It would seem that doing the shopping is more or less the same wherever in the world we are. It’s enough to learn the names of several products, numbers and some practical phrases in a language, e.g. Polish, and you’re ready to go to the shops. Naturally, you can always “take the easy way out” and go to a supermarket. However, even before going there it’s a good idea to look up the names of departments, because the Polish piekarnia sounds nothing like the German “Backerei”, English “bakery” or Spanish “panderia”. Apart from piekarnia you might need words like pieczywo(bread and bread-like goods), nabiał (dairy products) or chemia gospodarcza (household chemicals). Having learned those words you won’t be confused once in a shop, and it’ll spare you the unnecessary run around the shop in search of one product.
KILO MEANS KILOGRAM
However, if you decide to go to a corner shop, you should do your homework and go over the „weight“ topic. Obviously, the official unit of mass in Poland is a kilogram, whose prototype is in Sevres, France. The question is, how it works in the Polish language. It is generally known that users of every language have habits of their own.
First of all, all Polish shoppers use the short form of the word kilogram. Therefore, a Pole buys 2 kilos (dwa kilo), not 2 kilograms, of apples, potatoes or plums at the market. For the same reason you should ask for pół kilo (half a kilo – 500 grams) of cheese.
BETWEEN GRAMS AND DEKAGRAMS
We hardly ever buy half a kilo of ham, though, unless we are throwing a big party. When we feel like a sandwich with ham we should ask for (attention!) 15 dekagrams (15 deka) of it. And here’s when many foreigners ask themselves: „What is DEKA?“. The answer is simple, it’s short for „dekagram“ (=100 grams). The Polish use dekagrams, not grams. That’s why when in a shop we ask for 20 deka, not 200 grams of cheese. Shop assistants will definitely understand if the customer says: Poproszę 250 gramów tych pysznych ciastek (I’d like 250 grams of those delicious biscuits), but it does sound a bit unnatural.
You will definitely learn about this habit in classes of Polish for foreigners (see here for more information on courses). If you’re not sure of something, ask your teacher, one of your Polish colleagues, check out our facebook profile, or remember to read our blog regularly.
