Impersonal forms

A common tendency among Polish learners is to overuse second-person singular (ty) when they mean a non-specific person in a potential situation or when they talk about some general facts. For example:

• Kiedy chcesz kupić coś w sklepie... When you want to buy something at the store...
• W tym resorcie dobrze odpoczniesz You'll have a good rest at this resort.
• Do potraw z jagnięciny pijesz białe wino You drink white wine with lamb dishes.

Although similar forms are sometimes used in colloquial Polish, even for the same purpose of talking about some potential situation, this is relatively rare. It's important to remember that the form with ty can sound very direct and, as a result, your interlocutor may get the impression that they are the one who must or can do something, rather than that your statement refers to a general or typical case. Also, using ty is rude towards people with whom we are not in a close relationship (especially if they are older or higher rank).

To sound more natural and avoid misunderstandings, one can use:

• the first person plural (my): Kiedy chcemy coś kupić... When we want to buy something...
• impersonal verb forms: W tym resorcie można dobrze odpocząć. In this resort one can rest well.
  Do potraw z jagnięciny pije się białe wino. People typically drink white wine with lamb dishes.

Impersonal forms allow us to talk about general facts in an unambiguous way, without referring to specific people.
In Polish there are several types of impersonal use of verbs:

• defective verbs (czasowniki niewłaściwe)
• forms with się
• passive voice and forms ending in -no or -to

Defective verbs

Defective verbs do not have typical personal forms, they appear only in indeclinable constructions. They can express general principles, necessities, or an assessment of the benefits of a given action:

• można (a thing is possible or permissible)
• wolno (a thing is permissible)
• trzeba (a thing is needed or necessary for some purpose; note the similarity to the verb potrzebować; it can also denote a top-down rule)
• należy (similar to trzeba, but more typical of a formal or literary style)
• powinno się (as an uninflectable defective verb, it indicates a mandatory thing, a rule of conduct)
• warto (a thing is worth doing)

These verbs combine only with infinitives. Also, each of them can be negated by adding nie before it.

Examples:

Defective verbs can also appear in the past and future tenses - then we simply use the auxiliary być in the neuter gender (było, będzie) before or after the defective verb - both orders are used, but putting the defective verb first, e.g. można było, is much more common. (And if you want to add negation to it, nie will still be before the verb: nie można było or nie było można).

The exception in terms of tenses is powinno się. It doesn't appear in the past or future tense. Overall, it's a special case - it uses the generalizing się, which will be explained in the next subsection, and originally wasn't even a verb lol I'll write a separate post about it if I remember.

What else can we do with defective verbs? We can use them with the subjunctive particle by (would):

• można by / można byłoby (it would be possible to)
• wolno byłoby (it would be allowed to)
• trzeba by / trzeba byłoby (it would be necessary to)
• należałoby (!) (it would be mandatory / necessary to)
• warto by / warto byłoby (it would be worth it to).

And that's basically it.

Forms with się

Prerequisites: conjugation of verbs in the past and the present tenses.

Another way to create impersonal forms is to use the 3rd person singular neuter verb (so, the form for ono) with the pronoun się.

Such constructions are very commonly used to talk about activities typically performed by people, such as traditions, customs or general norms (Na matury idzie się w odświętnym stroju. - People go to their final exams in formal attire.). It can also refer to an undefined person in some specific potential situation (Jeśli idzie się w góry, trzeba mieć odpowiednie obuwie. - If one goes to the mountains, one must have appropriate footwear.). In such sentences, się does not function as a reflexive pronoun (like it normally does, as in: ubieram się - I dress myself), but serves as an impersonal marker.

Examples:

• past: Dawniej "h" wymawiało się dźwięcznie. In the past, people used to pronounce "h" sonorously.
• present: Podczas świąt dużo się je. or: Podczas świąt je się dużo. People eat a lot during the holidays.
• future: Wkrótce będzie się o tym mówiło. Soon people will be talking about it.

