Polish language
“In a fashion similar to Chinese, most of the Polish native speakers can't properly write, but can fluently read the words of their language”
“Finally! After seven years of learning, I can correctly pronounce the ź letter! zzzz-z-z-z-z-z-z... Damn it! I knew I could 2 minutes ago, now I have to enroll in the Polish class again!!!”
“I hear hissing, rustling and hushing, and my ears are bleeding...”
The Polish language is referred to as Polszczyzna (TPA/MPL: Pòlščŷz͆na; SPA/MPL: Polski; Cyrillic/MPL: Польски) in Poland. It is the second most spoken Slavic language, just after Russian. Even though the language is only considered the third hardest in the world to learn (after Traditional Chinese and Hungarian), it is the one most seriously fucked up.
It has been long suspected (there are several ongoing scientific studies) that a prolonged use of the Polish language by the non-native speakers causes tongue injuries, temporary loss of orientation, serious social withdrawal and/or general confusion leading to a spontaneous boarding of the unscheduled airline flights to some exotic locales where Polish has not made any signicant inroads yet.
History of Polish language[edit | edit source]
Polish history has only been recorded since the 10th century. No Polish documents from before that time survived; therefore, nobody really knows who is responsible for the introduction of the Polish language to the Poles, or why this cruelty had been imposed on a generally peaceful population. There are unconfirmed rumors that the Poles invented the language themselves while trying to imitate the sounds of a tracksuit wiped on sand. After it had been established that there were no tracksuits during the 10th century, other historians suggested that the ancient Poles could have been imitating the sounds of a hissing viper or a sword dragged over gravel. This is also disputed since the ancient Poles did not use swords except for the ritual hara-kiri (later adopted by the Japanese culture) that was always performed on a gravel-less peat moss; neighborly incursions were typically greeted (cf. Polish hospitality) with bludgeons, axes, and occasional rohatynas.
Polish shares similarities with the Czech, Slovakian, Russian and Croatian. There are two different theories trying to explain this. The first one holds that the Poles exported their sound-imitating language abroad. The second theory suggests that imitating weird and funny sounds was a normal - albeit somewhat less sophisticated - way of creating languages in Slavic cultures. In the 20th century this theory led the infamous "Drang nach Osten", a disaster only mitigated by the Marshall Plan.
Foreigners claim that Polish language is an oddity. A prominent Harvard scientist once stated very succintly: "Polish has too many fucking consonants!" Another American linguist observed that "It seems that Polish has only one phonetic unit to represent all 50 letters of its alphabet. I would describe this as a sound made by a caribou being devoured by a lion in a dry bush." With American R&D commonly considered superior even to itself, such observations are, unfortunately, commonly accepted by the World's scientific establishment (see Discovery Channel and such).
To date, only one non-Pole, who could properly speak Polish, has been identified. In a cruel twist of fate she was suffering from a recent stroke, which gave her the ability to speak Polish, as a side effect. She has recently been the subject of a Time Magazine cover story in which she advocated switching to the Polish Cyrillic alphabet in order to write Polish. Her exact (post-stroke) quote from the article was: "what the hell... nobody can read this stuff, anyway". Several weeks later it has been discovered that constantly speaking Polish led to her tongue dislocating, and eventually falling out (it has been reattached since, with the use of small titanium rods). To make matters worse, her larynx had been severely lacerated by the proper use of the Polish letters g, ch/h, z, b and dz, making her irreversibly mute.
Interestingly, Poles do not suffer from larynx and tongue injuries, as, over the last millennium, they developed some type of immunity. It must have been a process not unlike the evolution of African(er)s who have adapted to living in hell. This shows again that there is no hardship the human race cannot adapt to, sometimes voluntarily. But we digress...
