March is always a busy month for me as many of my good friends celebrate their birthdays. And many of them are Polish.

I have recently realised that this basic phrase – happy birthday – has not featured in my Polish your Polish series yet. What an oversight!

So what do you say (or write, if you prefer sending a card or an email)? The easiest and commonest phrase is

Wszystkiego najlepszego

Which literally means “All the best” and is pretty generic. But you can modify the phrase depending on the occasion. So for birthdays you can say:

Wszystkiego najlepszego z okazji urodzin

“All the best on your birthday”. If someone is getting married, you can say:

Wszystkiego najlepszego z okazji ślubu

“All the best on your marriage”. But let’s go back to celebrating birthdays.  Two words you might find useful are:

Życzenia

“wishes” and

Życzyć

Which means ‘to wish”, but you will usually use

Życzę (Ci)…

Which means “I wish (you)…”.  So try saying “I wish you all the best on your birthday” now.

Managed that?

If no, there’s also an easy option.  There’s a song we sing to celebrate someone’s birthday in which we express our wish for them to live a hundred years. A hundred years is

Sto lat

in Polish. If everything else fails, wish the birthday girl or boy “sto lat”. It’ll make them smile and you won’t have to struggle with all those consonants. Simples.

(and this is what happens when you type ‘sto lat‘ in YouTube – this video will help you memorise the spelling, teach you part of the song and quite possibly give you nightmares)

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Image via Flickr © ritchielee, used under Creative Commons licence

I’ve been asked by a few people to post something on basic questions regarding directions and asking for help in Polish. And as the summer holiday season is upon us, here are some basic phrases you may need while travelling in Poland.

Let’s start by buying a ticket. Any ticket.

Bilet

Ticket. The plural is:

Bilety.

If you want a normal one, you need

Bilet normalny.

However if you need a discounted fare, you will ask for

Bilet ulgowy.

Usually if you are at a station you’ll get your ticket from

Kasa (biletowa)

A ticket desk. And if they speak English there, then you’re in luck. Otherwise, try asking for a ticket by saying:

Poproszę bilet do Krakowa

“Can I have a ticket to Krakow, please?”

Poproszę bilet

will do the trick if the ticket desk sells only one kind of tickets, for example tram or bus tickets. Now, you might already have your ticket, but you cannot find the station. Ask for directions:

Przepraszam, gdzie jest stacja (kolejowa)?

which translates as “Excuse me, where is the (train) station?” As everywhere, it pays to be polite to the locals, hence the word ‘przepraszam’ at the beginning. You can also try a similar pharse:

Przepraszam, jak dojść do stacji?

“Excuse me, how do I get to the station?” Which is probably more useful as it’s not train station specific and can be used for all sorts of stations. Obviously.

Right, that will do for now. I’m exhausted just writing this stuff, you must be exhausting trying to put all the consonants together. Most travel phrases next time!

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I don’t know how it happened, but Easter is already here. It’s time then for another mix of Polish Easter phrases and traditions.

Easter in Polish is

Wielkanoc

which is obviously the most important holiday in the Christian calendar, and in a deeply Catholic country like Poland, it comes with a whole set of traditions and customs. And phrases.

Although surprisingly, there’s no separate phrase for Happy Easter in Polish, which is the same as, er, Happy Christmas:

Wesołych świąt!

which you may remember from my December post.

I’m writing this post on Good Friday

Wielki Piątek

which, unlike in Britain, is not a bank holiday in Poland. The main two Easter days are:

Niedziela Wielkanocna

Easter Sunday  and

Poniedziałek Wielkanocny

Easter Monday, which in fact is more commonly known as either

Lany Poniedziałek

or

śmigus dyngus

Lany Poniedziałek literally means ‘watered (wet) Monday’. Strange phrase, I know, but let me explain. On this day women were traditionally, shall we say, sprinkled with water (the extend of that ’sprinkling’ varies from really subtle to really heavy-handed). It’s an old pagan tradition, which is closely connected with spring and the promise of a new life. But there are numerous other interpretations of this custom, all based around the meaning of water for life.

Śmigus-dyngus (as it’s also known) is still practised all over the country, with some local variations, but unfortunately in some bigger towns it’s a perfect excuse for groups of unruly teenagers to throw buckets of cold water at anyone really.

Another very typical (although not exclusively Polish) tradition is

pisanki

painted Easter eggs. Pisanka (singular) is a must-have on the Polish Easter table. They are made before Easter and eaten on Easter Sunday. Depending on the technique used to paint them (wax, dye, etc.) they may have different names, but pisanki/pisanka is the most commonly used term.

I wonder whether Lany Poniedziałek is nowadays practised in The UK too. Anyone?

Happy Easter!

