Questions & Answers about Weźcie to lekarstwo i dużo śpijcie.
Both verbs end in -cie. Does this mean I am giving a command to more than one person?
Yes! In Polish, the -cie ending on a command shows you are talking to a plural "you" (you all). If you were telling just one person to take medicine and sleep, you would drop the -cie and use the singular forms: weź to lekarstwo i dużo śpij.
The command weźcie (take) looks very different from its dictionary form. What verb is this?
It comes from the verb wziąć (to take). Just like in English, some very common verbs have irregular command forms in Polish. The singular command is weź (take!), and you simply add -cie to make it plural.
The command śpijcie means "sleep", but the dictionary form is spać. Why does the spelling change so much?
Spać is another irregular verb that you will just need to memorize. When forming the command, the root changes to śpij-. So, the command for one person is śpij, and for multiple people, it becomes śpijcie.
Why do we use to before lekarstwo?
Lekarstwo (medicine) is a neuter noun because it ends in -o. The word for "this" that matches neuter nouns is to. Even though it is the direct object here (which often forces an ending to change), neuter words keep their dictionary endings in this situation.