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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Przeziębienie - a common cold strikes again

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Oct
18
2009

I’m so sorry this post is late, but I have a very good excuse – I’m sick. Totally and utterly sick. Not the new flu (thankfully), but the whole nine yards nevertheless: katar (runny nose), kaszel (cough), ból gardła (sore throat) and everything else that comes with it. In other words – przeziębienie (a common cold) at its finest.

I can’t eat much, can’t drink much (which is bad, I know, because the first treatment option for a cold is to hydrate the body as much as possible) and I am generally miserable.

But what can I do? This is the cold and flu season and we just need to get through it.
I’ve tried various remedies and nothing seems to work. And as my dad is fond of saying: katar leczony trwa siedem dni, nieleczony – tydzień (runny nose lasts 7 days if treated, and a week if not). And since I’m almost at the seven day mark, I hope I will get better soon.

And in the meantime, I can honestly say I did what I could. I tried czosnek (garlic), probably the most vile food I’ve ever met. I drank syrop z cebuli (onion juice), which along with garlic is something I don’t wish upon my worst enemies. I consumed copious amounts of sok pomarańczowy (orange juice), which did nothing but gave me acid reflux, and took more vitamins (witaminy) that has been clinically proven safe. And nothing.

I drank ziółka (herbal teas), ate rosół (chicken soup), snacked on grejpfrut (grapefruit), and felt like I was single handedly keeping the company that makes Fervex in business.

And I wasn’t a nice person to be around. But still, the doc said – nie ma gorączki, nie ma grypy (no fever, no flu) and I was felt to suffer all by myself.

I know it’s irrational to demand antybiotyki (antibiotics) for a common cold, but I just wanted to get something. Anything. Even if it technically shouldn’t work, because the placebo effect alone can do wonders for a tortured patient. But no such luck, unfortunately.

So now, if you excuse me, I have więcej ziółek (more herbal tea) to drink.

 
Posted under Vocabulary
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Zimno i mokro (cold and wet)

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Oct
15
2009

With all this recent excitement over Bielsko Biała, I totally forgot that yesterday (wczoraj, 14 października) was Dzień Nauczyciela (Teacher’s Day). Now, I’m the first one to admit, I don’t like Dzień Nauczyciela. Never liked it and probably never will. It’s like Dzień Matki (Mother’s Day) - we should respect and honor our teachers (and mothers) every day, regardless of what the calendar says. But I guess my students didn’t get that memo…

But it’s not about Dzień Nauczyciela that I wanted to talk to you about today. Nah… Instead, I wanted to ask you what you thought about the weather. In Poland, naturally.

Isn’t it a bit early to be snowing? Granted, the stuff has already melted, but still… It’s only October now. And honestly, I don’t remember it snowing in October, like ever…

But with this early snow, I’m hearing a lot of foreigners complaining about the weather. Oddly, some of those foreigners come from places like Montana and Calgary, where snow in October is nothing special. In fact, it’s something to be expected. And the same people started kvetching this month that the weather in Poland sucks.

Frankly, I’ve always remembered it as being sucky. It was either too cold, or too wet, or too cold, or too wet. Even during summers. And my opinion hasn’t changed that much since.

But enough about me. What I want to know is what YOU think about polska pogoda (Polish weather). Bring it on… This is the time and place for you to complain.

And while we on the subject of weather, who’s your favorite “pogodynka” (weather person) on TV?

 
Posted under Polish Language
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What do you call a person who lives in Bielsko-Biała?

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Oct
12
2009

In his comment to the Bielsko-Biała post Mchl posed an interesting question: what do you call a person who lives in Bielsko-Biała? Yeah, indeed…

An inhabitant of Gdańsk is called gdańszczanin (masculine; gdańszczanka – feminine). A person who lives in Warsaw? Warszawiak or warszawianin, if a male, and warszawianka, if a female.
In Kraków? Krakowiak, or krakowianin, if a guy, and krakowianka, if a woman.

