100 Polish conversation connectors

When most of most of my students start their adventure with Polish, they have one goal: to speak as soon as it’s possible. They build a grammar frame and they fill it with vocabulary but there is still something missing to complete the picture of free, enjoyable conversation – Polish conversation connectors! They give your brain time to think and they make you sound like you are way more advanced

A week ago I did a Facebook live on discourse markers which are expressions we use automatically to maintain a conversation. In this article you will get a full set of such phrases so you can use them right away. Read them and choose those, which suit the best your speaking style!

*the original idea of this post comes from FluentCzech page which was shared with me by my student Lisa. Thank you <3

There come in groups based on their functions in a conversation:

Opening Connectors

They are very useful when someone asks you out of a sudden and you go blank. To give your brain some time to prepare the answer, you can say:

thank you heartily – dziękuję serdecznie

that is a good question – dobre pytanie

that is such a difficult question – to jest trudne pytanie

once upon a time, long ago – dawno temu

Imagine someone just asked you:

“Czym się zajmujesz?” (What do you do?)

You can just break the first silence saying:

“Dobre pytanie…” (that is a good question) and after a couple of seconds add the real answer.

Filler Connectors

Filler connectors are small phrases you put in between sentences to give yourself a bit more time to think.  They make you deeper, more honest and they make conversation more personal but in fact they just let you create the utterance.

understandably – to zrozumiałe

frankly speaking – szczerze mówiąc

between you and me – między nami mówiąc

anyway – swoją drogą

well then – a więc

well, as a matter of fact – no, w sumie

how can I put it? – jakbym to powiedział/ powiedziała

I must admit that – muszę przyznać, że

Firstly – po pierwsze

Secondly – po drugie

I would like you to know that – chciałbym (m)/ chciałabym (m), żebyś wiedział (m)/ wiedziała (f), że

I am afraid that – obawiam się, że

now and then it seems to me that – czasami wydaje mi się, że

after all – wreszcie

as far as I am concerned – jeśli chodzi o mnie

more and more – coraz więcej

actually – właściwie

all joking aside – żarty na bok

now seriously – teraz na serio

Apologising Connectors

Everyone makes mistakes but some more than others. I have a tendency to speak faster than I think so I make so many silly mistakes which probably could offend my interlocutors especially when I don’t “feel” the weight of words in a new language. In such a situation you can say:

don’t be upset, but – nie gniewaj się, ale…

it was a slip of the tongue – wypsnęło mi się

I said it by mistake – powiedziałem (m)/ am (f) to niechcący

I am sorry that – przepraszam, że

I didn’t say it on purpose – Nie powiedziałem (m)/ powiedziała (f) tego celowo

Qualifying Connectors

Qualifying Connectors make you sound like a human. You have opinions and doubts so it’s nice to express them in a natural way.

to tell the truth – prawdę mówiąc

I presume that – przypuszczam, że

I hope that – mam nadzieję, że

in my opinion – według mnie

if that is true – jeśli to prawda, to

I don’t know exactly – nie wiem dokładnie

I would like to think that – chciałbym (m) / chciałabym (f) myśleć, że

the way I see it is that – ja to widzę tak, że

as you may know – jak już wiesz

I don’t have a big interest in that – nie za bardzo mnie to interesuje

if I understand correctly – jeśli dobrze rozumiem

that isn’t such a big problem – to nie jest taki duży problem

that is a matter of opinion – to zależy od opinii

as far as I know – na ile mi wiadomo

I have the impression that – mam wrażenie, że

it is usually true that – to zwykle się zgadza, że

you never know, but – nigdy nie wiadomo, ale

I haven’t thought about it before, but – nigdy o tym przedtem nie myślałem (m) / myślałam (f)

if I am not mistaken – o ile się nie mylę

I am not certain whether – nie jestem pewien (m)/ pewna (f)

like every other man – jak prawie każdy

I have my own opinion on it, but – mam opinię na ten temat, ale

I am not such an expert, but – nie jestem ekspertem w tym temacie , ale

For example when someone asks you:

“I jak, podoba Ci się w Polsce?” (So, do you like Poland?)

