What does “nie” at the end of a Polish sentence mean?

Naleśniki babci krok po kroku

WhatsAppGmailTelegramEmail

A2 Polish listening practice · Standard Polish · Curated for beginners

💡 Did you know?
…, nie?
Polish tag question
“…, right?” — the little nie at the end of a sentence asks for agreement

The word for “no” is how Polish says “right?” Tack nie? onto the end of any statement and it turns into a tag question: moje ulubione, nie, babcia? — “my favourite, right, grandma?” It replaces the whole English zoo of “isn’t it / don’t you / aren’t they” with one syllable, and it’s the sound of relaxed, spoken Polish. The formal alternative is prawda?, “true?”

Grandma’s answer is the other half of the pattern: no — which, confusingly, means “yeah” in casual Polish (no też, też w nocy — “yeah, overnight too”). So in this kitchen nie asks and no agrees. The recipe itself gives you the Polish for a crêpe batter that rests: pół litra mleka (“half a litre of milk”), pięć jajek (“five eggs”), woda gazowana (“sparkling water,” the grandmother’s trick for lighter crêpes), skórka z pomarańczy (“orange zest”) and na dwie godziny do lodówki — “into the fridge for two hours.”

Vocabulary frequency

How common is the vocabulary in this A2 Polish listening practice listening practice?

84.3%
of words are in the top 2,000 most common Polish words
Based on this reel’s transcript, most of the vocabulary is high-frequency, everyday Polish.

General Polish frequency

74.5%
Top 1,000
84.3%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000

Spoken Polish frequency

90.9%
Top 1,000
100%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000
👄 Conversational vocabulary
This reel’s words appear more often in subtitle-based spoken-Polish data than in general usage, so it may feel closer to everyday conversation.

Words above this video’s level

Quick glosses for vocabulary that goes beyond this video’s A2 level.

mąkę
2×
Rare / outside top 5,000
dodajemy
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
dolewamy
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
gazowanej
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000

Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-PL 2014 (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.

Explore Standard Polish Comprehensible Input on Reelang

Open Polish hub