So, you can use this construction freely with imperfective verbs (and with perfective ones, as long as you take into account the tone). I just advise against using się with the modal verbs móc and mieć. Instead of może się and musi się, you can simply say można and trzeba or należy.
And also, in the case of reflexive verbs, which already contain się by default, it's generally preferable not to add a second się. Instead, it's better to use the impersonal forms ending in -no or -to - these will be explained in the next subsection.

The exercise below is only about the past tense. But before you begin, a quick note.
Using the forms with się in the past tense is relatively straightforward, since the past tense follows a single conjugation pattern (unlike the present tense, which has three) and, in most cases, transforming an infinitive into an impersonal się-construction in the past tense simply involves replacing -ć with -ło and adding się:

• pisać → pisało się

However, it's important to remember irregular verbs (iść and jeść), as well as vowel alternations in groups of verbs ending in -eć and -ąć:

• iść → szło się (szed- stem for singular masculine, sz- stem for other genders)
• jeść → jadło się (jed- stem for plural masculine-personal, jad- stem for other genders)
• mieć → miało się e:a (in all genders beside plural masculine-personal)
• wziąć → wzięło się ą:ę (in all genders beside singular masculine)

Passive voice and forms ending in -no and -to

Passive participles and impersonal forms ending in -no / -to are closely related. In fact, the latter are formed on the basis of passive participles.

Passive voice

So let's begin with the passive voice. It can be used when we don't mention who is performing the action, but not only. If the agent of the action is mentioned, we use the instrumental case or the preposition przez (followed by the genitive case):

• Restauracja została zdemolowana. The restaurant was vandalized.
• Restauracja została zdemolowana przez krewkiego klienta. The restaurant was vandalized by an aggressive customer.
• Samochód został pokryty lakierem przez profesjonalistę. The car was covered with paint by a professional.

Same as in English, the passive voice in Polish is formed from transitive verbs (those that most often combine with the accusative to refer to the direct object of the action, but, even though much less frequently, can also combine with the genitive and instrumental directly, i.e., without a preposition):

• Jesz śniadanie. (accusative) → Śniadanie jest jedzone przez ciebie.
  You are eating breakfast. → Breakfast is being eaten by you.
• Policja poszukuje tego mężczyzny. (genitive) → Ten mężczyzna jest poszukiwany przez policję.
  The police are searching for this man. → This man is being searched for by the police.
• Dominikanie zarządzali klasztorem. (instrumental) → Klasztor był zarządzany przez dominikanów.
  The Dominicans managed the monastery. → The monastery was managed by the Dominicans.

The case a verb is associated with doesn't affect how we form the passive participle. But there's one thing worth noting about cases:

When the passive voice is formed from imperfective verbs, it's used with the verb być in the appropriate gender, number and tense:

• Program był emitowany w TVP2 w latach 1988–1992. The programme was broadcast on TVP2 between 1988 and 1992.
• Program będzie emitowany w TVP2 o godzinach: 8:06, 9:11 i 10:23. The programme will be broadcast on TVP2 at 8:06, 9:11 and 10:23.

When the passive voice is formed from perfective verbs, for example when referring to single or completed events, it's used either with zostać or być. The first is more commonly presented in Polish textbooks, but in practice both constructions are used.

• Program po raz pierwszy został wyemitowany w TVP2 w 1988 roku. (or: był wyemitowany)
  The programme was first broadcast on TVP2 in 1988.
• Program zostanie wyemitowany w TVP2 o godzinie 8:06. (or: będzie wyemitowany)
  The programme will be broadcast on TVP2 at 8:06.

How passive participles are formed:

Passive participles decline exactly like adjectives.

Forms ending in -no and -to

Moving on to another way of forming impersonal sentences, we have the impersonal and inconjugable verb form ending in -no or -to, derived from the passive participle (the derivation table will be given below, but you can rest assured, it won't be any more difficult than passive participles alone).

Although in some contexts the -no/-to form (like robiono) can be used interchangeably with constructions containing się (robiło się), the two are not complete synonyms. Let's consider examples:

• Dawniej jadło się mało wieprzowiny. = Dawniej jedzono mało wieprzowiny.
  In the past, people ate little pork.
• W noc Dziadów w domach paliło się świece. = W noc Dziadów w domach palono świece.
  On the night of Dziady, people lit candles in their homes.

