TERMS USED TO NAME PERIOD OF REST IN THE POLISH LANGUAGE

WHY DOESN’T MY CHILD HAVE AN URLOP?
There are several commonly used terms to name the period when we rest, have time off work or school. We often use them interchangeably, however, sometimes the rules for their use are strict. Students of Polish often feel surprised to hear that they can’t say moje dziecko jedzie na urlop. Why?

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WAKACJE AND URLOP?

There are two basic terms to describe the period of time, which we use to rest: wakacje and urlop. Both words are international words. The term wakacje is derived from the Latin word "vacatio" (liberation, release), no wonder that the French, Italian and Spanish students immediately recognize it easily (vacances, vacanza, vacaciones). In the Polish culture the noun wakacje refers to the time off work or school, usually in summer. When using this form you should remember that it is used in plural form only. The latter of the above-mentioned terms, urlop, is derived from the German "Urlaub" is only used when referring to working adults, who take time off work at any time off the year.

FERIE AND MAJÓWKI – THEIR MEANING IN POLISH

If the same adults take their children along, and they are planing to go on holiday in winter, we use another form, ferie. This noun refers to the break from school, but only in wintertime. We can say that ferie is a kind of January-February equivalent of the word wakacje. The word ferie is also used in plural form only.
Another interesting and popular noun to name a period of rest is majówka. That is a colloquial name for the first three days of May: 1st (Labour Day), 2nd (Day of the Flague) and 3rd (Day of the Constitution of 3rd May), which, if combined with a Saturday and Sunday, make up the so-called długi weekend majowy (long May weekend). But why use that many words if we can call it simply and nicely majówka?!

As you can see, when you’re going away to take some rest, the way you call it in Polish depends on time and your personal situation. Accordingly, you can say: jadę na urlop/wakacje/ferie/majówkę.

                                       
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DIMINUTIVE FORMS OF POLISH NAMES, SO IS ASIA JOANNA?

FOREIGNERS AND POLISH NAMES

- Wysłałeś mail Asi? (Have you emailed Asia)?
- Nie, wysłałem mail Joannie. (I’ve emailed Joanna)
- No, właśnie: Asi. (Exactly: Asia)
- Nie, Joannie. (No, Joanna)

A dialogue like that is quite common in companies where foreigners work with the Polish. Even the foreigners who can speak Polish quite well already, especially thanks to  the Polish courses they’ve attended, still stumble over issues that seem trivial, such as names of their Polish colleagues. While it’s fairly easy to figure out that Tomasz is Tomek, Magdalena – Magda, Jakub – Kuba, and Anna is Ania, it gets more complicated with names like Jan, Jerzy, Agnieszka etc.

VARIATIONS OF THE SAME NAME IN POLISH

What is obvious for the Poles, may surprise foreigners. How can a diminutive form of Aleksandra possibly be Ola, or Kasia a diminutive of Katarzyna? And how to remember that Antonina may be called Tosia or Tośka? Is Czarek really Cezary, and is my nice colleague from the open-plan office, Gosia, in fact Małgorzata? Why does Anna‘s business card say Anna, while the colleagues call her Ania and she introduces herself as Anka?! And since when is Jerzy called Jurek? Why do colleagues call Andrzej from the IT department Jędrek? And why does my mother-in-law call her daughter Agusia, if, I remember that very clearly, I married Agnieszka, whose friends call her Aga? And my son has two friends in the kindergarden: Antek and Antoś. They both share the same name, which is Antoni. We cooperate with an accountant, her name is Maria (a beautiful name!), but our colleagues call her Marysia, and once I heard her husband calling her Marynia. And how come my son’s name is Maciuś?! It was my wife, Aga, who insisted on naming him Maciej, after his Polish grandfather. Our hipothetical foreigner never ceases to be surprised, despite the fact that such processes occur in other languages, too (William – Bill, Robert – Bob, Margaret – Peggy, Michael – Mike, Elisabeth – Lizzie etc.)

