Author Archives: Anna

The Dative, part 3

November 19, 2008 – 2:09 pm

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 [...]

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Which Grammar Book?

November 17, 2008 – 7:16 pm

I really don’t understand why it’s so hard to find a grammar book. A Polish grammar book, that is. In English.
I spent the entire weekend schlepping from one bookstore to another, sometimes in the rain, and the only result was sore feet. My sore feet, that is.
I went to normal bookstores and to “language” bookstores [...]

Posted in Vocabulary | Comments (10)

Independence Day

November 12, 2008 – 11:52 am

Yesterday (November 11th) was the Polish Independence Day (Dzień Niepodległości), but according to my contact in Gdańsk, the celebrations were mostly invisible. The white and red flags appeared on street corners, but I was told that was about the extent of it. Most people were just happy to get an extra day off. And what [...]

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Stary Piernik and Other Expressions, part 1

November 8, 2008 – 3:06 pm

John H. came up with an excellent suggestion for a blog post and I gotta say that neither I nor my friends have ever had so much fun gathering material and doing “linguistic” research. Some of those expressions – I even forgot they existed. Like “stary piernik” for example. When translated literally, it becomes “old [...]

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Diversity or Political Correctness?

November 5, 2008 – 7:04 pm

A while back I pledged that I wouldn’t write here about politics and religion, and for the most part, I stuck to my promise. But today, I will break it and talk about religion, albeit vaguely and not in the way you think.
People abroad always think that Poland is a uniformly Catholic country. And it [...]

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All Saints’ Day

November 2, 2008 – 6:52 pm

Yesterday the entire Poland celebrated the holiday of All Saints’ Day (Wszystkich Świętych) and initially, I wasn’t going to write about it. I’ve always found this occasion to be totally and utterly depressing, regardless of how beautiful all those flickering candles may look. There is something about it that I just can’t wrap my mind [...]

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Prepositions, part 1

October 31, 2008 – 2:35 pm

A while back Gary sent me an email, which for the life of me I can’t find anywhere now – my mailbox self-destructed earlier this week and all my messages disappeared into the bottomless internet pit. But that’s not what we’re going to talk about today. Gary asked for a post about prepositions, and when [...]

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Unfortunate Menu Translations

October 28, 2008 – 1:41 pm

Though I am no longer in Gdańsk, I will keep writing about it until either I run out of things to say, or you, my dear readers – get bored.
I didn’t go to Hel this time, but no worries, I’m returning to Poland in about three weeks to pick up my ID card (dowód osobisty) [...]

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Reporting From Gdańsk, part 2

October 25, 2008 – 5:28 pm

I feel terribly uncouth and totally under-dressed. These women here walk on cobblestones in heels. HIGH heels. And then there’s me with my sensible walking shoes (read: hiking boots). I can’t walk in heels even on a regular smooth sidewalk, and just imagining the ordeal of walking on cobblestones gives me instant foot and back [...]

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Reporting From Gdańsk

October 22, 2008 – 4:48 pm

Al from the Polish-American Genealogy blog, which by the way is a great resource for anyone interested in tracing their Polish roots, tagged me with the 10 Years Ago tag…
I’m not much for blog tags and normally ignore them, but how could I say “no” to a fellow Kashub (“Kaszub” in Polish)? I couldn’t. Especially [...]

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