How do you say “what’s your name” in Polish?

Zagadka: jak ma na imię mama?

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A1 Polish listening practice · Standard Polish · Picked for people who know a little

💡 Did you know?
mieć na imię
Polish introductions pattern
how to ask a first name — literally “to have for a name”

Polish asks for your first name with a curious formula: Jak masz na imię? — literally “How do you have for a name?” The answer keeps the shape: Mam na imię Julia, “I have Julia for a name.” This clip is a riddle that hammers the third-person version — Jak ma na imię mama? (“What’s the mom’s name?”) — over and over, which makes the pattern impossible to forget.

Mieć na imię covers only the first name (imię). For the full name, Polish switches verbs: Jak się nazywasz? / Nazywam się Jan Kowalski. Both questions will be among the first ten sentences you ever exchange in Polish, so the riddle — mom has three children named Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday... — is sneaky-good drilling: by the punchline you’ve heard the question six times.

From MOPSU↗ on YouTube.Watch original

How common are the words?

How common are the words in this A1 Polish listening practice video?

89.6%
of words are in the top 2,000 most common Polish words
Most of the words in this video are common Polish words.

How common in written Polish

83.3%
Top 1,000
89.6%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000

How common in spoken Polish

91.3%
Top 1,000
95.7%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000
👄 Words for talking
This video uses words people often say in Polish.

Harder words in this video

These words are harder than A1. Here is what they mean.

trójkę
1×
Top 5,000
posłuchaj
1×
Top 5,000People say this a lot
wtorek
1×
Top 5,000People say this a lot
Tuesday
okej
1×
Top 5,000People say this a lot
(slang) okay
czwartek
1×
Top 5,000People say this a lot
Thursday
nie mam pojęcia
1×
I have no idea or understanding.

Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-PL 2014 (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.

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