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Image of pisanki © Jarosław Pocztarski via Flickr, used under CC licence

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?

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Image © teotwawki via Flickr, used under CC licence

If you’re on a diet, look away now. Last Thursday Poles celebrated Tłusty Czwartek, aka the Fat Thursday.

Tłusty Czwartek

is mainly celebrated in Poland and in Germany and it marks the end of the carnival. It’s the last Thursday before Lent, which starts with Ash Wednesday the following week.

So what is Tłusty Czwartek all about? Well, nowadays it’s all about eating donuts

pączki

or a very Polish sweet dough thing, called

faworki

basically long, thin, twisted crusty pieces of fried dough with plenty of icing sugar on top.

It’s estimated each year Poles go though – ready for this? – approximately 100 million donuts on Tłusty Czwartek.

As it’s celebrated just before Lent – time when you’re supposed to fast for 40 days before Easter – people have traditionally used the day to go OTT with food. Our ancestors might have preferred meat, bacon and wódka, but nowadays is just deep-fried yummy stodge. But many people believe that if you don’t eat at least one donut on Tłusty Czwartek, your luck will run out. I love it how we come up with any excuse just to stuff our faces.

So anyway, if you did miss Tłusty Czwartek, don’t despair. There’s always

Ostatki

which is the very last night before the beginning of Lent (known in the UK as Pancake Tuesday) and which in the past was a massive excuse to throw parties, eat a lot (yeah, of course) and – particularly in small villages across some parts of Poland – to walk around dressed up and do silly things. The general rule was – everything had to finish before midnight. You were not allowed to have parties or eat excessively for the next 40 days until Easter.

Again, nowadays it’s likely to be celebrated by having massive parties on the weekend preceding the Tuesday.

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Image © Derek Farr used under CC licence via Flickr

Powodzenia!

Good luck!

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Image © sp1ffyd via Flickr used under CC licence

Right, Christmas in nearly here. And I know people will want to impress their Polish friends by wishing them Merry Christmas in Polish.

Time then for a quick overview of the most useful Polish phrases for the festive period.

Let’s start with the name itself, Christmas in Polish is

Boże Narodzenie

Although you can also refer to it as

święta

which literally means ‘holidays’. The singular form ‘święto’ can refer to a bank holiday in general, while the plural will be used to denote either Christmas or Easter or any cluster of bank holidays.

The individual Christmas days don’t really have individual names like they do in Britain, apart from:

Wigilia

Christmas Eve, the evening when most Poles will have their Christmas Eve dinners, exchange gifts and go to church for the midnight mass.

To wish someone a Merry Christmas, you say simply

Wesołych świąt!

Merry Christmas. And a week after Wigilia, people get ready for

Sylwester

New Year’s Eve. Poles celebrate name’s days and the male name Sylwester (celebrated on 31st December) has become the name of the last day in a year. The New Year’s Day is

Nowy Rok

Literally, ‘new year’. And how do you wish someone a Happy new Year? Well, it’s a mouthful:

Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku

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Image of Gdańsk © magro kr via Flickr, used under CC licence

This is just a quick language update, inspired partly by what I saw this morning outside my window – at least three seasons in one day. First it was white snow, almost appropriate for this time of the year, although highly unlikely to stick around (so to speak) for long in London, then beautiful spring, with blue skies and strong sunshine, followed by hours of autumnal misery.

On the other hand, I’ve always wanted to write about the Polish seasons as I’m a bit fed up with constant remarks, like “Oh, you went to Poland? It MUST HAVE BEEN cold!’ Er, well, last time I went it was early November and it was sunny and +16. Winters in Poland can be severe, yes, but I think the most common misconception about Poland is that it’s permanently cold, covered in 3 meters of snow and people routinely drink wódka first thing in the morning to get warm.

So, let’s get the record straight here (weather and global warming permitting):

Wiosna

Spring. Usually warm from April onwards, with occasional hailstorms thrown in for good measure. Chestnut trees blossoming in May are quite spectacular, but secondary school students who are about to graduate hate them as they remind them of maturity/graduation exams traditionally held in early May.

Lato

Summer. Can be boiling hot, particularly in the south (+30 is nothing surprising, really), near the mountains. Lovely by the sea (remember?) although the sea itself won’t be as warm. Majorca it ain’t, alright?

Jesień

Autumn. Gloriously golden and warm, usually still nice until late October. November can be a mixed bag – warm and sunny like a couple of weeks ago, or miserable and snowy like two years ago, when my friends went to Kraków to see it in all its glory and mostly saw grey skies and sleet.

