So, let’s quickly go back and review. I told you that the dative case is used to modify personal pronouns and I showed you how it’s used in examples where the sentences did not have a specific subject and the dative case was used after the verb “to be” in its many different forms and tenses, such as here:

• Było mi zimno. – I was cold.

The word “zimno” is an adverb, of course. And there is a whole slew of adverbs used in impersonal “adverbial” expressions, which describe feelings and sensations. And all those expressions, needless to say, use the dative case.

I gave you one example last time, remember?

• Jest nam przykro. – We are sorry.

Here “przykro” is our adverb of choice. But wait, there’s a whole list of those adverbs that tend to go together with the dative.

• gorąco – hot, as in – Jest mi gorąco. – I’m hot.
• łatwo – easy – Nie jest nam tak łatwo. – It’s not so easy for us, as in “we can’t make ends meet,” for example. Incidentally, I heard that phrase from almost every person I spoke to in Poland during my trip.
• miło – nice – Bardzo mi miło. - Used normally when someone’s introduced to you, as in “Nice to meet you” with the “meet you” implied.
• smutno – sad – Jest jej smutno. – She feels sad.

And so on…

And I think I also briefly touched on the subject of indirect objects. Now, that sounded a bit weird, didn’t it? “The subject of objects…” Anyway…
You see, in Polish all noun cases have certain questions assigned to them. For the dative, these questions are:

• komu? czemu? – to whom? to what?

These questions are a sure giveaway that the case you need is the dative and that it describes either a recipient of something, or a person to whom something was/is/will be said. Complicated? Nah, only a little. These examples should make it a bit easier:

• Muszę pomóc mojemu tacie. – I have to help my dad.

Nominative: mój tata – my dad
Dative – mojemu tacie
Here, the dad is the recipient of my help.

• Sprzedajemy mieszkanie Jackowi z Olsztyna. – We’re selling (our) apartment to Jacek from Olsztyn.

Nominative – Jacek (a guy’s first name)
Dative – Jackowi
Here, Jacek from Olsztyn is the beneficiary of our action.
In the Polish sentence above, the possessive “our” is implied and understood, so everybody knows we’re talking about selling “nasze mieszkanie” – “our apartment” and not somebody else’s.

• Oddałam sąsiadce jej klucze. – I gave back the neighbor her keys.

Nominative – sąsiadka – neighbor (female)
Dative – sąsiadce
Here our female neighbor (sąsiadka) is the recipient of the keys.

So, we can say that the dative case is normally used when you have a verb that requires you to have someone as a beneficiary of your action, for example:

• dać/dawać – to give (to whom)
• oddać/oddawać – to give back/ to return (to whom)
• sprzedać/sprzedawać – to sell (to whom)
• kupić/kupować – to buy
• pomóc/pomagać – to help
• pokazać/pokazywać – to show

And so on… and the noun (or a personal pronoun) following such a verb will most likely be in the dative case.

To be continued…

Post from: Polish Blog

It’s relatively easy to find Polish grammar books in Polish. I saw several different editions. It’s even relatively easy to find Polish grammar books in German, Russian and French, or even in Turkish. But not in English. Really puzzling, if you ask me. I wanted to know why it was so but the ladies at the Pol-Anglo bookstore in Wrzeszcz could only offer me their blank stares for an answer. They didn’t know. Nor did they know whether such a book is even currently available. They told me to look on the internet and come back to them with a name of the author and/or publisher – THEN they would be able to tell me if such a book could be ordered.
“Now, proszę Pani, if I had all that info do you really think I’d be asking you?” I said. They stared at me some more. One of them even blinked.

I had more luck at the English Unlimited store on the other side of the street. There, a nice girl behind the counter very helpfully offered me “Gramatyka języka polskiego dla cudzoziemców” (Polish Grammar for Foreigners) by Barbara Bartnicka and Halina Satkiewicz and published by Wiedza Powszechna (ISBN 83-214-1068-5). Alas, the book was written in Polish. Now, I might be a bit slow on the uptake sometimes, but this one has me puzzled even now, which is two days later. What’s the point of writing a Polish grammar book for foreigners in Polish? If someone’s only learning Polish, do you really think he or she can read an entire, complicated (yes, complicated, because after all it’s Polish grammar we’re talking about here) book in Polish?

