko pierwszy krok. — possible, but less neutral and more marked

Changing the order usually changes the focus or emphasis, not the core meaning.

No. It can be understood both literally and figuratively.

Literal:

• a baby or child took its first step while learning to walk

Figurative:

• a child made the first move in some process
• for example, started doing something important

Without more context, the literal meaning is probably the first one most people would assume.

A rough pronunciation guide is:

• DZYE-tsko zro-BY-wo PYERF-shy krok

A few useful notes:

• dzie sounds somewhat like je in jeans, but softer
• rz in zrobiło sounds like the zh sound in measure for most speakers
• w in Polish sounds like English v
• pierwszy can be tricky; the w is pronounced like v, and sz sounds like sh
• Polish stress usually falls on the second-to-last syllable:
  • dziecko
  • zrobiło
  • pierwszy
  • krok

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

So Dziecko zrobiło pierwszy krok can mean:

• The child took the first step
• A child took a first step
• more naturally in context, The child took its first step

Which one sounds best in English depends on the situation, but Polish does not mark that difference with articles.