HOW TO MASTER THE DIMINUTIVES OF POLISH NAMES

When you speak Polish the choice of the name variation very often depends on our relation to the bearer of the name. The Joanna we’ve mentioned above will introduce herself so in formal situations, but her friends, if they want to emphasize the informality of their relations, will call her Joaśka, her beloved or her parents will call her Asia, and when Joanna was a little girl some people might have called her Asiunia. She may have played in the yard with a Tomek, whose mother called him Tomaszek, or even (horror of horrors!) Tomuś, while his documents said his name was Tomasz.
For a foreigner who has just started to learn Polish each of the forms seems to be a different word. How to learn and use them so as to avoid misunderstandings? That’s  easy. Speak Polish as much as possible, practise grammar in the meantime, e.g. here

MINISTROWIE or MINISTRY? STRUGGLING WITH THE PLURAL FORM OF MASCULINE PERSONAL NOUNS

TWO PLURAL FORMS IN THE POLISH LANGUAGE 

What is the plural form of the noun minister?  This question is asked by many foreigners attening courses of Polish as a foreign language.
In principle, the plural form in Polish is regular, but... There is a but. There are two forms of plural in the Polish grammar, for non-masculine personal and masculine personal nouns. The former are regular in most cases: koleżanka, but dwie koleżanki, kot but dwa koty, piwo, but dwa piwa, fotel, but dwa fotele etc. The latter cause more problems. Should we say profesorowie or profesory, dziadowie or dziady? Polish people use both forms, which makes things even more complicated. Let’s look into that to answer the questions which of the forms is the correct one.

NEUTRAL AND DEPRECIATIVE FORMS OF NOUNS

Interestingly, in theory, every masculine personal noun in the nominative and vocative case of the plural form may take both above-mentioned forms. However, the ones that take the same form as the non-masculine personal nouns, are of depreciative kind. They are potentially possible, but rarely in use. Several of them, however, are in quite frequent use, e.g. profesory, policjanty, ministry. They express a great deal of negative emotions. Therefore, if we want to emphasise our respect for the ministers, we should say dobrzy ministrowie. We should use the personal masculine form of the adjective in the plural form accordlingly. However, if we want to make sure your listeners or interlocutors understand that you believe the people in question do not deserve to be in the position, you’ll use the form ministry, and the adjective will take the non-masculine personal form.
It’s woth noting that only some nouns take a different ending to distinguish the negative meaning form the neutral one (the above-mentioned ministrowie, but also dziadowie meaning ancestors, and dziady meaning beggars, the poor). In most cases it is the adjective or the verb (you can find the right forms of verbs on websites with conjugations) that „does the trick“, and that’s why we can say both: to byli znani burżuje and to były znane burżuje.
Let’s not forget that these forms are common for the spoken language, and should be avoided in the correct Polish language.

POLISH AND THE SLAVIC LANGUAGES

The plural form of nouns is quite hard for the Slavs, who try to make the plural forms based on the rules of their native languages. For them, the words like Polaki or Francuzy sound neutral, while for the Poles they sound offensive, since the correct forms are Polacy and Francuzi. Therefore, you’d better make sure by asking the teacher or look the form up in a dictionary. If you want to know more about the Polish language, check it out here.

NAMES OF NATIONALITIES IN POLISH

FEMALE NAMES OF NATIONALITIES

Students of Polish as a foreign language don’t have much difficulty using names of nationalities. The instrumantal case, which we use to talk about nationalities, is a regular one, and its endings are easy to remember (Jestem Francuzem/Francuzką – Hiszpanem/Hiszpanką – Polakiem/Polką – Rosjaninem/Rosjanką). There are only a few difficult moments, especially in case of the female forms, which might be a challange because of alterations. Accordingly, we say: on jest Norwegiem/Włochem/Czechem/ Słowakiem/Grekiem/Turkiem, but ona jest Norweżką/Włoszką/Czeszką/Słowaczką/ Greczynką/Turczynką.