English, Northern English and Irish people usually describe Polish as the rustling language. They claim that extracting the exact phonetics from Chinese is actually much easier than doing the same with the Polish language. According to a research by another prominent Harvard linguist, they are right. The official Polish phonology book of the Modern Polish shows three types of courses in Polish, which are funky sounds written in Simplified Polish alphabet:
Name of the course | Letters and digraphs | Approximate pronunciation in English |
hissing | z, s, dz, c | banzai!, pussy, kamikaze, tsunami |
rustling | ż/rz, sz, dż, cz | Jaques, Push, Jack, Chuck |
hushing | ź, ś, dź, ć | unpronounceable, unpronounceable, unpronounceable, totally unpronounceable |
Traditional Polish language[edit | edit source]
Traditional Polish language refers to a method of communication widely used in Poland until the 17th century. After that, it gradually lost its prominence, becoming a minor dialect. Nowadays it is used only by crazy pensioners, priests, bishops, conservatives and at the annual knights' conventions.
It differs from Modern Polish by the usage of more difficult and complicated grammar. Also, the people who speak Traditional Polish sound like they are patriotic douchebags totally smashed after drinking too much vodka. The sentences below show the difference between Traditional and Modern Polish (written in SPA):
- I zawżdy powiadam, iżby wrogowie nasi poszli byliby na mury, tożto my przeto by byli na basztach stanęli, w imię Świętej Panienki Zawsze Dziewicy i nasze serca poświęcili dla obrony naszej wspaniałej i najcenniejszej Ojczyzny, boć to ugiąć się nie możemy pod kacapskim ścierwem najeźdźcy ze Wschodu!
- Jak nas zaatakują, to im wpierdolimy.
Both sentences can be translated to If they attack us, we will whoop their asses. It's easy to notice that Traditional Polish uses more words and the overall sentence is much longer. It is obvious why Poles rarely use Traditional Polish. However, Traditional Polish is still recognized as an official form of Polish, and taught in Polish schools (usually during the detention periods) in addition to the Modern Polish.
Traditional Polish language can be written using both the Traditional Polish alphabet and the Simplified Polish alphabet, as well as using the two not-officially-recognized Polish alphabets: the Polish Cyrillic alphabet and leet.
Modern Polish language[edit | edit source]
The modern Polish language, even if it is simpler than the traditional one, is still one of the most fucked up languages in the world. This article fully describes the problems of the Polish language.
Alphabet[edit | edit source]
Poland, as a good will gesture, decided to accept the baptism from the Czechs, instead of another nation, in A.D. 966. Therefore Poles also decided to give legitimacy to the Czech writing system and adopted parts of the Latin based alphabet from them[citation needed]. Unfortunately, the ridiculous Czech letters didn't suit the Polish language. They were considered too 'girly' and too easy to learn for the Poles. Fortunately, a Polish poet, Jan Kochanowski, invented several letters that looked even more idiotic than the Czech ones and they were truly Polish, and that was the most important issue, plus , they were sufficiently hard to learn to pass a test for 'good' Polish letters. . Many people refer to Kochanowski as a patriotic man, but in fact he was a nationalist who held the Czechs in so much disdain, (according to the recent historic research: rightfully so) he HAD TO invent new letters.
Other people had their own ideas for a standardization of the Polish alphabet (in 1999 one guy suggested introducing Wingdings for writing, but this idea failed in a national referendum with 49.9%-50.1% (by the margin of 18 and a half votes)). Therefore, today we can recognize two Polish Latin alphabets: Traditional Polish alphabet (alfabet Polski tradycyjny) and Simplified Polish alphabet (alfabet Polski uproszczony), just like in Chinese, Both of them are written from left to right with some notable but rare exceptions. For example, Polish immigrants in Israel write from right to left, and Polish immigrants in Japan write from up to down and right to left.
Traditional Polish alphabet[edit | edit source]
Traditional Polish alphabet (known today also as diacritizka) is following:
A Ą À Á Â Ã Ä Å Ø B ß C Ć Ç Č D E Ę È É Ē F G H Ĥ I Ì Í Î J K L Ł M N Ń O Ó Ò Ō P R Ř S Ś Š T U V W X Y Ŷ Z Ż Ź Ƶ Ž Ȥ Z̄ Z͆ Z̪ Z͌ Z͛ Z̊ Z͒ Z͚ Z̾ Z͙ Ẑ Z̀ Z̼ Z̰ Z̧ Z͖
Non-highlighted letters are nowadays obsolete. Traditional Polish alphabet is used by some geeks and very, very old, immortal Polish professors that want to be hyper correct. However, several non-highlighted letters are now imposƵible to pronounce because people that used them centuries ago are now dead and nobody can say them with correct and accurate pronunciation.
