A FEW WORDS ON POLISH PISANKI (Easter eggs)

WHAT DO WE CALL EASTER EGGS IN POLISH?

The period before and after Easter is the perfect time to talk about Polish Easter tradtions in your Polish classes.
If we think „Easter“ we mustn’t forget coloured eggs called pisanki in Polish. They appear in Polish homes together with catkins (bazie, aka kotki, literally kittens, because they remind us of these fluffy animals), first spring flowers, garden cress (rzeżucha) and figures of bunnies (zajączki), chickens (kurczaczki) and a lamb (baranek). Traditionally, they are symbols of new life.

However, not everyone knows (it may be interesting for both foreigners and Polish native speakers) that the coloured eggs have different names depending on the technique used to make them.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN „PISANKA” AND „KRASZANKA”

Pisanki were initially eggs on which the patterns were painted (pisane) with hot wax and which where next put into a homemade dye. Nowadays this name is used to talk about coloured Easter eggs in general.
The single coloured eggs are called kraszanki. Traditionally, natural dyes were used to colour them, such as onion skins to get red or bark of young apple trees to get golden colour.
You need to put a lot of effort into making a drapanka, which is made by scraping patterns in the soft layer of the egg shell. Oklejanki are eggs that have been covered with (oklejone) coloured pieces of fabric or yarn. The most challenging and time-consuming, however, are ażurki, which at first glance seem to be made of lace but are actually made from empty egg shells in which fine patterns are cut out.

This is a drapanka of course :) Check out our FB profile for more information on Easter traditions and the Polish language

No matter what name we call Easter eggs, they are beautiful items decorating Easter tables not only in Poland.

SAY "TAK" OR ABOUT DIFFERENT WAYS OF SAYING "TAK" IN POLISH.

(POSSIBLY) THE MOST POPULAR POLISH WORD
Keep calm, it’s not a post on matrimony. It’s just an innocent blog entry about how we can express consent and acceptance in Polish. Tak is perhaps the most popular Polish word. The majority of those who start learning the Polish language know it very well already even before the first lesson. We can, however, express consent in many ways, more on which you will hear during the Polish language courses. In the meantime, get familiar with a short list of alternative phrases.

SYNONYMS OF TAK IN THE POLISH LANGUAGE
Instead of tak, we can use the international ok, and also more Polish expressions: oczywiście, jasne, pewnie, naturalnie, owszem, właśnie, słusznie, faktycznie, rzeczywiście, spoko, wporzo. Rzecz jasna (it’s a synonym oczywiście!) between these phrases there are quite important differences. So, spoko is a colloquia expression, and wporzo is a slang word, used mainly by (very) young people in informal situations. Jasne and pewnie can mean an enthusiastic acceptance; we use właśnie, faktycznie, rzeczywiście when we agree with someone’s opinion or when we realise something after hearing someone’s opinion (Poles use very often the phrase  no, właśnie!); owszem is a higher register, an expression appearing mostly in written language, but also in speech during debates; naturalnie, is a tak which is old-fashioned, ceremonial, but which has its charm. .

NO IS NOT NO! WHAT DOES NO MEAN IN POLISH?
Some of the above expressions can raise confusion, but none of them as much as no does.  - Masz czas jutro?,  - No. /   - Rozmawialiśmy o tym.,  - No, tak! The person answering in the first dialogue is not saying that he or she doesn’t have time, on the contrary: in a very colloquial way, perhaps not very elegant-sounding but still popular, they confirm their availability. In the second dialogue, the person giving the answer firmly confirms that the conversation has taken place. In short, no is a very colloquial and nonchalant, though extremely frequently used by the Polish way to say tak.

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A FEW WORDS ABOUT RZECZY IN POLISH LANGUAGE

RZECZ IN POLISH LANGUAGE MEANS MORE THAN JUST A MATERIAL OBJECT
Today it’s going to be brief and do rzeczy (to the point), because I will tell you about the word rzecz.
The majority of foreigners learning Polish (If you are looking for an interesting Polish language course here, you will find some useful information.) get to know this word quite early on. It denotes an object and it’s very easy to translate it into another foreign language (die Sache in German, thing in English, or вещь in Russian). We say moje rzeczy (here, we usually use the plural form) when we refer to objects belonging to us. However, in Polish rzecz appears in contexts which go beyond this first, elementary meaning. In fact, we can often hear that someone has dużo rzeczy do zrobienia, that is someone has to tackle many issues or tasks (the word sprawy is also popular in Polish and one can use the expression zająć się wieloma sprawami in the same context).

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WHO IS TALKING DO RZECZY?
If during a discussion about a certain topic someone starts digressing and drifting away from the original subject of the conversation, it’s enough to say: Do rzeczy, proszę and our interlocutor will quickly return to the interrupted thread. Mówić do rzeczy conveys as much as talking sense and straight to the point. Someone, who mówi od rzeczy, says something unrelated to the subject matter and often what is said doesn’t make sense. Yet, when that someone realises it and we begin to hear meaningful and interesting words, we can comment: Teraz mówisz do rzeczy. Likewise, we can describe sensible people, good ideas and anything that makes sense as będące do rzeczy, while when we want to express the contrary, we describe these people, ideas and issues as będące od rzeczy.

WHAT ELSE IS GOOD TO KNOW ABOUT RZECZY IN THE POLISH LANGUAGE?
People that call a spade a spade, nazywają rzeczy po imieniu, and rzeczą oczywistą jest (there is no doubt about) that the communication with them is brief, succinct, but also difficult.

Polish has endowed rzecz with multiple meanings. This small word can stand for an object, a task, an activity or a subject of a conversation. Cała rzecz w tym (literally: the whole thing is, meaning: the point is) to remember to always use rzeczy do rzeczy :).