THE NAMES OF THE MONTHS IN POLISH

THE NAMES OF THE MONTHS IN POLISH APPEAR TO BE DIFFICULT 

No matter where and what kind of Polish course you are attending, sooner or later you will need to learn the names of the months. Their unusual and complicated names have become a legend. It is not surprising that for many foreigners the names of the months in Polish are quite a challenge. And that’s not about the way they’re pronounced, although we must admit that is not easy, either.

THE NAMES OF THE MONTHS AND THEIR CONNECTION WITH NATURE 

As you probably know, the Polish language likes to be original. Unlike most European languages, in which the names of the months derive from Roman traditions and the Julian calendar, Polish months owe their names to nature and agricultural work performed in particular seasons of the year.
Accordingly, the first month is not called „januar“ or „January“, but „styczeń“, and the etymology of the word still arouses strong emotions among linguists. Some link it with TYKI (long sticks used on farms), others believe the word is derived from „STYKANIE SIĘ“ (to connect, merge), which means the moment when the new year meets (connects with) the old one.

TWO FOREIGNERS :)

Luty (February) takes its name after an old adjective that meant severe and freezing cold.
Marzec (March) is the first „foreigner“ among the twelve months. The same as in many other languages, it was named after the Roman god of war, Mars.
Kwiecień (April) is a month when  flowers start to bloom (kwitnąć – to bloom).
Maj (May) is the second of the „strangers“, the month named after the Roman goddess Maia. It’s probably the only month, which is really easy to pronounce.
Czerwiec (June) owes its name to insects that were collected in the sixth month of the year. They were called „czerwie“ (maggots) and purple dye was extracted from them.
Lipiec (July) was named after LIPY (linden trees), the trees that are beautiful when in bloom, but disliked by people allergic to them.
Sierpień (August) comes from „sierp“ (sickle) which was a tool used for harvesting crops.
Wrzesień (September) was named after „wrzosy“ (heather), bushes with violet flowers when in bloom. It’s enough to go for a walk in the forest in September to see meadows of heather.
Październik (October) takes its name after „paździerz“. It’s hard to understand the origin of the word even for the Polish, because it is connected with flax production. Paździerz was the part of the plant that was discarded as unnecessary.
Listopad (November) – after leaves (liście) that fall off trees.
Grudzień (December) – after „gruda“, which means frozen ground.

DIFFICULT, BUT ...

As you can see, the names of the months in Polish may be difficult, but they are meaningful, the etymology of the words allows us to learn how people used to live and work in the distant past, when the words were created.

 

WIEM, ŻE MNIE ZNASZ (I know you know me). THE USE OF VERBS „ZNAĆ“ AND „WIEDZIEĆ“

THE PROBLEM ANGLO-SAXONS HAVE WHEN LEARNING POLISH

A heading like that can make anyone feel dizzy, especially the students whose native language is English. While the French, Italians, Germans or Spanish find it fairly easy to choose the right verb (WIEDZIEĆ or ZNAĆ), the English speakers find it really hard and they constantly confuse the two words.

WIEDZIEĆ or ZNAĆ? THAT IS THE QUESTION

In fact, there’s a simple way to explain the differences in the use of the two words. Look at the exaples below, what do you see?

Znam Warszawę/ Martę/ Adama/ tę książkę/ was/ twoich rodziców /Polskę/ język polski.

Wiem, gdzie leży Warszawa/ kim jest Marta/ jaki jest Adam/ kto napisał tę książkę/
           jak nazywają się twoi rodzice/ jak jest po polsku... 

Take a closer look at the structures the verbs are followed by. The verb ZNAĆ is followed by a noun. Remember to put the noun in the accusative case if you use the verb in a statement (positive sentence). The verb WIEDZIEĆ, on the other hand, requires the presence of interrogative, relative or indefinite pronouns, such as kto – co – gdzie – kiedy – jak – jaki/a/e – and so on, depending on the context.

