Summer’s here, which means a great variety of fruit and vegetables offered at stands (check here for more information on the names of places where we can do the shopping). During your courses of Polish not only can you learn where the names of Polish vegetables and fruit come from, but you can also find out what the most widely used idioms connected with them are. Let’s have a closer look at the „fruit“ ones.
POLISH EXPRESSIONS WITH NAMES OF FRUIT
What fruit do you see in this picture?
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Yes, they are śliwki (plums)! There is a popular idiom with this fruit: wpaść jak śliwka w kompot (literally: to fall like a plum into compote), i.e. to find yourself in a difficult and awkward situation, which very often is of your own making (similar to be in a jam).
And what about this fruit?
Right! They are maliny (raspberries), the fruit everybody loves. And the idiom wpuścić kogoś w maliny (literally: to let someone go into raspberry bushes) means to deceive or fool someone, to deliberately mislead them (similar to spring a trap).
Pear (gruszka)
is another tasty fruit, and it appears in two common idioms: obiecywać gruszki na wierzbie (literally: promise someone pears on a willow tree; promise someone the moon), which means to promise someone something impossible to do, and nie zasypiać gruszek w popiele (literally: do not fall asleep while pears are in the ash; seize the opportunity), that is to try not to miss the opportunity or chance to do something by procrastinating, to try to be up-to-date.
The most famous Polish fruit ...
apple (jabłko), appears in the expression niedaleko pada jabłko od jabłoni (the apple doesn’t fall/never falls far from the tree), which we use to say, often with irony, to emphasise the resemblance in personality or behaviour patterns between a parent and their child.
Conclusions? Nie zasypiajcie gruszek w popiele (do not pass up the opportunity) and practise Polish idioms! If you don’t do that you can wpaść jak śliwka w kompot (be in a jam, in trouble), and those who say that knowledge is not important simply wpuszczają was w maliny (they’re trying to fool you) :)
And one more thing, eat fruit! They are really healthy.
