PIENIĄDZE, KASA, FORSA... OR WORDS FOR „MONEY“ IN POLISH
Today we want to talk about money (o pieniądzach – locative). As you know,
money (pieniądze nominative, plural
in Polish) doesn‘t bring hapiness but it’s better to mieć pieniądze (accusative; have money) than nie mieć pieniędzy (genitive; not to have money), because z pieniędzmi (instrumental; with
money) in your pocket life is easier. Let’s take a closer look at Polish money
(przyjrzyjmy się pieniądzom –
dative).
In your Polish class (check here if you’re
looking for interesting Polish courses) you will definitely learn that the word
pieniądze is most often used in
plural. Well, who wouldn’t prefer to have them in a larger amount ;-)
Naturally, the singular form pieniądz exists, but it’s used much less frequently.
Money has many names in spoken language, and
both native Polish users and foreigners learning Polish know very well how
creative Polish may be and how many terms it may create to name one object. In
slang pieniądze may be referred to as
kasa, forsa, szmal or even sałata (literally: lettuce) or kapusta (literally: cabbage).
ZA ZŁOTÓWKĘ (for a zloty) – ON POLISH CURRENCY
Polish currency is, of course, złoty. A one-zloty coin is commonly
known as złotówka and if something
costs 1zl, we say that it kosztuje
złotówkę. Money may be used in form of gotówka
(cash), which means monety (coins) commonly known as drobniaki (small change), or banknoty
(banknotes), or in form of karty
płatnicze, debetowe and kredytowe (payment,
debit and credit cards), informally called plastik.
We can płacić
 | ||
| gotówką, i.e. pay in cash, |
 |
| or płacić
kartą, i.e. pay by card (check our fb page for more interesting facts about the Polish language). |
In order to get some cash you may use a bankomat (ATM) to wypłacić (withdraw) or simply wziąć
(take) it from your konto bankowe
(bank account). Then we can wydawać
(spend) the money. And if you are oszczędny
(thrifty), you can put the money in your current account or lokata (deposit account) and then you oszczędzasz (save) it. Thanks to that in
some time you will be able to look at your wyciąg
bankowy (bank statement) and say with a smile: Oh, moje pieniądze (my money – vocative)!
