Questions & Answers about Nie idę tam teraz.
Why does nie come at the very beginning of the sentence?
In Polish, to make a statement negative, you must place nie directly in front of the verb you are negating. Because the subject word for "I" was dropped in this sentence, nie ends up right at the start, directly before the verb idę (am going).
Where is the word for "I" in this sentence?
The verb ending does the work for you! The -ę at the end of idę specifically means "I go" or "I am going". You could say Ja nie idę tam teraz, but the ja (I) is usually dropped unless you want to emphasize it (as in, "Well, I am not going!").
The English translation says "I am not going." Why isn't there a word for "am" or an "-ing" verb form?
Polish doesn't have a separate continuous tense like English does. The single present tense verb idę covers both "I go" (in general) and "I am going" (right now). Here, the word teraz (now) makes it clear that the action is happening at this very moment.
Does the word order matter here? Can I say Nie idę teraz tam?
Yes, you can! Polish word order is very flexible. Both Nie idę tam teraz and Nie idę teraz tam are correct and mean the same thing. Words placed at the very end of a Polish sentence just get a tiny bit of extra emphasis.