It’s just few weeks left until Christmas. Why not get into the holiday spirit with some classic Christmas songs and practice the language at the same time?
Listen to the songs and complete the lyrics.
If the exercise doesn’t work you may find it here
If the exercise doesn’t work you may find it here
Read my previous post to learn about Christmas traditions in Poland
How well do you know Polish cases? Find out playing the game!
Check the post about usage of Polish cases here.
In all languages two types of contact can be distinguish – formal and informal. In English the difference between those two is little but in Polish the cultural context is strongly expressed in grammar structures.
Addressing someone formally in Polish we replace the standart forms ty or wy with their formal equivalents:
pan – addressing a man
Jak się nazywasz? – Jak się pan nazywa?
pani – addressing a woman
Gdzie mieszkasz? – Gdzie pani mieszka?
państwo – addressing a couple or a group of men and women
Co robicie? – Co państwo robią?
panie – addressing a group of women
Gdzie idziecie? – Gdzie panie idą?
panowie – addressing a group of men
O czym rozmawiacie? – O czym panowie rozmawiają?
As you may notice in the exemples above in formals senctences we not only add the words like pan, pani, państwo..but also change the form of the verbs to third form singular or plural. So in the sentence like Gdzie pani mieszka? what we say exactly is Where does the lady live? (Gdzie pani mieszka?), the same Gdzie państwo idą? – Where are they going? (Gdzie państwo idą?). Not addressing a person directly as ty or wy but as on/ona or oni/one is a sign of respect.
Polish is a quite formal language so talking to a person we don’t know (doesn’t metter their age as long as they’re not underage), to someone who is older that we are or in any kind of oficial situation the formal forms need to be used. What’s interesting, even people arguing on the street and using invectives far from appropreate will still adress each other as pan/pani.
Nowadays due to the influence of English, usage of the forms pani/pani has becoming less strict between young people especially in the Internet communication and some formal situations.
It is worth to mention that in written Polish, no matter if it is a formal or informal conversation or what age the person is, the forms of the pronouns ty and wy are always spelled with a capital letter.
e.g. Mam się dobrze, dziękuję. A Ty? – I’m well, tank you. And you?
Czy Twoja mama przyjeżdża na weekend? – Is your mom coming for the weekend?
Czy mogę Wam pomóc? – Can I help you?
If the exercise doesn’t work you may find it here.
If the exercise doesn’t work you may find it here.
If you would like to learn more about Polish prefixation and changes of meaning read my previous post
If the exercise doesn’t work you may find it here.
If the exercise doesn’t work you may find it here.
More exercises you may find here.
To indicate a recipient of an action in a sentence we use Celownik (dative case). Comparing to other cases Celownik is used quite rarely and is easy to learn. Below you may find the table with Celownik’s endings and the usage.
Celownik is used:
– in impersonal phrases like: miło mi, zimno mi, gorąco Ci, dziecku jest niedobrze
– to express a recipient e.g. Pomogę mamie., Daj dziecku zabawkę.
– with certain verbs: przeszkadzać (to disturb), pomagać (to help), zazdrościć (to envy), wierzyć (to believe) e.g. Nie przeszkadzaj ojcu., Pomagam mamie., Zazdroszczę jej., Wierzę ci!
– after following prepositions: dzięki (thanks to), przeciwko (against), wbrew (against, despite, in spite of)
Position of celownik in a sentence is loose and depends mostly on which part of the sentence we want to emphasise. That can cause some difficulties with understanding a sentence. In Polish prepositions are used rarely as the cases show what is the function of each word in a sentence. Look at the examples below, do you undrestand those sentences? Can you tell who is the recipient (celownik case), to whom something belongs (possessor narzędnik case) and what is the object (biernik case) here?
Wyślij klientom maila z informacjami. – Send an email with the information to the clients
Produktom tej firmy możesz zaufać. – You can trust products of this company.
Daj synowi siostry sałatkę babci. – Give the grandma’s salad to (your) sister’s son.