Poland has advanced by leaps and bounds in so many other areas so is it really that hard to prepare and publish a good, simple, sensible, PRACTICAL book to help foreigners learn our beautiful (well, sometimes it IS beautiful) language?
And while I’m on the subject of advancing, what’s the point of having a new shining airport terminal in Warsaw WITHOUT any wireless hot-spots?

OK, rant over. Words for today:

• księgarnia (feminine, pl. księgarnie) – bookstore
• książka (feminine, pl. książki) – book

Did you notice? The word “księgarnia” begins with the same three letters as the word “książka.” And if you suspect what I think you suspect, you are absolutely right. These words came from the same common source. But wait, there’s more:

• księgowość (feminine, plural, but only theoretically: księgowości) – accounting
• księgowy (masc., pl. księgowi) – accountant (male)
• księgowa (feminine, pl. księgowe) – accountant (female)
• księga (feminine, pl. księgi) – book (big, fat one), tome, volume, ledger

See, it all started with a big, fat book. And I finally found the book I was looking for on the internet – “Concise Polish Grammar for Foreigners” by Magdalena Foland-Kugler (ISBN: 83-89913-51-8). I loathe buying books, and especially language books, without being able to see what’s inside, but I guess in this case I have no choice.

Post from: Polish Blog

Yes, as you can see, I’m back in Gdańsk. And I plan to continue with my to-do list, which I had prepared for my last visit three weeks ago.

But back to the Independence Day topic, shall we? It’s a relatively new holiday. I say “relatively” because it didn’t exist back in the olden times when I was born. Back then I think, but don’t quote me on it, Poland had a different “independence” day, which wasn’t even called that. Instead, it was called “National Day of Rebirth of Poland on the anniversary of signing the PKWN Manifesto” and it was celebrated on July 22nd, and if you ask me, that was quite pointless in the first place. A major holiday in the middle of summer when everybody was on vacation anyway? Well, that’s the famous communist logic (or rather – lack thereof) for you.

Personally, this independence day, reminds me of Thanksgiving. In a way, it’s also a day to give thanks, and on November 11th many Poles do just that. Initially – they gave thanks for the end of the communist rule, now for an extra day to shop.

But seriously, it’s supposed to commemorate the anniversary of the foundation of the Second Polish Republic in 1918 after 123 years of partitions by Austria, Germany and Russia. It was celebrated only twice before WW2, and then reinstated in 1989.

Few people remember now (especially few young people) that back in the olden days there was also a holiday in early November, alas for a very different reason. It used to mark the anniversary of the Russian (October) Revolution and was celebrated on November 7th. And in 1989 the government knew they couldn’t just take away a day off and give nothing in return. So voila, we have a redressed holiday with a different name and an occasion we can be proud of.

And the old “independence” day on July 22nd? Now it’s a day to celebrate the Baltic Sea,
or somesuch.

PS. I’m having a hard time uploading images, so we’ll have to wait until I get to a computer that I can actually use

Post from: Polish Blog

(Now you see why my friends and I had so much fun… I think we event invented a couple of new Polish curse words!)

But, stary piernik is a rather benign version – and it means something like “old fart” or “old geezer.” And just like in English, it’s used to describe men of a certain age and certain characteristics.

And while we’re on the subject of “piernik” – this word is also used in another idiomatic expression:

• Co ma piernik do wiatraka? – What’s that got to do with anything? (but literally: What’s a gingerbread got to do with a windmill?)

“Nieopierzony kurczak” was another example given by John. Translated literally it becomes “unfledged/featherless chickling.” And as you can easily guess, it’s used to describe a young, immature and inexperienced person.

And while we’re on the subject of young and inexperienced, another useful word is “żółtodziób.” Literally – yellow beak.

Also, just as in English, you can describe someone as being “green” – “zielony” – a total newbie.

We will continue with this in the future. For now, here are the words we’ve used today:

• stary (fem. stara, neuter: stare, pl. masc. person: starzy, pl. other: stare) – old
• piernik (masc., pl. pierniki) – gingerbread, spice cake, honey cake, lebkuchen
• wiatrak (masc., pl. wiatraki) – windmill
• nieopierzony (this is not a very common adjective, but if you want all the forms, here they are: fem. nieopierzona, neuter: nieopierzone, pl. masc. person: nieopierzeni, pl. other: nieopierzone) – unfledged, featherless
• kurczak (masc. pl. kurczaki) – chicken, chickling,
• żółty (fem: żółta, neuter: żółte, pl. masc. person: żółci, pl. other: żółte) – yellow
• dziób (masculine. pl. dzioby) – beak, also a derogatory term for a mouth
• zielony (fem. zielona, neuter: zielone, pl. masc. person: zieloni, pl. other: zielone) – green

And I don’t know about you, but that photo of pierniki makes me very hungry for some reason. I can just about smell the freshly baked lebkuchen… Hmmmm….