It is believed that about 5% of Polish native speakers use nowadays Traditional Polish alphabet.
Simplified Polish alphabet[edit | edit source]
Simplified Polish alphabet (known today also as consonantnitza) is following:
A Ą B C Ć CH CZ D DZ DŻ DŹ E Ę F G H I J K L Ł M N Ń O Ó P R RZ S SZ Ś T U W Y Z Ż Ź Ƶ
Please, note that the usage of the last letter, Ƶ is questionable as it stands for the same sound as Ż. And non-highlighted digraphs are not always recognized as independent letters, although they are separate sounds. However removing diacritical letters from alphabet was just a 'cosmetic surgery', as the new digraphs are used now instead of the old diacritic letters. It was a conciliatory move towards the hapless foreigners that were getting pathological nystagmus while looking at Polish texts and were repeatedly begging for removal of some of the diacritics. The Poles accepted idea and were removing them over time. However, they devised better ideas to annoy the foreigners. Instead of diacritics they invented already mentioned digraphs that are even harder to read for the non-natives.
Simplification of Polish writing system had to lead to systematic simplification of Polish language and removing diacritic shit from the letters which led to considerable savings in ink usage and pens of about 2 billion dollars annually. Over the long time several tenses, cases as well as forms and aspects have disappeared from the Polish language. Many words also have been simplified but this has been officially stopped in 20th century, when a governmental body banned any further simplification in order not to lower the entry barriers for the non-natives . The best example is shortening of the phrase ku niej (towards her) that could be written as 'k'niej' in the past but today that form is considered a mistake.
It is believed that 85% of Polish native speakers use Simplified Polish alphabet.
Conversion from Traditional alphabet to Simplified[edit | edit source]
There is no exact date of conversion as it was happening over a long period of time. The use of Simplified alphabet increased literacy rate from 38% in 1918 to 118% in 2009.
This illustrates the reasons behind this dramatic increase: in Japanese language, one kanji symbol can be read as several different sounds and in Traditional Polish alphabet one sound can be written in several different ways, including digraphs and even trigraphs if we also take into account the obsolete sounds.
Examples:
- Traditional: xøødz, xiãtz, xioudz, xßøtz; Simplified: ksiądz; IPA for both: [kɕɔ̃dz]; English translation: priest
- Traditional: chēśč, cz͚eūšch and many more variations; Simplified: część; IPA for both [tʂɛ̃ɕtɕ]; English translation: part
As we see in the examples above, Traditional orthography is totally random while Simplified is certain. But that created really serious dilemmas: Why was the ortography set in this particular form and not the other? Why do we write: Rzeka and not Żeka, or Ƶeka? Why should we all write the words in a manner that has been decided by some fucktard, without holding a national referendum on the matter!?
Since 1918 all Polish kids are tortured through the school years to learn correct Polish orthography, which is contrary to the logic and fully random and senseless. For example word gżegżółka would look better as grzegrzółka just because there is a name Grzegorz and rz after g is just more common. Therefore most of the Poles can't correctly write gżegżółka and in fact 99.78% of all the words.
Many Polish words that used to have the easy forms have been intentionally converted to the more complicated ones, because they were considered just not difficult enough and not sufficiently conducive for making spelling and speaking errors . For example the word rzołnierz (soldier) had two rz in it. After conversion to the Simplified Polish alphabet it is spelled żołnierz with different ż/rz on both ends, thus achieving the desired effect of increasing a chance of making a mistake while writing it.
Same sound, different letters[edit | edit source]
Simplification deleted many letters but instead, great Polish professors invented digraphs. In this way we have pairs of letter&digraph that represent same sounds:
- ż and rz that stand for Czech ř or English si in vision. Actually the Polish can pronounce Czech ř better and more correctly than Czechs.
- h and ch that stand for IPA x, just like in Scottish word loch.