CONJUGATION TRAPS

When using the verbs WIEDZIEĆ and ZNAĆ you should remember about the unusual endings in the 3rd person of singular form in the present tense. You can refer to a website with Polish conjugation. And do not forget the unusual conjugation of WIEDZIEĆ in the past tense.
And? Do you know now how to use the verbs? Do you know how they are used?

                                        a common problem the students of Polish: „wiedzieć“ or „znać“?

POLISH CULINARY TRAVELS

THERE’S MORE TO POLISH FOOD THAN PIEROGI

Holidays. The time for intensive courses, trips, exploring new places, meeting new people, learning new languages and trying ... new tastes and flavours! No one can deny that when we are travelling around the world not only do we do sightseeing but also try new dishes. And it’s no different in case of Poland.
Most people when they hear „Polish cuisine“ they immediately think of „pierogi (made in a 1000 ways), bigos, barszcz“. Obviously, these dishes seem to be ones of the most popular around the world and you can try them all over Poland. However, if we limit the Polish food to those three standard dishes only , we’ll miss the chance to try something new, unique and delicious!
Polish cuisine is as diverse as Poland itself, every region is different. Everyone can find something for themselves on this giant menu.

POLISH COD

Fans of fish should definitely go to the Baltic seaside to try the delicious  Gdańsk fish soup with tomatoes, or the Kashubian cod soup (kaszubski rosół z dorsza). If we don’t feel like soup we can have some delicate Kashubian-style flounder with light sauce made with vegetables and dill. Cold beer from a local brewery goes very well with that :)
Everyone who has a taste for freshwater fish is welcome to come to Masuria, where they can try smoked eel and crayfish soup with birch bark. If they enter a kitchen in a Masurian house, they will smell marjoram, cardamom and cumin.

                 while visiting Poland you definitely have to try the exquisite apple pie (szarlotka) made with Polish apples

ŻUREK, TROUT AND OSCYPEK

Those hiking the pastures in Bieszczady (you don’t know what a mountain pasture is? See the previous blog entry), must try the coal-roasted trout or the delicious zander.
You can’t pass by and not try at least a bit of  the dishes that owe their mysterious names to their Lemka and Ukrainian origin. In this region we can discover the real taste of Polish żur (sour rye soup) the most famous plum jam in Poland (made without any sugar!). If you go further south, to Podhale, you will definitely love the smoked sheep milk cheese, the most well known kind of which is oscypek.

TASTES OF PODLASIE AND LUBLIN PROVINCE

Podlasie is the place to be for the fans of potatoes. It is famous for its „kartacze“ (long-shaped potato dumplings stuffed with meat and because of its shape they’re often called cepeliny - zeppelins), potatoe pancakes, żmudzkie pancakes (a delicious combination of boiled potatoes and meat stuffing), and the exquisite chlodnik (cold beet soup), which is a beetroot equivalent of the Spanish gazpacho soup. If you start to feel like something sweet, you definitely have to try the world-famous Polish sękacz (tree cake) made with eggs, flour and honey.
When in Lublin province, you will have an opportunity to try both the exquisite cuisine of nobility and the country food, which is not that diverse but just as tasty. In both of them the main ingredients are kasha and pastries, since this region can boast supposedly the best bakers in the world.

                                               Polish speciality present in the cuisine of every region: cottage cheese

You can write about Polish cuisine for ages as every corner of Poland has a lot to offer, something different, typical of just one little town, village or area. Everyone is invited, not only foreigners, to take a culinary trip around Poland. And every trip like that is a chance to brush up your Polish.

REST AFTER THE COURSE OF POLISH. THE BIESZCZADY MOUNTAINS.

