Liczymy kurczaczki od jednego do dziesięciu

What does “policzmy” mean in Polish?

Policzmy means “let’s count,” and that “-my” ending is doing all the work. Polish builds “let’s ___” the same way English builds a command, then adds “we” onto the end: policz (“count!”) becomes policzmy (“let’s count”), idź (“go!”) becomes idźmy (“let’s go”). One suffix turns any command into a shared invitation — no separate “let’s” word needed.

The -my form is why Polish nursery songs sound so inviting: this one opens with Policzmy razem! (“Let’s count together!”) before counting the kurczaczki — the affectionate diminutive plural of kurczak (chicken) — one by one up to ten. Swap the verb and the pattern holds: śpiewajmy (“let’s sing”), zróbmy (“let’s do it”), chodźmy (“let’s go”). It also tracks Polish’s imperfective/perfective split: policzmy (from perfective policzyć) means “let’s count [them] all the way through,” while liczmy (from imperfective liczyć) would mean “let’s be counting” as an ongoing activity.