Posts tagged with "Vocabulary"

The Untranslatables – episode 1: Politics

Posted by Anna 2 Comments
Mar 28 2010

Today Adam (what a brave guy) tackles some totally incomprehensible to me political language. Yes, Poles sure do love their politics, and I, for one, am very glad that we have Adam to write about this. Because, frankly, I’d rather chew my leg off and bleed to death than talk politics.

To understand Polish you have to decode the meaning and code it in your mind into your language (usually for readers of this blog it will be English). But language is not mathematics. Two plus two may or may not equal four. Language is a tool that allows people to move in a certain reality. However, place by place, and culture by culture our realities vary. What when a notion has no direct equivalent in another culture? How to translate, or understand, the untranslatable?

The category of words that first springs to my mind as the hardest to translate – are terms connected with socio-politics.

English speakers have gucci-socialists and attack poodles.

In Poland there are many, many terms, some of which emerged within the last decade, that might cause some problems. Here are some possible/used translations. Don’t take all of them seriously. I am counting on your – our readers – creativity. Please do submit your translations (and political vocabulary) in the comments section.

  • odnowa moralna – moral face-lift, political slogan, refers to malpractice
  • nadużycie semantyczne – semantic molestation
  • łże-elita – the so called elites, false-elites, backstabishment,
  • układ – the grey net of interconnections
  • udoskonalanie wolności mediów – media freedom improvement, sarcastically – about attempts to curb media freedom
  • odzyskiwanie państwa – reclaiming the country
  • areszt wydobywczy – an arrest that is aimed to break a person and make them talk about somebody else
  • mijać się z prawdą – lit. to pass the truth walking the other way, euphemistically: to lie
  • moherowe berety – lit. mohair berets, pejorative term referring to a group of followers of a popular nationalistic-Catholic televangelist Mr Rydzyk (or rather – Father Rydzyk, he is a priest, unfortunately) and his media outlets. Typically, consisting of elderly ladies, whose preferred headgear is a mohair beret. This term likens them to an army, as various sub-groups in the Polish army may be recognized by different beret colors.
  • Polska A i Polska B – Poland A (the better one) and Poland B (the worse one). A common used phrase, to divide the country for the better, progressive part, that is intensively modernizing, educating, more liberal, wealthier, more active, where people are more into taking control of their destiny, where surroundings are tidier and more organized. And B – the worse part, that is more backwards, stagnating, more conservative, poorer, passive, where people wait for someone to solve their problems, where surroundings are grey, dirty and disorganized. The boundaries between Poland A and B may be drawn in many ways. Poland A could be the north, south, and west, while Poland B could be the eastern part (see below). Or Poland A could be in the major cities, and Poland B in the countryside. Or in some other way.
  • Ściana Wschodnia – Eastern Wall, another term referring to the Eastern part of the country in a negative way.
  • falandyzacja prawa – an attempt to interpret law in such a way that is stretching it – for someone’s short-term interest
  • koryto – lit. feeding trough, a comfortable position in a state institution

And of course, feel free to add your own favorite phrases!

Who’s Who in the Family

Posted by Anna No Comments
May 22 2009

Today’s post is about something that even I have problems with. Brother’s wife wife’s brother and sister’s husband and husband’s sister and sister’s daughter’s best friend’s neighbor’s son. Or something like that.

Either I’m monumentally stupid, or it’s really easy in English. Just stick “in-law” at the end of anything you’re not quite sure of (when talking about the “other” side of the family) and voila, your work there is done. So, whether you’re talking about your wife’s sister or your brother’s wife, you simply say “my sister in-law”, right?

Well, it’s not quite so easy in Polish (why would it, it’s Polish after all!) and all these people have their own individual names.
So, to be sure I get it right (because I hardly ever get it right) I consulted a book and my aunt. And while sometimes even Polish dictionaries can’t agree on what is correct, I know for a fact that my aunt is never wrong.

OK, so here’s the list (according to the book and my aunt):

  • brother’s wife – żona brata – bratowa
  • sister’s husband – mąż siostry – szwagier
  • wife’s brother – brat żony – szwagier
  • wife’s sister – siostra żony – szwagierka
  • husband’s sister – siostra męża – szwagierka

And there’s more:

  • sister’s daughter – córka siostry – siostrzenica
  • brother’s daughter – córka brata – bratanica
  • sister’s son – syn siostry – siostrzeniec
  • brother’s son – syn brata – bratanek

And now for the fun part, because we all love our in-laws, right?

  • daughter’s husband – mąż córki – zięć
  • son’s wife – żona syna – synowa

and

  • wife’s (or husband’s) father – ojciec żony (lub męża) – teść
  • wife’s (or husband’s) mother – matka żony (lub męża) – teściowa

When it comes to people like mother’s brother or father’s brother, back in the olden days (like about 20 years ago) they were called “wuj” and “stryj” respectively. But now, they’re just called “wuj”, or diminutively “wujek”, regardless of whose brothers they are.