As you see, both forms are suitable for describing norms, customs and traditions of a given society or group - often one understood from the context (for example people living in a particular era, members of a particular social class, or, let's say, even a subculture sharing some common experiences). Now compare:

• Policjanci zlikwidowali laboratorium, w którym produkowało się nielegalne substancje psychotropowe.
  Police officers dismantled a laboratory where people used to produce illegal psychotropic substances.
  This sounds a bit like you're talking about a custom, kind of has the vibe of those people reminiscing about the 90s in one of the exercises above.
• Policjanci zlikwidowali laboratorium, w którym produkowano nielegalne substancje psychotropowe.
  Police officers dismantled a laboratory where illegal psychotropic substances were produced.
  This one sounds neutral. The only function of the -no form here is to conceal or leave unspecified the person performing the action. The use of the imperfective "produkowano" instead of the perfective "wyprodukowano" suggests that the substances were produced more than once, but does not in itself mean that this was a whole tradition.

This form will always resemble the passive participle, but unlike it, it does not decline for case, gender, or number. This is because the passive participle acts like an adjective and describes an object or person, and the -no/-to form, on the other hand, is an impersonal substitute for a verb.

Keep in mind though, the impersonals form with -no/-to, can only refer to the past tense.

past tense:

• W zeszły weekend w Warszawie zorganizowano nielegalne nocne wyścigi, na potrzeby których zablokowano ruch na całej kilkupasmowej ulicy. ✓
• W zeszły weekend w Warszawie zostały zorganizowane nielegalne nocne wyścigi, na potrzeby których został zablokowany ruch na całej kilkupasmowej ulicy. ✓
  Last weekend in Warsaw illegal night races were organized, for the sake of which traffic was blocked on the whole multi-lane street.

future tense:

• Dzięki działaniom stowarzyszeń obywatelskich i policji, nielegalne wyścigi nie będą już organizowano, a ruch uliczny nie będzie blokowano. ✗
• Dzięki działaniom stowarzyszeń obywatelskich i policji, nielegalne wyścigi nie będą już organizowane, a ruch uliczny nie będzie blokowany. ✓
  Thanks to the actions of civic organizations and the police, illegal races will no longer be organized, and traffic will not be blocked.

Summary

Defective verbs

można (one can / it is possible), wolno (it is allowed), trzeba (one must / it is necessary),
należy (one should / it is required), powinno się (one should), warto (it is worth)

• Bilety tramwajowe można wygodnie kupić przez Internet.
  Tram tickets can conveniently be purchased online.
• Pod żadnym pozorem uczniom nie wolno używać telefonów podczas egzaminu.
  Under no circumstances are students allowed to use phones during the exam.

Forms with się (used mainly with imperfectives, they refer to general norms and customs or to typical situations that can happen to a person)

• Kiedyś takie sprawy załatwiało się inaczej.
  In the past, such matters were handled differently.
• Na ulicach coraz częściej widzi się osoby ze słuchawkami bezprzewodowymi.
  On the streets, you can increasingly see people with wireless headphones.
• Jak się idzie do najlepszej fryzjerki w całej gminie, to trzeba brać pod uwagę, że nie ma terminów.
  When one goes the best hairdresser in the entire municipality, one must take into account that there are no dates.

Passive participles (decline for gender, number and case)

Passive voice:

• W Poznaniu zostały zorganizowane Europejskie Targi Nauki.
  The European Science Fair was organized in Poznań.
• Przypomniała sobie fragment artykułu przeczytanego kilka dni wcześniej.
  She remembered a fragment of an article [she had] read a few days earlier.

Forms with -no/-to (past tense only, indeclinable)

• Wpuszczono tu kogoś takiego jak ty - to prawdziwy ewenement.
  Someone like you was let in here - it's a real sensation.
• Nie wiemy, za co go tam wysłano, ani jak ma na imię.
  We don't know what he was sent up there for or what his name is.