UNTYPICAL NAMES OF NATIONALITIES IN POLISH

There are more problems with the nationalities that didn’t exist in the minds of Polish speakers until quite recently. That’s usually because the inhabitants of the given country used to be the citizens of another, bigger country. Who we have in mind are, first of all, the inhabitants of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. While it is relatively easy to name some of them, such as Liwin – Litwinka (Lithuanian), Estończyk – Estonka (Estonian), Gruzin – Gruzinka (Georgian), Chorwat – Chorwatka (Croatioan), the other ones are a fascinating cultural and linguistic mosaic. We should remember that the citizens of Moldova are called Mołdawianin and Mołdawianka, Montenegro (Czarnogóra) – Czarnogórzec and Czarnogórka, Azerbaijan – Azer and Azerka (or Azerbejdżanin and Azerbejdżanka), Kyrgyzstan – Kirgiz and Kirgijka, Tajikistan – Tadżyk, Tadżyjka, Kazakhstan – Kazach, Kazaszka, Armenia – Armeńczyk and Armenka (or Ormianin and Ormianka), Latvia – Łotysz and Łotyszka.

COUNTRIES WITHOUT NAMES OF NATIONALITIES

There are countries, whose citizens don’t have a specific name in the Polish language. That is the case of The Republic of South Africa (RPA), Ivory Coast (Wybrzeże Kości Słoniowej), The United Arab Emirates (ZEA, Zjednoczone Emiraty Arabskie), Vatican (Watykan), Liechtenstein, Fiji. And there appear names that are so rare or hard to use, e.g. Monakijczyk – Monakijka, Andorczyk – Andorka, Sanmaryńczyk – Sanmarynka, that when speaking we go for the easier forms to use and say: mieszkaniec/mieszkanka Monako, Andory, San Marino (the inhabitant of Monaco, Andorra, San Marino).

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POLISH LEARNERS' STRUGGLE WITH... DATES

DATES  IN THE POLISH LANGUAGE

Który dziś jest? (What’s the date today?) – the question seems fairly easy, however... Well, we all know that appearances can be deceiving. Then, how to answer that question correctly? Do we say: dziś jest piętnasty stycznia (15th January), or perhaps piętnastego stycznia? When do we say dwa tysiące piętnasty, and when dwa tysiące piętnastego?
Foreigners often ask those questions in Polish lessons when they learn how to read the dates correctly.
To make things harder, native speakers of Polish themselves make mistakes, too, which doesn’t help at all.

WHICH DAY OF THE MONTH IS IT?

So, how to say the dates in Polish correctly?
When asked: Który dziś jest? we should answer: Jest piętnasty stycznia dwa tysiące piętnastego roku (It’s 15th January 2015).
Forms such as piętnasty styczeń we should avoid like the plague, since they are not only wrong, but also simply absurd. If we make an effort to figure out their meaning, we should grab a calendar and check how many months of the year called styczeń there are. The form piętnasty styczeń means the fifteenth January (as if there were many months called January and we are referring to the fifteenth of them), not the fifteenth OF January. It’s the form we use when we say piętnaste piętro (the fifteenth floor), or drugi zawodnik (the second competitor). Therefore, when reading the date 15/01 we should put the name of the month in the genitive case and say piętnasty STYCZNIA. That means we have in mind piętnasty dzień stycznia (the fifteenth day of January), not the fifteenth month called styczeń. That is both gramatically and logically correct.
If someone asks us when we could meet, then we can answer: piętnastego stycznia dwa tysiące piętnastego roku (on 15th January 2015).

WHAT CAN WE SAY IN POLISH ONCE IN A THOUSAND YEARS?

And what if we want to say what year it is? Let’s simply not forget that the Polish language loves declension and use it. Say: jest rok dwa tysiące piętnasty (it’s the year 2015), but w roku dwa tysiące piętnastym rozpoczynają się nowe kursy języka polskiego w Po Polsku (in 2015 new Polish courses start at Po Polsku), in which case we have to use the locative.
We should also mention rok dwutysięczny (the year 2000). This form we can use once in a thousand years. There was rok tysięczny (the year 1000), there was rok dwutysięczny (2000) and there will be trzechtysięczny (3000). But NEVER EVER SAY  dwutysięczny pierwszy. That’s a terrible mistake. Remember that the year 2001 one we read: dwa tysiące pierwszy (thousands and hundreds are used in the form of cardinal numbers and tens and units take the ordinal form).