- ś and si that stand for sh in she. (sz also stands for sh but only Polish native speakers are able to distinguish them)
- ź and zi that is unpronounceable by the non-Polish people (ż, rz, ź, zi are actually recognized by the non-Polish people as the same sound)
- ć and ci that is unpronounceable by the non-Polish people (cz makes the same story as in the case of ś, si and sz).
- ń and ni that stand for French gn
- ó and u that is oo in boot but shorter.
To make the matters more difficult, random use of analogical letters or digraphs is not allowed. You do have to use them exactly as stated in a dictionary.
Missing letters[edit | edit source]
Even though Polish alphabet has got many additional letters, it lacks Q, X and V! Yes, Simplified alphabet deleted X, and Q and V, although V has been sometimes misused instead of U letter.
Leet Polish alphabet[edit | edit source]
There is also an unofficial Polish alphabet - leet. It's used by about 5% of the Poles as primary alphabet (they are called Pokémons or Neo kids) and by about 20% in SMS, chats and other situations, especially when they can't type Polish diacritic letters. Polish leet is very random. Only Polish letter used there is ł written as |/_. Other diacritic letters are used without any dots or lines. So, Polish sentence of Cześć, jak się masz would look like: <z|=s& _|/\|/ s||= |\/|/\s?. Some say that this looks similar to Korean alphabet that also has been created for a simplification of the Korean writing system. Many Polish people wonder if leet can be permanently introduced to Polish language but actually, Traditional Polish Alphabet can be considered as early version of leet especially if we look at the word "ksiądz".
Polish Cyryllic alphabet[edit | edit source]
In 19th century, during the dark times in polish history, when Poland had been removed from the maps by the the low self esteem bullies from Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary, Russian Czar Nicolae I Romanow got great a idea of kicking the Latin alphabet out of Poland (as it has been totally fucked up) and to introduce cyryllic alphabet (tzirillitza or cyrylica in Poland). However, he had problem with diacritic letters and therefore invented few additional letters and kept few from Polish-Latin.
However, he abandoned his idea as his advisers suggested to him that Poles could start a revolution in the name of their diacritic letters and overdose of the consonants. Czar decided to keep the Poles calm. However in 1863 they started an uprising anyway but, as they had no good reason for it, the infamous Reasonless Revolution failed after a year. During the uprising many Poles senselessly died and many more escaped to France where they became quickly disillusioned with the 'French ways'.
However the idea came from Moscow to Poland and people living next to Belarus and Ukraine borders decided to adopt Cyrillic alphabet to make contacts with their neighbors easier. Nowadays it is said that about 5% of the Poles use Polish Cyrillic alphabet.
Joint of alphabets and languages[edit | edit source]
As we see, Poles use four alphabets and two main languages. Therefore we have eight versions of every word. We will show differences on Polish translation of the word of Poland.
Language | Alphabet | Word |
Modern Polish | Simplified | Polska |
Modern Polish | Traditional | Pólškā |
Modern Polish | Leet | |>0|_/\|\||> |
Modern Polish | Cyryllic | Пољска |
Traditional Polish | Simplified | Rzeczpospolita Polska |
Traditional Polish | Traditional | Řèčpōšpólîtá Pølščkâ |
Traditional Polish | Leet | R'plt/\ |
Traditional Polish | Cyrillic | Рєчпосполита Пољска |
Well... Isn't Polish language piękny or piękna or ...?
Phonology[edit | edit source]
In theory (just in theory!) there is nothing simpler than reading Polish words as they are written in the same manner as they are spoken. Well, at least that's what every Pole will tell you. Even if its hard to write the word (rzeka or żeka!?), after it's been written, everybody will know how to read it.
However, guys on English Wikipedia deny this fact and they claim that Polish words aren't written in the same way as they should be read. But we all know that Englishmen are retards.
Basic advice for foreigners for reading Polish stuff[edit | edit source]
You can be sure of one thing. When you see diacritic shit over or under a letter, you can be sure you say it WRONG.
We put a disclaimer here. We wrote that already, but we need to remind you that you will never learn Polish language! You can be able to speak like a 6 year-old child but never better!