And how for example would my father refer to my husband’s father in Polish? I have no idea. My dad has no idea either. He just said “father of my son-in-law” (ojciec mojego zięcia). Hey, works for me!

PS. And just to see if you remember your noun cases, can you tell which one we’ve been using today to describe all these people?

Going to the Dentist

Posted by Anna No Comments
May 20 2009

I’ve been reading and hearing all these stories about tourists from Germany who travel to Poland to get major dental work done, because it’s so much cheaper here and the quality is good, or so they say. So, I thought I’d try it myself and since I had a couple of fillings to replace anyway, why not?

I asked around and one dentist came highly recommended. Supposedly she was very good and very skilled with panicky patients. And since I can be very panicky, I made an appointment.

Now, I have to explain something. I used to train taekwondo, and if you take the sport seriously, chances are that even when using a mouth guard, you will have a couple of teeth to patch up sooner or later. And I took my taekwondo very seriously. Add to that my legendary sweet tooth and now you know why I was forced to experience the pleasures of dental visits on five continents.

So I had plenty of control samples to compare the doctor in Poland with. Unfortunately, she fell short on all accounts. While I can take a beating in the dojang, I am a total wuss when it comes to dental work. And this lady, the champ that she was, attempted to fix my tooth without anesthesia. Even though I asked for a shot. She simply stated that she wasn’t going to give me one for such a simple procedure. Needless to say, the visit was a total failure. Yet, because I’m a glutton for punishment, I returned to her for another appointment. Again, she proceeded to drill me live. I briefly considered kicking her in the head (it was easy in the position I was in), but settled on escaping from the chair while she went to fetch something. I ran and didn’t look back.

A couple of days later it turned out she had overcharged me dearly for that first visit. Her prices were positively mainstream European. So, she was no good and ridiculously expensive.

Since I had a half-hacked tooth in my mouth, I had no choice but to find another dentist. And to find one quickly.
I called up a clinic right by where I’m staying, explained the situation to a very patient receptionist (who even spoke decent English and wanted to show off) and made an appointment.

My new dentist looked all of fifteen years old. She had braces on her teeth, for crying out loud! I was afraid. Very afraid. But she turned out to be fast, gentle and competent. She fixed everything that needed fixing. Under anesthesia. Her assistant was top-notch too. Do I dare to say this baby-faced chick with braces was better than my totally awesome dentist across the ocean? Yes, she was. She was much cheaper too. Her prices started at 100 PLN per tooth.

So, yes, if I lived in Germany, I would definitely travel to see her again.

Useful words:

  • ząb (masculine, plural: zęby) – tooth audio
  • stomatolog (masculine, plural: stomatolodzy) – dentist, but you can also say “dentysta” (plural: dentyści) audio
  • dziura (w zębie) – cavity audio
  • ból zęba – toothache audio
  • próchnica (feminine, no plural) – caries, tooth decay audio
  • dziąsło (neuter, plural: dziąsła) – gum (in your mouth) audio
  • plomba (feminine, plural: plomby) – filling (dental) audio
  • zakładać plombę, or – zaplombować – to fill a tooth audio
  • leczenie kanałowe – root canal audio

and the most important of them all:

  • znieczulenie (masculine, plural: znieczulenia) – anesthetic audio

About the Mammas and the Pappas – in Polish

Posted by Anna No Comments
Apr 23 2009

The other day I was discussing motherhood with one of my friends. No, I am not planning to have a baby, I have two cats and I’m quite happy with them for the time being. However, my friend has a baby and we were going over the joys and perils of motherhood and the problems of fatherhood. And then we started to marvel at just how gloriously illogical this language of ours is.

Because take a look at this:

Motherhood is “macierzyństwo”. But fatherhood is not “tacierzyństwo” but “ojcostwo”.
Maternity leave is “urlop macierzyński”. And what about paternity leave? Until very recently there wasn’t even such animal in Poland. But now that there is (and will be officially official at all places of employment beginning next year for all new fathers who want to take advantage of it) what do we call it in Polish? Urlop tacierzyński.

But that’s not all. That’s just the beginning of problems with dads.
Ok, mom and dad are two of the first words that a child learns, or so I hear. In Polish those words are easy: mama and tata.

You’d think that it must be pretty hard to screw up something to easy and so basic that every Pole older than 9 months knows it, right? Wrong! Because in reality it’s not that easy, trust me.

