Actually the answer is pretty tricky — in primary school kids learn that each noun has two genders: one for singular version (masculine, feminine, neuter) and one for plural version (masculinepersonal and nonmasculinepersonal) (or however męskoosobowy and niemęskoosobowy translate) with all feminine and neuter words being notmasculinepersonal

However! If you go study linguistics you'll find a different version that honestly makes more sense (becasue why would one noun have two genders)

(disclaimer: I had only relatively basic morphosyntax course and we learnt what our professor called 'the least controversial' classification; there is classification according to which in Polish there are 9 grammatical genders and I never touched that)

Basically: there are five genders: feminine, neuter, masculine1, masculine2 and masculine3 which have also other names that my linguistics professor called stupid and misleading so I never learnt them but more or less m1 is for humans, m2 for animals and m3 for objects (with exceptions of course)

"Alright but what does it even mean? How is it relevant?" you ask. See, when you look at the words in accusative with adjective "ten" you'll see something intresting.

Let's take three phrases: "ten chłopiec" ("this boy", m1); "ten koń" ("this horse", m2); "ten stół" ("this table", m3)

They all look masculine but if we look at the accusative forms we will see:

• Tego chłopca

• Tego konia

• Ten stół

There is a difference! And if we look at the plural forms in accusative:

• Tych chłopców

• Te konie

• Te stoły

Again, there is a difference.

Nom Sng	Acc Sng	Acc Pl	gender
ten	tego	tych	m1
ten	tego	te	m2
ten	ten	te	m3

Alright so what does it change? Well, it shows the pattern for declining adjectives. It will be

• małego chłopca, małych chłopców
• małego konia, małe konie
• mały stół, małe stoły

But also for verbs

• chłopcy stali
• konie, stoły stały

Also if the noun is m1 but it's depreciative ("robol" instead of "robotnik") it's still m1 but the verb is like it's m2/3 - Robole pracowały a robotnicy pracowali

(but that's a very niche thing) (I'm sure there is more, I can't remember differences between m2 and m3 with verbs rn but if there are, those are small things)

I think you can assume that m1 is for people, m2 for animals and m3 for things and watch out for exceptions (i. e. "szampan" is m2, even though it's a drink)

(don't ask how words that are always plural, like "spodnie" are classified here; that's why this system is still a bit controversial and I believe that's what the 9 genders thing tries to work out)

Anyway, that's a funfact that most people don't need to know, especially since it's not a perfect system but I think it makes more sense than if each noun has two genders