Image: Caro Wallis

Post from: Polish Blog

People abroad always think that Poland is a uniformly Catholic country. And it sure does look like it. There are churches everywhere you go, and big crosses, and statues of John Paul II (Jan Paweł II). And then there’s Father Rydzyk riding in his Maybach. Or was it his very own private helicopter?

Anyway, you get the picture, Poland is a seriously Catholic nation and proud of it. You’d never think that there might be other denominations active in the country. So, imagine my surprise when I went to visit my friend who was in the hospital, waiting to give birth, and saw this:

This is a list of various religious services and chaplains available for the patients. It lists Catholic, Lutheran, Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox options. When I asked a nurse (quietly of course, as not to embarrass my friend) she said that the hospital could also arrange for a rabbi or an imam, if a patient requested it.

This was not a private hospital. This was a public hospital named after a Catholic saint. A hospital with dirty corridors and restrooms without toilet paper – my friend wanted me to bring her a couple of rolls, which she carefully hid by her bed. I asked the nurse if they were mandated by law to post such a note. She said that no, not really, but that occasionally they did have patients who weren’t Catholic. And then she added that some patients from out of town might not know that the hospital could provide chaplains of other religious denominations.

I don’t know if this is just an example of political correctness, but to me Poland has never seemed very politically correct.

What it did make me wonder was this – if this was just a normal public hospital, I want to know how it works in a private institution. Alas, my friend gave birth before she could transfer to a fancy private hospital, and I didn’t have a chance to find out. By the way, it’s a girl!

Post from: Polish Blog

Today is the Catholic follow up to All Saints’ called All Souls’ Day (Zaduszki), which commemorates the departed faithful who have not yet been purified and reached heaven.

So why am I writing about it? This morning a friend started to ask me questions about All Saints’ Day and I realized that to be perfectly honest, I knew very little about this holiday.

When I was a kid I always tried to come up with excuses to stay home and not participate – there was always a math test I needed to study for, or a history paper I had to write, which meant that I could sit in front of the TV with a bag of candy while others were scrubbing graves and listening to extremely boring sermons about damnation, repentance and eternal life. The candles bit was fun, but since I had a somewhat dangerous pyro streak, I was not allowed to play with them anyway.

Fortunately for you, this guy has a great gallery of Polish cemetery photos and a lovely description of the Powązki Cmentarz in Warsaw. Go take a look, it’s definitely worth it!

photo: Wikipedia

Post from: Polish Blog

To be honest, I was happy, in an evil sort of way, that it’s not just my fellow Poles who struggle with prepositions when learning a foreign language. Surprise, surprise, prepositions are an equal opportunity problem. Those pesky little words in Polish are just as confusing to foreigners as the foreign little words are to Poles.

And because my big, fat “Grammar of Contemporary Polish” is strangely silent on the subject (speaking of which, it’s strangely silent on most issues that confuse Polish learners, but aren’t most grammar books like that?) we’ll do it according to my very own method. Namely, we’ll pick a preposition and beat it till it bleeds. Today’s choice? W!

Most dictionaries translate “w” as “in.” Some give such fancy explanations as “amid” or “inside” or “within”. So far, so good. It’s all true. But then the fun begins…

Take this one, for example:
“w przyszłym tygodniu” means  simply “next week”
But if you say “in a week” – in Polish it will be “za tydzień.”

And then, there’s this:

• in Poland – w Polsce
• in England – w Anglii

But then:

• in Malta – na Malcie
• in Lithuania – na Litwie

And now this:

• w kinie – at the movies
• w telewizji – on TV
• w radiu – on the radio
• w domu – at home, or - in the house, depending on the context
• w szpitalu – in the hospital, or – at the hospital

and so on…

But wait, there’s more!

• w moim imieniu – on my behalf
• w pociągu – on the train
• w poprzek – across
• w wieku (iluś lat) – at the age of
• w nocy – at night
• w poniedziałek – on Monday
• w ostatniej chwili – at the last moment
• w pracy – at work
• w ciąży – pregnant

See how much fun this is? You can basically pick any English preposition, and I’m pretty sure there is a Polish equivalent with “w” somewhere out there. I’m also pretty sure that if I really challenged my brain cells, I could come up with examples containing “by” and “for”, too.

