Posts under Vocabulary

Useful Expressions - Spoko, spoko

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Nov
14
2009

A friend asked me a very theoretical question, and it went more or less like this:
“OK, let’s say that, theoretically of course, I am going to be visiting Poland around Christmas, or at the very least - Greenpoint. What Polish words would I hear most frequently?”

“Oh, you mean like the k-word?” was my reply.
“No, not really, I mean like words that you can actually spell out on your blog without getting in trouble.”

Ahhhh… OK, let me think then…

Hmmm… so if you just happen to be listening to random people’s random conversations, what would you hear most often? (Apart from all the words that Poles are seemingly very fond of using and which I can’t include in here.)

There’s always “cześć” – the universal Polish greeting when “dzień dobry” seems too official.
There are always “Pan” and “Pani”, as in “Panie Waldku” and “Pani Aniu”, etc… that’s how we tend to address each other when using first names only seems either too rude or too familiar.

And then there’s “spoko, spoko”. I have to confess, I like “spoko, spoko” and use it a lot. Maybe even too much, according to some people.

So, what is “spoko, spoko”?
Spoko is shortened version of “spokojnie” when used to calm someone down, as in “it’s OK”, “it’s all right”, or even “take it easy.”
Spokojnie itself is an adverb and means “calmly”, “quietly” and so on, you get the idea. The adjective it came from is “spokojny” and here it is in all its glorious forms:

  • spokojny (adj., fem: spokojna, neuter: spokojne, plural personal masculine: spokojni, plural all others: spokojne) – calm, quiet, unhurried.

And sometime along the way “spokojnie” got shortened to “spoko” and then repeated twice for emphasis – “spoko, spoko”.

As in:

    Spóźnimy się! – We’ll be late!
    Spoko, spoko, zdążymy. – take it easy, we’ll make it (on time).

And that’s pretty much what “spoko, spoko” is all about.

So, what other most often heard words and phrases do you think should be included?

 
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About Rabid Dogs and Getting Really Mad

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Nov
8
2009

Remember Barb’s guest post about her trip to Poland? In it, at the very end, she mentioned, humorously no doubt, the famous Polish wildlife specimen – wściekły pies (rabid dog).

That comment has prompted one of the readers to send me an email asking whether it was true or not – if there really were rabid dogs in Poland. The reader was about to move to Poland and planned to take his dog with him. But now, after finding out that Poland was not a rabies free country, he was having second thoughts.

Yes, wścieklizna (rabies) is very much real in Poland. And as far as I know, all cats and dogs kept as pets must be vaccinated (koty i psy muszą być zaszczepione) against rabies. But also as far as I know, rabies is mostly prevalent in wild animals – squirrels, bats, foxes, (wiewiórki, nietoperze, lisy) etc…

What would concern me, as an animal lover, more are the numbers of stray dogs and cats (bezdomne, literally – homeless, psy i koty) in Poland.

And to calm my concerned reader who’s planning to bring his dog to Poland, this is most likely what Barb had in mind when she mentioned her wściekły pies – a stray that barks like crazy and lunges for your ankles when you walk by. Any dog that’s loud and aggressive (and doesn’t even have to be homeless) can be colloquially referred to as “wściekły pies”.

Incidentally, the adjective “wściekły” (feminine: wściekła, neuter: wściekłe, plural masculine personal: wściekli, plural all others: wściekłe) also means furious, mad (as foaming at the mouth mad), angry, livid.

And there’s even a verb – wściec się (perfective; imperfective: wściekać się) – to get angry, mad, furious, to see red, to go postal.

So, now all you ladies out there, you can say:

  • Jestem wściekła na niego. – I’m mad (angry) at him.
  • Wściekłam się na niego. – I got mad (angry) at him.

And gentlemen, please don’t ask me why I’m giving such examples today. Let’s just say that jestem naprawdę wściekła na niego (I am really mad at him) today. LOL!

 
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Polish Homonyms (or is it homophones?)

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Nov
5
2009

Just yesterday someone asked me for examples of words (Polish words, of course) that sound the same, are spelled the same, but mean something totally different. You know, like in English light, and right, and stuff like that. Can’t think of more examples right off the bat. Oh yeah, and a bat.

But suddenly, when I had to give some examples in Polish, I was stumped. The fact that I’m very easily stumped you all know already very well. So, I decided to take the easy way out and say that in Polish we have different words for different things. Yeah, that was lame, I know. And totally not true.

But apart from prawo and lewo, I couldn’t come up with any other examples.

Prawo could be either a noun or an adverb.
As a noun, it’s neuter in gender and it means “law”, as in “I’m studying law” – Studiuję prawo.
As an adverb, it means “right” as in “to turn right” – skręcić w prawo.
Lewo is an adverb too, and it’s the opposite of prawo, as in “to turn left” – skręcić w lewo.
But if you use it in a phrase like “załatwię to na lewo”, it means something like “I’ll get it done, but not quite legally, under the table, etc…” Which smells of kombinowanie, in a rather negative way, so there you have it.
OK, what else? Niebo (noun, neuter) can mean either “sky” or “Heaven”.
Tępy (adjective, feminine singular: tępa, neuter singular: tępe, pl masc personal: tępi, all others plural: tępe) can mean either blunt, dull (as in not sharp) or stupid. There is even a noun derived from tępy to describe a particularly dumb and uncouth person: tępak.
And here I draw a blank…

So, please, by all means, feel free to add to the list. Or else we’ll have to stick with the version that in Polish we have all sorts of different words for all sorts of different things.

