Polish For Dummies

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and two or three kisses on alternate cheeks. It might sometimes be awkward when you want to kiss twice and the other person three times, or the other way around. Don’t worry if it happens to you. Just smile. The same rule applies between friends, though in the case of two Polish male friends a handshake or simple cześć (chesh’ch’) will do. Formal situations are similar to those in Western Europe, where a simple handshake with everyone in the room is sufficient. A man should always wait for a woman to extend her hand first. And if you are a woman meeting a Polish man from an older generation, don’t be surprised or even offended if he bows slightly to kiss your hand – doing so is a sign of respect from a perfect gentleman. Adam kupił Annie dom (a-dam koo-peew an-n’ye dom) (Adam bought Anna a house) Adam kupił dom Anny (a-dam koo-peew dom an-nih) (Adam bought Anna’s house) In both sentences, Adam (nominative case) is the subject and dom (house) plays the role of the direct object (the thing that is bought, which uses the accusative case). However, in the first sentence Anna is the recipient of the house (Annie is in the dative case of Anna and plays the role of an indirect object), while in the second sentence it’s Anna’s house that has been bought (Anny is the genitive case). As you can see, it’s the case that tells you what’s what in a sentence. When spelling, unlike the English habit of saying, ‘A for Alpha’, ‘B for Bravo’ and so on, Polish people often use first names. So you’ll hear something like the following: A jak Anna (a yak an-na), Be jak Barbara (be yak bar-ba-ra), Ce jak Celina (tse yak tse-lee-na) and so on.

History of Poland in 10 Minutes | Article | Culture.pl Learn the History of Poland in 10 Minutes | Article | Culture.pl

Szedłem means I [man] was walking/going/on my way [when something else happened], while Poszedłem means I [man] went [somewhere once]. The imperfective szedłem is not used frequently, but you should definitely memorise Pronouncing Voiced and Silent Consonants Sometimes some letters are pronounced differently than as described in the previous sections. Welcome to Polish! The difference in pronunciation is because consonants slightly change their personality when surrounded by other consonants. For instance, you learned that w is pronounced as v as in w Gdańsku (vgdan’-skoo) (in Gdansk). However: w Polsce (fpol-stse) (in Poland) Notice that w is pronounced here as its silent equivalent f. What you’re dealing with here are voiced and silent consonants. Case refers to the role a noun, adjective or pronoun plays in a sentence. Many of these roles are crucial for everyday communication and this chapter takes you through them all. Polish has seven cases, both singular and plural, and each of them has a set of endings for each gender. (Chapters 5, 8 and 11 explain the endings of the accusative, instrumental and locative cases, respectively.) There’s always an exception, of course, and the exception to the nopronoun rule is when you use the third person singular – on, ona, ono, pan, pani (on o-na o-no pan pa-n’ee) – or plural – oni, one, państwo (o-n’ee, o-ne, pan’-stfo). When you use the third person, use the personal pronoun with the verb because leaving it out may result in a misunderstanding. For example, if you say: Mieszka w Paryżu (myesh-ka fpa-rih-zhoo) (? lives in Paris.) the form mieszka could mean he lives, she lives, it lives, you (sir) live, you (madam) live, Mr X lives or Mrs X lives. A Polish speaker cannot work out exactly what is being said here. So instead you should say:

1. General Rules

To są . . . (to sohN) (These are) or their shorter version To . . . (to). For example: To jest Marek (to yest ma-rek) or To Marek (to ma-rek) (This is Marek)

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Were you able to work out what they mean? They mean ‘If I don’t find a job, I’ll have to return home to Poland’ and ‘Many thanks in advance’. Funny, isn’t it? You certainly don’t want to end up with something similar when speaking Polish! A companion audio CD contains Polish conversations spoken by native Polish speakers in a variety of everyday contexts, perfect for learning Polish on the go Dz The pronunciation of dz is like the ds in Leeds or goods and is indicated by dz in the phonetic script. Practise the following words: dzwon (dzvon) (bell) bardzo (bar-dzo) (very)

3. Declension

This book covers the Polish alphabet, grammar, and pronunciation, as well as important phrases and sentences in Polish. It’s a solid book for beginners and one of the best books to learn Polish for foreigners who know absolutely nothing about the language. There are 30 lessons that vary between reading and conversation. This 2 nd edition has been rewritten with added material plus graphics and even songs. It’s a little dated (published in 1983) but the language and lessons remain relevant and helpful. Nie być (n’ye bihch’) (not to be) So the whole quote is: Być albo nie być, oto jest pytanie! (bihch’ al-bo n’ye bihch’ o-to yest pih-ta-n’ye) (To be or not to be, that is the question!) Lubiȩ czytać (loo-bye chih-tach’) (I like to read) Nie lubiȩ czytać (n’ye loo-bye chih-tach’) (I don’t like reading)

Polish For Dummies by Daria Gabryanczyk - Books on Google Play

Polish for Dummies is a pretty good book as language books go. It is more travel-oriented than perhaps I would prefer, but the advice and tips for travelers about culture can be really amusing - if you read language books for entertainment as well as study, that is. The sections about grammar were maybe a little unnecessarily confusing, especially as Polish grammar can be difficult. Especially if you’re a beginner. Reading short, simple texts help you build basic knowledge of Polish or any language.

Here we go, let’s start learning Polish:

Describing Yourself and Others Chatting in a foreign language is often initiated by someone asking you where you’re from. Being able to describe yourself and ask other people questions about themselves can oil the wheels of conversation. This section covers how to communicate using the verb być (to be), whether or not to use personal pronouns and how to describe your nationality. This little book has some great tips on how to sound like a ‘real Pole’. It’s a book for beginners and it mainly focuses on developing the learner’s speaking and writing skills. It’s practical and interactive. I’d say it’s a great accompanying book if you’ve already got something that focuses on the intricacies of Polish grammar, or if you’ve got a Polish friend/tutor who can explain such questions to you. Conjugation refers to how verb forms differ depending on the person and number. Have a look at some different forms of the Polish verb “to be” ( być) in the examples below: Being Formal or Informal If you’re a first-time visitor to Poland, you may get the impression that, in terms of formalities and friendliness, only two extremes exist – Poles seem to be either very friendly or cold and distant. This impression may, to some extent, be created by the distinctions in saying you in Polish. The Polish language has two (or actually seven) ways of saying you: Informal: ty (tih) (singular) and wy (vih) (plural). Formal: pan (pan) (used when you speak to a man), pani (pa-n’ee) (used when you speak to a woman) or państwo (pan’-stfo) (plural, mixed group), panowie (pa-no-vye) (when you speak to a group of men) and panie (pan'ye) (when you speak to a group of women). Some parts of speech in Polish (most notably, adverbs) remain unchanged. This makes your job as a language learner a tad easier.

Polish For Dummies by Daria Gabryanczyk | Waterstones

Icons Used in This Book You may be looking for particular information while reading this book. To make certain types of information easier for you to find, I place the following icons in the left-hand margins throughout the book: Number sześćset (six hundred) has two possible pronunciations: the proper and accurate shesh’ch’-set and the careless (yet grammatically acceptable) shey-set. Polish Short Storiesintroduces rich and new but not too complex vocabulary. What’s great is that the translations are found at the end of each chapter so it won’t disturb your reading rhythm while you try to look for words in a dictionary.This course is available at the 5-Minute Language School and is designed especially for absolute beginners. Find out more about Polish for Absolute Beginners. Introduction to Polish