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We wish all our readers interesting Polish lessons (not only of Polish as a foreign language) w dwa tysiące piętnastym roku!

TAILS, STROKES AND DOTS, OR THE ORIGINAL LETTERS OF THE POLISH LANGUAGE

HOW IMPORTANT ARE TAILS IN POLISH LETTERS?

A funny sentence has been circulating online for a while now, it says: „The Polish language is friendly, it wags its tails at us“.
Many foreigners learning Polish ask whether all those strokes, dots and tails are necessary. The truth is that the Polish language cannot do without them not only for historical reasons, which are important, or because of Polish spelling rules, but because they are also diacritical marks that make up a completely new letter (there are 9 of such in the Polish alphabet). Therefore you have to remember that a little tail, a small stroke or a dot can completely change the meaning of a word.

SMALL STROKE – BIG CHANGE IN MEANING

Need an example? The statement Idź do kąta! I przynieś karton, który tam stoi (go to the corner and fetch the carton from there) has a completely different meaning from the sentence Idź do kata! (go away, you’re not welcome here). Kąt means „corner“, while kat is a person that used to carry out executions, an executioner. As you can see, the difference is enormous.

There are many more examples like that. When asked: Co masz w dłoni? (What’s that in your hand?“) we can anwer either nic or nić. The former means that we have nothing there (nic – nothing), whereas the latter means that the person we’ve asked is probably planning to sew, since nić means „thread“.
Żona means „wife“, while zona is a word that means „zone“, which is not common, but still in use these days. The word pół (1/2, half) is completely different from pól (genetive form of the noun pola – fields). Kos is a bird (blackbird), whereas koś is an imperative form of the verb kosić (to mow, to scythe). When I want someone to start driving, I call: jedź! (go!, drive!),  and if I want to encourage someone to eat, I say: jedz! (if you don’t remember how to conjugate the verbs, or you’re not sure whether to use a stroke or a dot, check it here)

WHAT MAKES THE POLISH LANGUAGE WHAT IT IS

It can be said that without all the tails, strokes and dots the Polish language wouldn’t be itself :)
Therefore, it is advisable that the attention  should be drawn to the dots, tails and strokes so that the learners do not confuse nos (nose) with noś (the imperative form of the verb nosić – to wear).

NEW YEAR WISHES IN POLISH

NEW YEAR DILEMMAS

Neither the end nor the beginning of the year, i.e. the moment when most of us enjoy doing nothing, is the time free of language dilemmas for the students of Polish. How to extend New Year greetings and wishes in Polish? What year is it? I’m having a sylwester or Sylwester (New Year’s Eve party)?

DO SIEGO ROKU – WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku is the phrase we hear most often at the end of December and beginning of January. Although it is not too easy to pronounce, foreigners diligently learn these exact words, and forms,  in the classes of Polish. Students also ask what the expressions Do siego roku means, since they can often see it displayed in public places during the holiday season. The expression is derived from ... the Proto-Slavic language, in which the word siego was the Genitive form of the pronoun ś/si, the equivalent of today’s pronoun ten. Do siego roku means the same as do tego roku (until this year), i.e. this year that is coming. The expression used to be one of the wishes, greetings, extended on Christmas Eve.

The party we have on New Year’s Eve is called sylwester. It takes its name after the nameday of Sylwester, which is on 31st December. If we know a man whose name is Sylwester and he was kind enough to invite us to his nameday party, we can say either: Idę na sylwestra (small letter here, since it’s the name of the party), or do Sylwestra (capital letter here, since it’s a proper name).

ROK DWUTYSIĘCZNY OR  DWA TYSIĄCE PIĘTNASTY? (YEAR 2015)

And then, what year is it? There is only one correct answer: dwa tysiące piętnasty. Remember that when learning Polish this year. All the best!

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