Zima

Winter. I remember really severe winters from when I was a kid. (I sound like I’m 80, but I’m not). We had days when school had to be cancelled as there was so much snow and it was so cold, they were unable to keep the building warm enough. But in recent years it’s been mixed – there were snowless, wishy-washy winters, there were a few occasions when people were taken by surprise and whole roads became impassable, villages cut off from the world and other disasters like that.

But in general it’s safe to assume that Polish seasons are not that much different from the British ones. But if you’re lucky enough to see Polish winter like in the picture above (in Polish Tatra Mountains), you’ll enjoy it.

Previous tips:

→ How to introduce yourself
→ Thank you and please

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Image © syfon used under CC licence

Since you’re already able to say ‘hi’ and ‘thank you’ in Polish, maybe you should try and introduce yourself, eh? (the audio files below may not work if you’re reading this in an RSS reader)

Nazywam się Will.

‘My name’s Will’. The simplest way to introduce yourself in Polish. Actually, hang on, there is an even simpler one:

Jestem Will

‘I’m Will’. That’ll do in most cases. Now, asking about somebody’s name is equally easy when there’s only one person whose name you want to know:

Jak masz na imię?

‘What’s your name?’ In this case, you’ll get just this – their first name. If you want their surname say

Jak masz na nazwisko?

‘What’s your surname?’ So the basic nouns here are:

imię – name (first name)
nazwisko – surname

There’s also another way of asking for someone’s name:

Jak się nazywasz?

literally it means ‘what are you called?’ but the closest English equivalent would again be ‘What’s your name?’ In a more formal situation you’d expect the other person to tell you their first and second names in response to this question.

Now, it gets a bit trickier once you start asking about names in third person – so reffering to her, him or them. You’ll need the following pronouns:

on – he
ona – she
to – it
oni – they (all subjects are male or mixed)
one – they (female only)

So let’s try with ‘ona’ and the two versions of the question:

Jak (ona) ma na imię?

Jak (ona) się nazywa?

Please note, that the pronoun is optional, but it’s easier to use it and avoid sounding clumsy. So for example, your friend has just met someone and is telling you about her. Ask ‘Jak ona się nazywa?’. The same is you’re looking at somebody’s picture and want to know their name. The shorter version (without the pronoun) would be suitable for example if we’re not sure whether the speaker refers to a man or a woman.

Of course, subsitute ‘on’ or ‘to’ for ‘ona’ if you want to ask about ‘him’ or ‘it’.

In plural the reflexive verb (’nazywać się’) also gets a plural form, hence:

Jak (oni/one) się nazywają?

I’ve included both versions of the pronoun to illustrate the pronunciation as the spelling might be confusing to an English speaker. But obviously use only one form at a time….

Previous tips:
‘Thank you’ and ‘please’ >>
Greetings >>

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Image © Dusk via Flickr under CC licence

Kraków? Cracow? Krakow? How on earth do you spell it? (Kraków) But more importantly, how do you pronounce it? Don’t fret – that’s why you have the Polski Blog Today just a bunch of cities, starting with the more popular ones.

Kraków

has become a popular tourist destination in recent years, and it’s still a nice alternative to Prague, which – although beautiful – is often overcrowded, overpriced and over the top. Definitely, one of my most favourite places on the planet.

Warszawa

is the capital of Poland, and for many the first and only city they see in Poland. If you don’t like it, remember it was almost cmpletely flattened during the Second World War and then rebuilt by the Soviets. Pretty it ain’t, hence it may be worth jumping on a train and going north to

Gdańsk

The largest Polish port forms part of the so-called tri-city. A city with rich, often dramatic history, also partly destroyed during the world, but luckily beautifully rebuilt. Forms part of a so-called tri-city, a large metropolitan area with

Gdynia

and

Sopot

In the southern, or actually south-western part of the country

Wrocław

has become a very popular tourist destination. Kraków has always been very popular, but in recent years I’ve heard quite a few stories about Wrocław and how dynamic, attractive it has become. Yet another city in Poland, which, over the centuries, has been a part of Germany, Prussia, Austria and Poland. Fantastic architecture, rich night life, great history. Its mayor Rafał Dutkiewicz featured in a BBC documentary about Poles in Britain, The Poles are Coming. He once famously visited some British cities with strong Polish communities to try to appeal to the most recent migrants and convince them to return to Wrocław.

OK, one more city worth mentioning is

Poznań

traditionally a vibrant centre of trade and industry, with the oldest cathedral in Poland. Oh, and since I’m jumping all over the Polish map, I need to mention one more northern city,

Szczecin

Just because I thought you’d love all the consonants in the name

I haven’t mentioned here many other important Polish cities, so look out for more consonant-packed names soon!

Warszawa church and Kraków by smif via Flickr used under CC licence
Wrocław by Mike PD via Flickr used under CC licence

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