BIESZCZADY: NOT ONLY POLISH WAS SPOKEN THERE

The summer’s coming to an end and you have deserved some rest after the course:) Before you start attending regular classes you can visit the parts of Poland that are not that  popular with foreigners. You must have been to the Tatra Mountains already, you might have been to the ski slopes of the Beskids. Have you heard of Bieszczady, the mountains in the south-east Poland, where the three borders come together: Polish, Slovakian and Ukraine? They’re the so-called Southern Bieszczady, the eastern part of which is in Ukraine.
The Bieszczady Mountains are lower than the Tatra Mountains, but they are known for their unique landscape: wild valleys, beech forests covering the mountain slopes and pastures, which are vast areas covered with grass, they look like huge meadows. When hiking in Bieszczady you will come across deserted villages, graveyards, Catholic and Orthodox churches, since the area is an ethnic and religious melting pot (Polish and Ukrainian people, Lemkos and Boykos).

                                        In such places you can practise not only the Polish language

CLIMB TO THE TOP: TARNICA

Go past Lake Solina (Jezioro Solińskie), do not stop there although it’s beautiful, and keep going until you reach Ustrzyki Dolne. This little place, which is something between a village and a small town, is a perfect starting spot to set off (ruszyć) to the highest peak of Bieszczady – Tarnica (1346 masl). On the way to the top beware of  strong winds, though :) and that’s what you can see from the the top of the mountain:
                                                           

                              on the way to Tarnica you will always run into people you can speak Polish with

It was worth it, wasn’t it?

THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN PASTURES WITH POLISH

From Ustrzyki Dolne you might head for  the breathtaking Carynska Pasture (Połonina Caryńska)

And then, hiking along the Wetlińska Pasture (Połonina Wetlińska), you can stay for the night at a charming hostel called „Chatka Puchatka“,

which is located at 1232 masl. If you arrive there around 7pm the only place available will be ... the one on the floor, in your own sleeping bag. There’s no electricity or running water. Despite the lack of basic facilities you can be sure to spend a charming evening in a cozy atmosphere, speaking Polish, watching a stunning sunset and drinking tea with rum. At the crack of dawn you can set off to Orłowicz Pass (Przełęcz Orłowicza).

At this early hour you’ll see the mist over the valleys,

                             a difficult Polish word mgła (mist): jest mgła, nie ma mgły, we mgle; mglisty dzień

desterted trails, pastures covered in morning sun, and who knows, you might spot (dostrzeżecie) a deer or a lynx.
When you have come back to the real world and to your homes you can review and repeat  the words that have been used in the text (see the Polish version of the blog): tygiel (melting pot) – połoniny (pastures) – wejść na szczyt (climb to the top) – wędrować po górach (to hike in the mountains)– przełęcz (pass) – śpiwór (sleeping bag)– świt (dawn)– ruszyć (to set off)– dolina (valley)– szlak (trail). And practise the conjugation of verbs used, here are the links :) They may prove useful next time you go hiking in the Polish mountains. See you on the trail.

                                     

FALSE FRIENDS: POLISH AND OTHER SLAVIC LANGUAGES

IS IT EASIER FOR THE SLAVS TO LEARN POLISH?

It is believed that the students whose native language is one of the Slavic languages, find it easier to learn Polish as a foreign language than do the students whose language belongs to another language group. There’s a lot of truth in that. There is a „but“, however. The Slavs can easily fall into a trap called false friends when learning Polish.

IT SOUNDS THE SAME IN POLISH, SO...

There is a great deal of words that sound very similar or identical in Polish, Slovak, Czech and Russian. Unfortunately, similar sound doesn’t go with the same meaning. Every Pole doing the shopping in the Czech Republic or Slovakia must have been surprised when they saw bread described as „czerstwy“. At first you might think it’s the honest shop assistant telling his customers that the bread isn’t fresh. Wrong. The word „čerstvé” in Czech and Slovak means fresh, whereas in Polish it means old, stale.

MILITARY TENDENCIES IN THE POLISH LANGUAGE OR FALSE FRIENDS?

Russian speakers burst into laughter when they hear that Polish people drink from a ... cannon. And again, that is a lexical error: the word puszka (пушка) in Russian means «cannon», while in Polish it's just an innocent can.