To learn more about Polish cases and their usage read the post
What I like the most about teaching Polish is that it makes me look at the language from a different perspective and very often I get amazed how complex, difficult or funny it is. When I started to think about some Polish idioms and their literal meaning, I found some of them simply hilarious! I’ve decided to choose few (in my opinion the funniest onces) and share them with you. Enjoy. 🙂
(lit. to go to sleep with chickens) to go to sleep very early
Wieczorem zwykle czytam książkę albo oglądam film sama, bo mój mąż chodzi spać z kurami.
(lit. to write like a hen with its claw) to have a very bad handwriting
Nie mogę tego przeczytać, piszesz jak kura pazurem!
(lit. to show where crayfishes spend winter) to teach someone a lesson, to take a revenge on someone
Myśli, że udało mu się mnie oszukać. Ja mu jeszcze pokażę, gdzie raki zimują.
(lit. elephant stepped on your ear) to not be good at music
Naprawdę uważasz, że ona dobrze śpiewa? Chyba Ci słoń na ucho nadepnął!
(lit. to get sweaty like a mouse giving a birth) to be very sweaty
Ale tu gorąco! Spociłem się jak mysz w połogu.
(lit. to go like a boar into acorns) to go/run very fast and enthusiasticly
Kiedy tylko zobaczyła w sklepie tę czerwoną sukienkę, poszła jak dzik w żołędzie!
(lit. to turn the cat with its tail/ to turn the cat with its tail front) to twist things, to humbug
Nie odwracaj kota ogonem, wszyscy wiemy, co się wydarzyło.
(lit. to run like a cat with a bladder) to run/ walk around impatiently and nervously
Przestań biegać jak kot z pęcherzem! Nasz samolot jest dopiero za 4 godziny, mamy dużo czasu!
(lit. as much as a cat cried out) a little, almost nothing
Miałeś tyle planów, a zrobiłeś tyle, co kot napłakał!
(lit. to have flies in your nose) to be moody, displeased
Od rana masz muchy w nosie, wszystko cię irytuje!
(to frock up like a rat for opening of a canal) to overdress
Idziemy tylko do kina, a ty wystroiłaś się jak szczur na otwarcie kanału!
What about your language? What are the funniest idioms in your native language? Share them in the comments.
More interesting Polish idioms you may find here.
In plural forms of Polish nouns the category of masculine personal nouns has a special place. Various options of the endings might be overwhelming but practicing make it easier.
The tables below present endings for masculine personal forms. Based on them try to complite short exercises.
If the exercise doesn’t work, you may find it here
If the exercise doesn’t work, you may find it here
Read also about using numbers with plural forms
Dzisiaj w Polsce obchodzimy Dzień Kobiet. Z tej okazji przygotowałam tekst o jednej z najbardziej znanych i szanowanych polskich kobiet – Marii Skłodowskiej-Curie. Przeczytaj tekst, rozwiąż zadania i poznaj mniej znane fakty z życia polskiej uczonej. Powodzenia!
MNIEJ ZNANE OBLICZE MARII SKŁODOWSKIEJ-CURIE – tekst
MNIEJ ZNANE OBLICZE MARII SKŁODOWSKIEJ-CURIE – odpowiedzi
Join our FIRST FREE POLISH LANGUAGE CHALLENGE!
8 topics | 60 days | 30 minutes a day
start: 8th of March
📈 you will create a studying routine
📈you will maintain your motivation
📈 you will break the speaking barrier and crash the shyness
📈you will revise or learn new vocabulary on the most popular conversation topics
For Upper Beginners and Intermediate students. The Challenge has two levels.
📚 Sign up for the challenge here https://goo.gl/t1cKqA
📚Record a simple, spontanous video to set your starting point (It can like ours or simpler but in Polish ofc. (Link below)) .
📚 Upload it in our group https://goo.gl/JTHNxP . Later you will be asked to record a video/ audio or write a short text every week (the choice is yours and it’s not obligatory but recommended!)
📚 For 60 days you are going to get e-mails with exercises and tasks. Short ones. Max 30 minutes a day of work. The exercises will cover 8 interesting topics.
We are in it with you. I am learning Romanian and Paulina – Egyptian Arabic. We are going to record videos and study 30 minutes every day just like you do! Here is Paulina’s video : https://youtu.be/hXBlzcLm19c