Posted by Anna Ikeda
It’s time for some grammar now, don’t you agree? And since we’ve already started with nouns and declensions a couple of weeks ago, I think we should continue.
The case we’re going to discuss today is my least favorite. Why? Because on the surface, it seems deceptively easy. Almost too easy, in fact. Yet when you start looking at it up close, it’s anything but. Of course, in everyday speech we don’t stop to think, “oh gee, there’s a genitive in this sentence”. We just say what we need to say without paying much (or any) attention to the grammatical bits and pieces.
And yes, it’s time for the GENITIVE case today.
dopełniacz = genitive
You all know what the genitive case does in English. It shows that one noun is the possessor of another noun. And it also indicates various relationships other than who owns whom or what. In English, in it most basic form it’s done by the handy construction of “apostrophe plus s”. Like this one:
Agata’s cat.
Actually, as several generations of Polish children know, it’s not Agata, but Ala, who has a cat. So let’s keep the tradition alive and add Ala to our examples:
Ala’s cat.
That’s in English, stick an apostrophe and an “s” and your work is done. In Polish it’s not quite as simple, because to decline a noun you need to change its ending. In this example, our nouns are two lovely ladies named Agata and Ala. Read More »
Posted by Anna Ikeda
Most foreigners, whether they realize it or not, have had some sort of contact with Polish culture. And it happened, most likely, in the kitchen. Yep, it’s Polish food time!
And if you’re going to argue that food is not culture, then I dare you to eat nothing but burgers next time you’re in Italy or France…
The other day I was looking at recipes on the net and came across something that stopped me dead in my tracks. It was a bigos recipe (in English naturally), which recommended using Savoy cabbage. Now, I have absolutely nothing against Savoy cabbage, but just what kind of nouveau-riche bourgeois bigos is that? And what’s next? Bigos with shitake mushrooms? And just a touch of ginger?
Proper bigos is made with simple white cabbage and simple Polish-style sauerkraut. No fancy Savoy there. But that recipe made me realize just how far Polish cuisine has evolved throughout the years. And especially – Polish cuisine abroad. It’s also amazing how certain dishes assimilated so well into their new cultures, many to the point, that few people are aware of their Polish origins. Read More »
Posted by Anna Ikeda
Many Poles will tell you that Polish is a phonetic language. In other words, you read it as you write it. Cool! Sounds easy enough, right? But hold on a sec. That’s not entirely true. While written Polish might indeed be easier to decipher than for example English (just think about the many different ways you can read the letter “a” in English), it has its own set of funky spelling problems. As any child in Poland can tell you, there is nothing more hideous in this world than Polish orthography. And unfortunately that orthography is directly tied into how we pronounce Polish words.
Take these two vowels, for example:
u and ó
They both sound exactly the same, like “oo” in English.
Or this pair:
ż and rz
Again, exactly the same sound in both cases, similar to the French “j” in “Je” (as in “Je t’aime”). Except, when the “rz” combination is pronounced separately as “r”+”z”. Not very often, but it does happen.
Or this pair:
h and ch
They both sound like “h”.
Read More »
Posted by Anna Ikeda
I would like to welcome all my new readers and thank you guys for commenting. It’s great to see your feedback! I also want to encourage you to ask me questions and offer suggestion regarding what you want me to write about here. Don’t be shy! Whether it’s grammar, spelling, history, or “my grandma used to make this yummy Polish dish”, I will do my best to answer all your queries.
Ed already started by asking about Galicia in his comment. So today, it’s all Galicia all the time. Ed, enjoy! And let me know if this is the information you were looking for.
The problem with Galicia is that there are actually two of them, one in Poland and one in Spain. And if you’re not quite sure which Galicia region you have in mind, it can be quite confusing –it was even to me when I was in school. Here, of course we’ll talk about Galicia in central Europe.
The name “Galicia” (Galicja in Polish) is a historical term, and as such – is no longer used to describe the area. And the region itself is now divided between Poland and Ukraine. So just where exactly this Galicia used to be? Get a map of Ukraine and look for Lviv (Lwów in Polish), then go a little bit east until you reach Ternopil (Tarnopol in Polish). From there trace a bit south-west to Ivano-Frankovsk. That little triangle is the original Galicia.
“But wait!” you could say, “It’s all Ukraine.”
Read More »
Posted by Anna Ikeda
Lately I have been hearing a lot about what it means to be Polish. It seems to be a trendy discussion topic, both among my countrymen and foreign expats living in Poland. And while neither side can agree on what exactly characterizes a typical Pole, they are both of the same opinion when it comes to pride. Polish people are fiercely proud of being Polish. We’re proud of our history, culture, language, food, music, country, weather, alcoholic beverages and everything in between. Where that pride comes from, I’m not really sure. But in order to try to understand what it means, you need to take a closer look at the thick volumes of Henryk Sienkiewicz.
You might have heard of him, he’s the guy who wrote “Quo Vadis”. Yep, the same “Quo Vadis” that in the 1950s was adapted into a movie with Deborah Kerr, Peter Ustinov and a whole bunch of other stars. Actually, “Quo Vadis” has been turned into several film versions, including a couple of silent ones, in addition to just about everything else – stage plays, TV miniseries, and even an opera.
This book has definitely contributed to Mr. Sienkiewicz’s Nobel Prize for literature in 1905, which he got for his “outstanding merits as an epic writer”. There are other Poles that also got the prize – Władysław Reymont in 1924, Czesław Miłosz in 1980 and Wisława Szymborska in 1996, but we’ll talk about them another time.
Read More »