                                            THE SLAVS LEARNING POLISH MUST BEWARE OF FALSE FRIENDS

Another thing that may astonish the Polish visiting their Slovak friends is the fact that they are invited to sit on the … carpet. But before we sit on the floor, on the above-mentioned carpet, we should realize that „divan” in Slovak is a sofa, not a carpet as the Polish „dywan” is :)

On the other hand, many Czechs staying in Poland must have felt the urge to return to the shop and complain about the pierogi (dumplings) they had bought as they turned out to be with jagody (blackberries) and not truskawki (strawberries) as it said on the packaging. In Czech and Slovak „jahoda” is the Polish ‘truskawka”, and „jagoda” in Polish means a sweet fruit that grows in the forest (our Southern neighbours call it „borówka”).

As you can see, although the Slavs find it easier to learn conjugations and declension, they might have trouble with false friends, therefore it is advisable that they have a dictionary at hand when doing a Polish course.

SZUKAM CIĘ or SZUKAM CIEBIE?

PERSONAL PRONOUNS IN THE POLISH LANGUAGE

Both Polish native speakers and learners of Polish as a foreign language make mistakes when using the personal pronouns. The foreigners who have already learnt to use the pronouns correctly get confused when they hear the Polish saying things like: „szukam ciebie“ (I’ve been looking for you), „potrzebuję ciebie“ (I need you), „pożyczyłem jemu“ (I’ve lent him) and so on. The Polish we’re talking about are not only your colleagues or people you meet in the street, unfortunately, also those who appear in the media. Having heard the native speakers say that, the students return to the classroom convinced that they must have misunderstood something the teacher had said. But no, there’s no misunderstanding here. The truth is that the Polish make those mistakes repeatedly. And the rule is fairly easy to follow.

POLISH GRAMMAR: COMMON DOUBTS

In some cases the personal pronouns take a few forms. Let’s take the genitive case, for instance. The pronoun „ty“ (you singular) used in the genitive case takes the forms ciebie/cię; „on“ (he) – niego/go/jego; „ona“ (she) – niej/jej. It’s almost the same story with the accusative case but for the forms of „ona, which are ją/nią in this case. In the dative case the pronoun „ja“ takes the forms mi/mnie, and „on“ – mu/niemu/jemu. All the abovementioned forms are correct, all you need to know is when to use them, i.e. in which structures they appear. Let’s take a look at some examples which are often given in Polish classes:

Czekam na niego już pół godziny  (I’ve been waiting for him for half an hour)
Lubię go  (I like him)
Znam go bardzo dobrze.  (I know him very well)
Marek? Marek? Moment… Jego nie znam. (Mare? Marek? Wait a minute... I don’t know him – literally: HIM I do not know)

Bez ciebie to nie ma sensu. (Without you there’s no point)
To dla ciebie. (This is for you)
Szukam cię. (I’ve been looking for you)
Potrzebuję cię. (I need you)
Ciebie?! Ciebie nie chcę znać! (You?! I don’t want to know YOU)

Długo mi dziękował. (He thanked me for a long time)
Mnie? O, nie! Mnie nikt nie dziękował. (Me? Oh, no! No one has thanked ME)
Dzięki mnie to zrobił. (He was able to do that thanks to me)

USING THE PERSONAL PRONOUNS: THE RULE

Do you get the rule? Yes! You’re right!
The short pronoun forms, such as mi-cię-go-ją etc. are used IMMEDIATELY after the verb. The long form, e.g. mnie-ciebie-niego-nią we use AFTER THE PREPOSITION („patrzę na ciebie“ – I’m looking at you; „czekam na ciebie“ – I’ve been waiting for you; „boję się o niego“ – I’m worried about him; „odpowiem za nich“ – I’ll answer for them). We also use them when we want to emphasize something: „Jego nie znam“ (I don’t know HIM), „Ją, w przeciwieństwie do Basi, bardzo polubiłam“ (HER, unlike Basia, I got to like a lot – the emphasis is on HER), „Mnie nikt o zgodę nie pytał!“ (No one has asked ME for permission!). In case of emphasis the pronoun is often put at the very beginning of the sentence.
Let’s not forget a few simple rules. It’s nicer to hear „Kocham cię“ (I love you) than „Kocham ciebie“, „Słuchałem cię z przyjemnością“ (I’ve been listening to you with pleasure) than „Słuchałem ciebie z przyjemnością“, „pożyczę mu ten samochód“ (I’ll lend him the car) than „pożyczę jemu ten samochód“, isn‘t it?