You can start with :

“Prawdę mówiąc…” (speaking frankly) “… tak!” (and this is the only correct answer 😀 – just kidding)

Agreeing and Disagreeing Connectors

Ok. Let’s agree – answering “yes” or “no” won’t lead you far in your new friendship. Noone feels encouraged to ask more questions if they feel they speak to a robot. You may want to use one of these connectors:

one hundred percent – na sto procent

without question – bez pytania

exactly right – dokładnie tak

most certainly – na pewno

without doubt – bez wątpienia

in no case – w żadnym wypadku

that isn’t true at all – to w ogóle nie jest prawda

that is an exaggeration – to przesada

in principle that is true, but – w sumie to prawda, ale

admittedly that is can be true, but – wprawdzie to możliwe, ale

that’s one way to say it, but – z jednej strony można tak powiedzieć, ale

only up to a certain point – do pewnego stopnia

certainly, why not? – jasne, dlaczego nie

I agree – zgadzam się

Elaborating Connectors

As I wrote before, one-word answers are not the key to an interesting conversation. If you want to sound more interested and friendly, you should give a try to one of these below. They will give you a boost and will improve your fluency in a simple way.

to be more precise – a dokładnie

and what’s more – ponadto

while I am already talking about it – kiedy o tym mówię

I would like to emphasise that – chciałbym (m) / chciałabym (f) podkreślić, że

should I explain in greater detail? – wytłumaczyć to dokładniej?

allow me to say it another way – pozwól, że powiem to w inny sposób

that is to say – a więc

and more specifically – a dokładniej

nevertheless – mimo to

even though – mimo wszystko

that sounds like – to brzmi jak

and that is why – I dlatego

in other words – innymi słowy

to say it another way – mówiąc inaczej

Quoting Connectors

When the conversation is going well you may want to get a bit more personal with the speaker and quote someone else’s opinion or statement. What about saying:

he said something like – powiedział, coś takiego jak

my friend pointed out that – moja koleżanka zwróciła uwagę na to, że

recently, I heard that – ostatnio słyszałem (m) / słyszałam (f)

Switching Connectors

Sometime we get a bit lost in a conversations, we forget the main topic or we simply want to change it because eg. Our vocabulary about spaceships is not that advanced like the one about gardening. We can say:

now it occurs to me that – teraz przychodzi mi do głowy, że

by the way – swoją drogą

I have an interesting story about it – znam interesującą historię o tym

and besides that – a mimo to

oh, I nearly forgot – och, prawie zapomniałem

and one more thing – I jeszcze jedno

on the other hand – za to

Closing Connectors

You don’t have to use them but sometimes they are a nice signal you don’t want to continue the topic or you have nothing else to say about it. They also let you avoid an argument if it gets hot between you two.  If they don’t belong to your speaking style in your own language – just skip them!

that is all there is to say – to wszystko, co można powiedzieć

that is all for now – to wszystko na teraz

to sum up – podsumowując

and there is the problem – I w tym jest problem

I hope it is only a question of time – mam nadzieję, że to jest tylko kwestia czasu

that remains to be seen – to się jeszcze zobaczy

Passing Connectors

Most of language students believe the conversation with a teacher or a language partner must be based on them speaking! Trust me – if you are not a big speaker in your native language, you don’t have to push it in the new one. Of course putting thoughts into words is important, but listening and asking questions is equally valuable. So if you feel tired of speaking you can ask the other person about their opinion. Try these:

can you tell me please – możesz mi powiedzieć

would you be interested in us talking about something else? – chciałbyś (m)/ chciałabyś (f) porozmawiać o czymś innym?

and what do you think? – a co ty o tym myślisz?

I really hope these Polish conversation connectors will help you start speaking with confidence and express your thoughts in more natural way. I am sure you will feel a difference and speaking Polish will be much more pleasant!

[su_button url=”https://www.facebook.com/groups/1000reasonstolearnpolish/” target=”blank” size=”4″ icon=”icon: users”]Join our FB group![/su_button]

Did you like this post? What about getting valuable content from this page directly to your e-mail? 🙂