Posts in November 2008

Andrzejki – The Night Before St. Andrew’s Day

One of my friends asked me if I knew any fortune-telling games for Andrzejki and my answer was “What on earth are you talking about?” Actually, it was much more to the point than that, but since this is a PG blog, I will refrain from quoting directly.
And she said, “You know, hot wax and [...]

Dzień Dziękczynienia - Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to our American friends!
To those of you who are in Poland, are you doing anything special? Are you preparing the whole nine yards of turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and pies and ham and green beans and corn and freshly baked rolls?
And speaking of pies, how would you translate “pie” into Polish. [...]

Perfective vs Imperfective

One of you sent me an email wanting to know more about the verbs I listed in the Dative part 3 blog post. “What’s the deal with those two forms?” was the question.
Well, I’m glad you asked. And here are the verbs in question:

dać/dawać – to give
oddać/oddawać – to give back/ to return
sprzedać/sprzedawać – to [...]

In the Kitchen

Last week I went food shopping with my dad. We went to one of the Carrefours in Gdańsk. Don’t ask me which one, I don’t know, I have absolutely no sense of direction.
Anyway, while walking around that Carrefour and looking for balsamic vinegar (ocet balsamiczny), I ended up in their “foreign foods” section. And, oh [...]

The Dative, part 3

It’s been a while, a looong while actually, since our last post about nouns and cases. I think I started telling you about the dative case and then promptly began to practice avoidance. So where were we last? Oh yes, personal pronouns and indirect objects, me thinks.
So, let’s quickly go back and review. I told [...]