1.1 Complex numerals normally pattern like their last member. Thus "twenty-two", "thirty-three", "five hundred eighty-four", etc. take the same complements as "two", "three", and "four", e.g., (sto trzydzieści) trzy krzesła były ... ([a hundred thirty-]three chairs were...). "One" patterns differently. As the last element in a complex numeral it has the frozen form jeden regardless of the gender of the noun. Although one says jedna dziewczyna and jedno krzesło, for "twenty-one girls/chairs" it is dwadzieścia jeden dziewczyn/krzeseł, with the same genitive plural complement as dwadzieścia dziewczyn/krzeseł.

1.2 In the OBLIQUE cases, i.e., other than nominative and accusative, numerals behave like adjectives. In a genitive context like Szukałem ... książek (I was looking for ... books), we may precede the noun with dwóch, trzech, czterech, pięciu, etc. without affecting the form of the noun, e.g., Szukałem trzech książek. Similarly, in a locative context like Mieszkaliśmy w ... miastach (We lived ... in cities), the inclusion of a numeral does not affect the form of the noun, e.g., Mieszkaliśmy w pięciu miastach.

1.3 Direct vs. oblique. For most numerals in most cases it suffices to distinguish between a DIRECT form and an OBLIQUE form. This is because the form used with other than male-personal nouns in the oblique cases is the same as the form used with male-personal forms in all cases. For example, the pięciu that occurs in genitive Szukałem pięciu książek and in locative Mieszkaliśmy w pięciu miastach occurs also in the subject position in Przyszło pięciu chłopców and in the direct object position in Znam pięciu chłopców. The distribution of direct and oblique forms of "five" is thus:

1.4 The pattern of using the oblique numeral with male-personal sentence subjects, which is obligatory with "five" and above, e.g., W tej firmie pracuje pięciu Polaków, may optionally be followed also with "two", "three", and "four". In addtion to saying Tu pracują dwaj Polacy, one may also say Tu pracuje dwóch Polaków. The former pattern individualizes the male persons more, but the latter pattern is somewhat more common.

2. Cardinal numerals, direct form.

In piętnaście and dziewiętnaście the ę is pronounced "e" (without nasality). In pięćdziesiąt and dziewięćdziesiąt the ć is not pronounced. In sześćdziesiąt the ć is not pronounced and the ś is pronounced "ź". In sześćset the ć is not pronounced and the ś is optionally pronounced "j".

3. Cardinal numerals, oblique form.

The oblique form of "two" is also dwu.

4. How numerals are structured. "One" through "ten" are unanalyzable and must simply be learned. Past "ten", however, numerals are compounds with a definite structure.

5. Indefinite numerals are used like pięć/pięciu and show the same contrast between direct forms and oblique forms. Compounds with kilk- are structured the same as the teens, tens, and hundreds.

6. Collective numerals. Numeral usage as we have seen is related to gender: masculine (male person) jeden chłopiec, dwaj chłopcy, masculine (other than male person) jeden pies, dwa psy, feminine jedna dziewczyna, dwie dziewczyny, neuter jedno krzesło, dwa krzesła. But there are noun uses where gender is unclear or mixed, and such cases require the so-called collective numerals. These are: dwoje (two), troje (three), czworo (four), pięcioro (five), sześcioro (six), siedmoro (seven), ośmioro (eight), dziewięcioro (nine), dziesięcioro (ten), and so on. These are the direct (nominative and accusative) forms. For the genitive forms replace the last vowel with -ga. For the locative forms replace the last vowel with -gu.

7. Time units. A minute (minuta) consists of sixty seconds (sekunda; a chwila [moment] is kilka sekund). There are sixty minutes in an hour (godzina), twenty-four hours in a day (dzień, gen. dnia, nom. pl. dni, also, except with numerals, dnie), seven days in a week (tydzień, gen. tygodnia, four weeks in a month (miesiąc, gen. pl. miesięcy), and twelve months in a year (rok, nom. pl. lata, literally "summers").

8. Ordinal numerals are adjectives derived from cardinal numerals. "First" and "second" are unrelated in form to "one" and "two". "Third" and "fourth" are related but with irregularities. "Fifth" and up are formed by adding adjective endings to a hard stem of the corresponding cardinal. The hard stem is in the oblique form for "eleven" through "forty" and in the direct form for "fifty" through "nine hundred".

As with the cardinal numerals, in a few cases the pronunciation diverges from the spelling. In piętnasty and dziewiętnasty the ę is pronounced "e" (without nasality). In pięćdziesiąty and dziewięćdziesiąty the ć is not pronounced. In sześćdziesiąty the ć is not pronounced and the ś is pronounced "ź". In sześćsetny the ć is not pronounced and the ś is optionally pronounced "j".

8.1 In multidigit ordinal numerals, the tens digit is ordinal in addition to the units digit. "For the twenty-first time" is po raz dwudziesty pierwszy (lit. for the twentieth first time), "on June twenty-fourth" is dwudziestego czwartego czerwca, and "in the year 1999" is w roku tysiąc dzięwiećset dziewięćdziesiątym dziewiątym. Note that Poles do not say "nineteen hundred"; they say "thousand nine hundred".

9. Dates. "On (a date)" is expressed with just the genitive case, no preposition: Ania wróciła z Polski dwudziestego trzeciego marca (Ann returned from Poland on March 23rd), Tego dnia nie było gazety (That day there was no paper).

10. Days of the week.

11. Months of the year. With the Roman numerals often used to identify them, they are:

In contrast to the days of the week, month names take -a in the genitive singular (except luty--lutego). The stem-final e is fleeting, and in its absence the preceding consonant in some cases reverts to its basic form: marzec > marca, kwiecień > kwietnia, grudzień > grudnia.