DZIĘKI CI – WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

>OK<, the students often say, >We have a sentence: „Jego nigdy nie polubię“ (I’ll never take a fancy to him), but what about „To jest jego żona“, where the pronoun is not used at the beginning of the sentence?< That’s true, but the pronoun used in the second sentence is the possessive pronoun, which is a completely different type.
Great. Then what about „Dzięki ci“? Isn’t that supposed to be „dzięki tobie“? Well, yes and no. „Dzięki tobie mogłem to zrobić“ (I was able to do that thanks to you, here „dzięki“ is a preposition in the dative case).
„Dzięki ci“ is a colloqial way of saying „dziękuję ci“, and the expression is a nonchalant and not really correct equivalent of the latter, which is commonly used, though.

But, as one of my students has wittily pointed out, there are circumstances in which we can use both versions. We can say“ „Czekam na niego“ (I’ve been waiting for HIM), but also „Czekam na go“. Only that the latter means something totally different, doesn’t it? :) [wordplay: na go (the wrong use of „go“ instead of „niego“) and nago (spelt as one word means „naked“, so we get the sentence meaning „I’m waiting, naked“ :)]

If you feel like practising the personal pronouns and not only, see: application Polish for Foreigners, also for Android, iOS and iPad

BEWARE OF FALSE FRIENDS WHEN LEARNING POLISH

THE WORDS THAT SOUND SIMILAR IN POLISH AND ANOTHER LANGUAGE

Everyone who is taking up a foreign language is very happy to hear the words that sound similar in both his native language and the language they are learning. It‘s all fine as long as the words not only sound similar but also mean similar or the same things. Otherwise we’re dealing with everyone’s nightmare called false friends.

THE PROBLEM CONCERNING NOT ONLY SLAVIC LANGUAGE SPEAKERS

I would seem that in case of the Polish language the problem arises when the Slavs take it up. Obviously, there’s plenty of false friends within the same language group (we’re going to devote a separate entry to these), however, we should not think that the speakers of English, Italian or Finnish have nothing to worry about. At first sight these languages seem very different from Polish and it’s hard to find the words that sound similar. But just listen to an everyday conversation in Polish and you’ll change your mind. Examples?

                        When learning any foreign language, not only Polish, we should look out for false friends.

CONSULT A DICTIONARY BEFORE USING WORDS

Imagine that an English speaker needs to go to the doctor’s. He or she is sitting in the waiting room and overhears a conversation between two other patients:
- Bardzo dziś boli mnie bark – one of them complains.
The English speaker has been living in Poland, so he or she has definitely attended a Polish language course and has understood almost everything. But the „bark“ doesn’t seem to fit here. Was the dog barking so loudly that the person started to feel pain? Strange structure. Not at all! The structure is nothing complex. The word „bark“ is the key to understanding the sentence. In Polish the word means „shoulder“, and in English it is the sound that dogs make.
We should also watch out for what we’re saying when taking to an attractive Italian man or woman; our invitation to kolacja (dinner/supper) may be understood as an invitation to colazione, which means „breakfast“ in Italian. A Finn may look in surprise at the form he or she is trying to fill out, because one of the questions is about the name of the trip. All the confusion is caused by the word „matka“, which in Finnish means „trip“ and in Polish it’s „mother“ and it’s the mother’s name that the Finn needs to put in.
Therefore, before we use a Polish word that sounds similar to a word in our language, we’d better look it up in a dictionary to make sure it’s not a false friend.