While the plural of “mama” is of course “mamy” – every child knows that, what is the plural of “tata”? Automatically, we wanted to say “taty”. We even called a friendly elementary school teacher to see what she had to say. How does she tell the kids to ask their moms and dads to come to the meeting, for example? She tried to cheat and said: “mamy i ojcowie” (moms and fathers).

But how do you say “dads” in plural without cheating and using “fathers” instead? Does “tata” even have a plural form? Yes, it (he? LOL) does.

The correct plural of “tata” is “tatowie”. I know, you don’t have to tell me. I don’t see any logic in it either. The plural of “mama” is “mamy” but the plural of “tata” is “tatowie”. Apparently, that noun follows the same pattern as “dziadek – dziadkowie” (grandfather – grandfathers) and “wujek – wujkowie” (uncle – uncles). Yes, but those masculine nouns don’t end in “a”. And those masculine nouns that do end in “a”, such as kierowca (driver) or doradca (advisor) have plural forms eerily resembling those of “mamy” – kierowcy (drivers) and doradcy (advisors).

So, let’s review:

  • mama (feminine) – mamy (feminine, plural)

but

  • tata (masculine) – tatowie (masculine, plural)
  • urlop macierzyński – maternity leave

but

  • urlop tacierzyński – paternity leave

but

  • ojcostwo – fatherhood (also paternity), oddly enough, grammatically this noun is neuter in gender.

but

  • macierzyństwo – motherhood (also grammatically neuter)

And those are just the linguistic problems, we’re not even talking about smelly diapers here!

Gender and Occupations, continued…

Posted by Anna No Comments
Mar 28 2009

Remember when I mentioned that the EU head honchos in Brussels want us to stop using gender specific names for professions? I also said that it was something I agreed with.

Wow! I never thought that that particular post would provoke so many emails. Both for and against.

But you see, we already have many nouns for occupations and professions that are gender–neutral. Or at least they are now, because the same form is used by both men and women.

I have a friend, a female friend, who works on a cargo vessel. She refers to herself as “marynarz” (sailor). Another young woman I know lists her job as “pilot”. And I don’t mean here a tour guide (known in Polish as “pilot wycieczek”), she is a real pilot flying planes for a shipping company.

To that, we can add tons of other women, who can say they are:

  • inżynier – engineer
  • oficer – officer
  • kierowca – driver
  • lekarz – doctor – even though, there is a female form – “lekarka” most women doctors I spoke to agreed they preferred the masculine version – “lekarz”
  • weterynarz – veterinarian
  • architekt – architect
  • strażak – fire fighter
  • redaktor – editor – same as with doctors, ladies who do this job, refer to themselves using the male term – “redaktor” and when necessary add “naczelna” making “redaktor naczelna” if they are editors-in-chief. (I actually called several magazines to ask their editors about it.)

Why do they prefer the male noun? For exactly the same reason that Russ mentioned in his comment to the previous post on this subject.
Take the word “autor” for example. It means “writer” or “author” or “male writer” or “male author.”
“Autorka”, on the other hand, makes it very clear we are talking about a female.

So if I say that “Moja ulubiona polska autorka to Joanna Chmielewska” does it mean that Joanna Chmielewska is my favorite Polish female writer? Or my favorite Polish writer in general? Or should I rather say that “Mój ulubiony polski autor to Joanna Chmielewska”?

Why do I have to distinguish if my favorite writer is male or female? If I were talking about Bharati Mukherjee for example, we wouldn’t have this problem, simply because most people wouldn’t know anyway. Then why do we do it in Polish? Personally, I would say that “Mój ulubiony polski autor to Joanna Chmielewska”, because I prefer her humorous crime stories to other books by Polish authors, be it male or female. (What can I say? I’m not really into heavy-duty literature. Pity Ms. Chmielewska’s books have not been translated into English yet.)

And then, what do we do with those occupations that have been performed by females for so long that we don’t even think about how they would sound in their male versions? Or if they even have masculine forms at all.

In English it’s simple. A nurse is a nurse, regardless of his/her gender. In Polish, a nurse is definitely female, almost by default – pielęgniarka.
The male form – pielęgniarz just sounds awkward and stiff. I had a hard time finding a male nurse in Poland, but when I finally did, and we chatted on skype last week, I asked him what he preferred to be called.

He said, “you know what Anna, either word is fine, heck, any word is fine, as long as the old ladies in my care would finally accept me as a fully qualified, competent nurse. But still… it must be even worse to be a male kindergarten teacher…”

And yeah, he had a point. Female kindergarten teachers are “przedszkolanki” (singular: przedszkolanka). What on earth do you call a guy? Definitely not “przedszkolak” (kindergartener). :)

PS. The male nurse said that most of the time, everybody, his patients and female co-workers call him “rodzynek” (raisin), meaning he’s the only one of his kind.

Back to the Top