 
Posted under Polish Language, Vocabulary
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Poles and kombinowanie

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Oct
27
2009

Today we will tackle something that is a bit controversial. Or maybe not, I guess it all depends on your point of view. But we’ll see.

I really don’t like sweeping generalizations, though that doesn’t stop me in making them myself from time to time, to be perfectly honest. So most of the time when I hear such a general comment, I just take it with a grain of salt. But when those sweeping generalizations begin to include me, well, that’s a whole another story. It’s personal then, and for me that’s when the gloves come off.

But yeah, what kind of generalizations are we talking about here? You know, those broad comments that encompass perhaps an entire nation or an ethic group, like that the French are generally rude (not true) and the Americans fat (again, not true). So why am I getting all worked up about it today? Somebody has told me recently, and to my face no less, that Poles are a conniving, dishonest bunch that can’t be trusted. As a proof of those national characteristics, the person used the famous Polish art (or is it a skill?) of kombinowanie.

Now, I know those comments have been around for centuries, and I know that Poles made kombinowanie into a whole new art form in its own right (that much is true), but when someone says it to my face, that makes it personal.

And personally, some of the most dishonest and untrustworthy people I’ve met in my life were single males between the ages of 22 and 32, university educated, no less. Does that mean that I’m going to pass sweeping generalizations that all single males between the ages of 22 and 32 are dishonest pricks? Of course not. So it really bothers me when narrow-minded people apply such generalizations to whole nationalities and ethnic groups.

I explained as much to the person I was talking with, and his response was “but you guys (meaning Poles) have a bad reputation everywhere you go.”

Oh really? Is that true? Am I that out of touch with how the Polish people are perceived by foreigners?

And is “kombinowanie” really all that bad? I’m as good at it as the next Pole, and yet I’ve never used it for nefarious purposes. Quite the opposite in fact.

But what is that “kombinowanie” anyway?
Some of my fellow countrymen will tell you that it’s one Polish word that can’t be translated into English. I disagree. It can be translated, but how you do it depends on the context.

The verb “kombinować” can mean many things. It can be used as in “to scheme”, “to fix”, “to sort out”, “to arrange” and so on. You get the idea. Nothing wrong with a little “kombinowanie” itself, it’s why you want to kombinować that might be perceived as less than honest by some people.

So yeah, we are the masters of kombinowanie, but does that immediately mean we are dishonest and untrustworthy as a nation?
Your opinions please. Honest opinions, of course.

PS. I apologize for the recent lack of comments from me, but we’re moving again and have internet issues.

 
Posted under Culture, Vocabulary
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Readers Ask - I Answer: Counting Things in Polish

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Oct
22
2009

I was going to stay in bed and marinate under the covers for one more day (yes, my cold has morphed into a full-blown bronchitis now) but a reader’s email made me crawl out to face the enemy. The email had that panicky and ominous tone making it sound as if the intergalactic victory of good over evil (read: Polish grammar) depended solely on me.

So here I am, at your service.

What the reader wanted was this: please tell me how to count (in Polish, of course) the following nouns: dziecko (child, neuter), nauczycielka (teacher, female), pisarz (writer, masculine), jesień (autumn, feminine), mysz (mouse, feminine), and słoń (elephant, masculine). Though I am not entirely sure if the reader wanted słoń (elephant) or słońce (sun), so just in case I think I’ll do both.

Initially, I wrote back and told him to look up my previous posts on this subject, but he responded that this is the time when grammar explanations are not enough, he needs to see how it’s actually done in practice. OK, fine by me. And actually, I just wanted to throw those words at you (all my readers in general) and see what you could come up with in terms of counting them from one to five. But since the email had the “the world is going to end on Thursday at 3PM if you don’t help me” tone, I thought I’d just get up and do it myself.

But why do I have this strange feeling that I’m doing somebody’s homework here, huh?

Ok, but here we go.

  • dziecko (child) from one to five:
  • jedno dziecko, dwoje dzieci, troje dzieci, czworo dzieci, pięcioro dzieci
  • nauczycielka (female teacher) from one to five:
  • jedna nauczycielka, dwie nauczycielki, trzy nauczycielki, cztery nauczycielki, pięć nauczycielek
  • pisarz (writer, male) from one to five:
  • jeden pisarz, dwóch pisarzy, trzech pisarzy, czterech pisarzy, pięciu pisarzy
  • jesień (fall/autumn, feminine) from one to five:
  • jedna jesień, dwie jesienie, trzy jesienie, cztery jesienie, pięć jesieni
  • mysz (mouse, feminine) from one to five (this is a tricky one and I hope I got it right):
  • jedna mysz, dwie myszy, trzy myszy, cztery myszy, pięć myszy
  • słoń (elephant, masculine) from one to five:
  • jeden słoń, dwa słonie, trzy słonie, cztery słonie, pięć słoni (and we have a whole circus!)
  • słońce (sun, neuter) from one to five:
  • jedno słońce, dwa słońca, trzy słońca, cztery słońca, pięć słońc

OK, dear reader, I hope this is what you had in mind. And I hope I managed before your doomsday deadline.

 
Posted under Grammar, Vocabulary
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