I was just reading all kinds of random “w” entries in a couple of Polish-English dictionaries on-line, and that’s exactly how one of them translated “w” – as: in, on, at, by, for, within, inside, amid.

And now, if you excuse me, I have candy to hand out to small kids waiting at my door. After all, this is what you do w Halloween, right?

Post from: Polish Blog

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) and apply for a passport. And to transfer my drivers license. And to do a bazillion other, equally important things.

Next time, I also plan to eat more. Much more. During this visit I spent more time reading menus (always an exciting hobby in Poland, one worth cultivating, trust me!) than actually eating. I did have a great plate of pierogi at “U Dzika” (warning - their site is super ultra slow) on Piwna Street in Gdańsk – I ordered the 5 kind mix. Curiously, in the German version of the menu five kinds of pierogi become four, and in the English one it simply says “kind of boiled dough pockets” without mentioning you can choose five different kinds.

The pierogi were decent enough, though I have a strong suspicion they came pre-made, frozen and defrosted when needed – the dough had that strange, gummy feel to it. Still, it was a tasty, satisfying meal and the menu didn’t make me giggle.

I love reading menus, and Polish menus translated into English can be as funny as those in Japan. One restaurant had a “fried savage” on the menu. In Polish it turned out to be simply “kiełbasa pieczona,” which wasn’t even “pieczona” but grilled. In other words – grilled sausage, bratwurst to be exact.

And what about this? I’m at a loss for words, which frankly, doesn’t happen very often.

Is this carelessness or laziness? Or both? In the salad items “z” is translated correctly as “with,” so what’s up with this “witch cheese” in the pizza section? Where’s this embarrassing restaurant? It’s Republika on Długa Street. I asked inside who translated their menu, but they didn’t know, or didn’t want to tell me.

And that brings us nicely to the topic we’ll be discussing next time. No, not pizza, but those pesky little words – z, na, po, u, w.

Gary – it will be preposition time – just for you!

Post from: Polish Blog

The churches here are indeed massive. There are more of them than 20 years ago, and they are indeed everywhere. Now, don’t get me wrong. I adore churches. But only pretty, old churches. These are ugly clunks of concrete that make me want to drip battery acid into my eyes. Not only don’t I want to enter one, I don’t even want to be near one.

And my favorite old church (Bazylika Mariacka aka St Mary’s church) in Gdańsk is wrapped in a nasty scaffolding – the renovations are supposed to take two years, as I’ve been told. Actually, a lot of Gdańsk seems to be wrapped in scaffoldings. There’s either construction or renovation work going on everywhere.

The Old City (Stare Miasto) didn’t look as pretty as I had remembered it as a child. It’s still very beautiful but it no longer has that mysterious, magical quality. Now it’s full of bars with ugly awnings and shops and stands selling overpriced amber jewelry. I was unable to find even one shop that catered to a “normal” tourist. You know, the kind of person who wants a couple of t-shirts, a book and a tacky souvenir. When I did find a place that sold t-shirts, they were too gaudy even for me, which should tell you a lot.

I stopped by at the tourist office about five minutes before closing time, but the lady there didn’t mind one bit. She gave me the scoop on all events going on in the city, told me her life story and discussed the American election with me. She also mentioned that the sky-high and still rising rents are forcing many old businesses out of Stare Miasto. “It’s all for tourists now with prices that only tourists can afford to pay.” That’s a curious sentiment coming from a woman who works at the tourist office, wouldn’t you say?

I looked for the Bar Mleczny that Isabella mentioned in her comment to the previous post. I think I knew where it used to be – on the left side in that little hole-in-the-wall quasi-street behind the Neptune fountain, right? There’s a dull and boring café there now. In fact, there are dull and boring cafés now everywhere. And dull and overpriced restaurants. Actually, those restaurants deserve a post of their own.

But the people were nice. Unfailingly nice and helpful. And smiling. Poles abroad (and many foreigners, too) tend to complain about the quality of service in Poland. About the boorishness of people. About the sour expressions of women selling bus tickets. About office clerks in need of a serious attitude adjustment.

I haven’t really experiences ANY of it. So, either the alien invasion of pod people has begun, or this is a secret government experiment, or something in the Tri-City (Trójmiasto = Gdańsk+Sopot+Gdynia) water supply, but people were smiling and so obliging it made me feel a bit strange at times. Even “moherowe berety” were friendly and helpful. One was so worried about my ability (or lack thereof) to find my way, she actually rode the bus with me and told me where to get off. (Or maybe it was the fact that when asking her for directions I said “cmentarz” - cemetery, when I actually meant “szpital” – hospital, don’t ask me what I was thinking – I don’t know.)