There’s really no rhyme or reason to how those names are formed. And those are just the easy ones. It gets a lot more complicated when you’re talking about a person who lives in Pruszcz Gdański, for example. Or Bielsko-Biała.

And yes, if we’re back on the subject of people who live in Bielsko-Biała, what do you call them? Hmmm… Bielsko-bialski, if a guy, and bielsko-bialska, if a woman. Yeah, where did that come from I have no clue, but that’s what it says in my dictionary. Many people mistakenly assume, it’s bielszczanin and bielszczanka, but those are people who live in Bielsk Podlaski.

And since we’re gluttons for punishment (and because we love Polish), we might as well go all the way and figure out how to call an inhabitant of Białystok. Białostoczanin, if a male, and białostoczanka if a female.

And maybe you noticed one thing – all those nouns are not capitalized. If you see “Krakowianin” that means a person who lives in Krakowskiem, which is a general area where Kraków is located. But an inhabitant of a city is always written using a small letter.

So yeah, what do you call an inhabitant of Pruszcz Gdański? I think I’ll stick with “an inhabitant of Pruszcz Gdański” (mieszkaniec Pruszcza Gdańskiego).

And since we’ve been talking about Bielsko-Biała a lot lately, I thought I’d show you some photos from that city. All photographs were taken by Artur Guzy and you can see more of them on his blog – Bielsko-Biała i wszystko jasne.

Pretty, isn’t it?

And I don’t know about you, but I had no idea that Bielsko-Biała was such a lovely town.

And for those who complained about the rain, here’s złota polska jesień, also in Bielsko-Biała.

For more photos, go to Artur’s blog and practice your Polish!

 
Posted under Grammar, Polish Language, Vocabulary
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Not Going Back to School After All

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Oct
9
2009

Remember my excitement about my return to school? Well, after all, it’s not going to happen. And so right were those of you who said that I should have picked a school in the UK, or elsewhere. Ah… But I guess I needed to learn it the hard way all by myself.

So what happened? Well, turned out that I couldn’t study the one field that interested me (and which was the reason why I chose that particular school in the first place – WSSM in Łódź) on-line. Why? Apparently that particular course is financed by the EU and the EU regulations require for students to be physically present in the classroom and to sign the attendance roster personally. Which, if you want to know my opinion, smacks of discrimination against people with physical disabilities and limited mobility, but that’s a whole another story.

The problem is that nobody bothered to inform me about this requirement during my initial meeting with the school’s president (rektor) and two of their academic staff. I made it very clear that I was interested in studying intercultural communication (which happens to be that EU financed course) on-line and I was told that, “no problem, we can arrange that.” But, no, they can’t.

Why nobody at WSSM thought to read the fine print on their EU agreement regarding this course BEFORE I submitted my application and paid the admission fee (wpisowe), I really don’t know.

Needless to say, I am very unhappy right now. Nah, that’s an understatement. I’m more than unhappy, but since this is a PG blog, I will try to control myself.

What the school offers me now is to study anglistyka (English philology - because intercultural communication is one of the minors offered in that department) virtually (on-line), but that’s not an acceptable solution for me.

If I wanted to study straight English, I could have applied to any other school. There are more private schools in Poland now than you can shake a stick at.

Now, of course, one of the academic staff fuming with righteous anger tells me that there is an inaccuracy in how I describe this whole situation. Frankly, from where I’m at, I don’t see any inaccuracies. I am not interested in where the school’s limitations come from, that’s none of my business. I’m only interested in the fact that I wasn’t informed about them when I was handing over the money. And that’s definitely my business. Or was the school that desperate for my wpisowe money (admission fee)? And yes, I will try to get that refunded anyway.

I’m really sad and sorry that it turned out that way. I’m still determined to go back to school and study intercultural communication/relations. But it won’t be at a school in Poland. Unfortunately.

Anyhow, how’s that Polish złota jesień (golden autumn) coming along?

 
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