19 Mar, 2009
Polska? Polski? Confused? – polish your Polish, part 12
Posted by: Michał In: polish your Polish
My previous post made me realise some of my readers might be a bit confused now. Why ‘Polska’, if the blog is called ‘Polski’? What’s the difference?
Well, let me confuse you even more.
‘Polska’ can be used as a noun, a proper name – simply the name of the country, Poland.
But ‘polska’ (with a small ‘p’) can also be used as an adjective meaning ‘Polish’, but only when used with a feminine noun or while referring to a feminine subject. Still with me? So for example ‘polska kiełbasa’ (’polish sausage’) is feminine. (No giggling at the back!)
Which shouldn’t be confused with ‘Polka’ (capital ‘P’, no ’s’), which is again a noun, meaning ‘a Pole’ (feminine). A Polish woman or girl, in other words. A Polish man is ‘Polak’. See the subtle difference in spelling between these two.
‘Polski’ is also an adjective, used when referring to masculine nouns. The word ‘blog’ seems to be masculine, hence the Polski blog.
Simple, eh?
Image © teotwawki via Flickr, used under CC licence