I had to pay a visit to City Hall in Gdynia and everyone there was so patient with me and so accommodating, that it felt almost otherworldly. At the Era mobile phone shop I bargained with the sales lady and got a phone for half the price (because it was a discontinued model anyway) and I even talked her into unlocking it for me. At a restaurant I ordered a Greek salad, but without onions, olives and feta cheese, and the waiter said “no problem, would you like to replace them with other vegetables perhaps?”

The cars came to a sometimes screeching halt when I began to exhibit even the slightest signs of wanting to cross the street. I was surprised by that. I’ve read time and time again that no one stops for anyone in the old country. And since I’m not a ravishing beauty (I’m a dork in hiking boots) and since I was fully clothed when prancing around Tri-City (the two obvious reasons why drivers might want to stop for a woman crossing the street), they’ve either learned to stop for pedestrians very recently, or I have the ability to control people’s minds and don’t even know it.

I really don’t have any reasons to complain except two: KFC here doesn’t taste like KFC should, it’s so bad it makes me gag (I’m a junk food connoisseur, with KFC being my particular field of expertise) and the stench of cigarettes everywhere makes me gag even more.

Post from: Polish Blog

I told Al I was going to modify the questions somewhat so you won’t be bored to death when reading about my 5 jobs and 5 favorite places were I used to live.

So here we go:

• 1. Ten years ago I…

- was young and beautiful and had no interest whatsoever in the Polish language. And especially – no interest in sharing my Polish knowledge. And look at me now, huh?
- was wondering what was happening to Polish soccer. In 1998 the FIFA World Cup was held in France and Poland didn’t even manage to qualify at all. Sadly not much has changed since then. Polish soccer is still pathetic. And the players are ugly, too.
- was shaking my head with disbelief when reading about Polish politics. Those were the times of Aleksander Kwaśniewski. I still can’t decide whether things have gotten better or worse since then, but fortunately, these days I’m not interested in politics anymore.
- wanted to know why so few American universities offered Polish classes. I’m not even talking here about Polish as a major, general Slavic Studies would have made me happy, but even those were hard to come by. Or maybe I simply wasn’t looking in the right places.
- was wondering why every piece of garbage literature (if you could call it literature) was being translated into Polish and why so few books by Polish authors were translated into English. And I still wonder about it.

• 2. Five things on my to do list for today (actually for tomorrow, too late to do anything today):

- buy a map of Gdańsk
- go to St Mary’s Church (Kościół Mariacki) and see if the tower’s open for climbing
- stroll around the Old Town and buy bags and bags of souvenirs
- eat ridiculous amounts of ptasie mleczko
- determine whether Bary Mleczne still exist (singular – Bar Mleczny, a cafeteria-style joint with super cheap food, mostly vegetarian, mostly yucky. But cheap, so all is forgiven.)

• 3. Five foods I enjoy:

- bigos, but that goes without saying. I’m a huge fan of bigos, and I even learned to make it myself.
- gołąbki (stuffed cabbage) as long as I don’t have to make them myself. In fact, I’ve never actually made them myself.
- sałatka z czerwonych buraczków (red beet salad) like my grandma used to make.
- pierogi, but only the savory kind. I don’t like those with sweet stuffing. And needless to say, I don’t like to make them myself. Why is making Polish food always so time consuming?
- Polish style pickles – which, as my friend says, come in only two varieties: sour and super sour.

4. Five places I’ve lived.
If you excuse me, this is a boring question, so I’m going to skip it.

5. Five jobs I’ve had.
Since I haven’t had that many jobs in my life, I’m going to skip it, too.

• 6. Six places I want to visit that I haven’t yet visited:

- to be honest, I haven’t been to very many places in Poland besides Warsaw and Gdańsk.
- ideally, I’d like to visit all UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Poland. There are quite a few of them: Toruń, Zamość, Białowieża National Park. I want to see the baroque cathedral in Frombork and the Bieszczady Mountains. But most of all, I want to go to Hel. And if all goes well, I’ll be there this weekend.

In the meantime. check out this blog with photos of Gdańsk, the blog is written in Polish, but you don’t need to understand the language to admire the absolutely gorgeous photographs.

Post from: Polish Blog