We don't have any other advice unless you wish to cut or pierce your tongue or larynx. To be brutally honest: if you weren't born in Poland or you weren't growing up in Polish family, you will never be able to say certain sounds like ż, ź, sz, ś or dż. But from the other side, Poles can learn sounds from any other language and they excell at Irish, Chinese and Thai.
Therefore you will never learn Polish. You had better give up now before you become frustrated, depressed, suicidal and before you hurt your tongue, larynx or develop a collapsed lung. It's just too hard for your lungs, larynx and tongue to say words with too many consonants and funky letters, like: część, źdźbło, trzcina, rzeżączka or pszczoła.
Diacritic makes a difference[edit | edit source]
You should really know the difference between words with and without diacritics.
Examples: Zrobisz mi łaskę? and Zrobisz mi laskę?
Both questions above would be read by an Englishman in the same way. But the first sentence means Will you condescend to me? while the second one means Will you give me a blowjob? or Will you make me a walking stick? The problem is that typical Englishman will read those sentences in a fashion of the second sentence and in addition: probably using hybrydic indicative/peremptory pitch so typical Englishman instead of Will you condescend to me? will say You will give me a blowjob or Give me a blowjob!
Another good example are the words jebię and jebie. The first one means I fuck someone and the second one means He fucks someone. The difference is crucial, especially while talking on the phone to your girlfriend.
The next example is sad and sąd. The first one means orchard and the second means court.
Solution: Better to not say too much (if you are able to).
Grammar[edit | edit source]
In addition to the idiotic letters and hard phonology, Polish language has the hardest grammar of any known language. There are so many tenses, cases, aspects, forms, number classes, gender classes, moods and voices that you could go crazy just from knowing about their existence. Additionally, there's a different conjugation of verbs for each tense, gender etc. With high probability, even 100% of Poles can use them, nearly none of them could actually say how many of them they have without thinking for a few minutes. To make matters worse, the Polish order of words is totally random.
An interesting fact about Polish grammar is that there are more exceptions than actual standard forms.
Please note that Polish grammar books are illegal worldwide with the exceptions of Poland itself, Hungary and Zimbabwe. Otherwise, all books about Polish grammar are banned around the world because of mass cases of insanity and eyes popping out. It is believed that the original language of Cthulhu (from: Cho, ciulu, meaning C'mon, unclefucker) was Polish, and R'yleh originally was written as "ryło" (phiz), but believers had problems with Polish alphabet, even with the Simplified version. There are only two countries that didn't ban those books: Hungarian goverment allowed to sell Polish grammar books in their country as its difficulty is similar to the Hungarian one. Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe has no knowledge of the existence of Poland and therefore he did not ban them.
Unfortunately for those people that want to live in Poland and be granted the Polish citizenship, they have to go through at least two volumes of basic grammar books. That explains the extremely high rate of denial of applications for Polish citizenship.
Noun cases[edit | edit source]
Polish is highly inflected language. In Modern Polish we have 7 cases for nouns, pronouns and adjectives. However Traditional Polish knows 26 cases and probably several that lost on cards of history. There are so many because Polish can translate word "what" in several different ways. We will list them here, highlighting Modern Polish ones (names in Modern Polish/SPA):
Number | Case's name in English... | ...and Polish | Abbreviation | Questions in Polish | Questions in English |
1 | Nominative | Mianownik | M | kto?, co? | who? what? |
2 | Genitive | Dopełniacz | D | kogo? czego? | whose? of what? |
3 | Dative | Celownik | C | komu? czemu? | whom? to what? why? |
4 | Accusative | Biernik | B | kogo? co? | whom? what? |
5 | Instrumental | Narzędnik | Nz | z kim? z czym? | with whom? with what? |
6 | Locative | Miejscownik | Mso | o kim? o czym? | about whom? about what? |
7 | Vocative | Wołacz | W | O! | Oh! |
8 | Extended vocative | Wołacz rozszerzony | Wr | o kurwa! | oh fuck! |
9 | Adolescentative | Młodzieżownik | Mż | tak, tak, tak! | yes, yes, yes! |
10 | Politicative | Politycznik | P | koalicja? z kim? po co? | coalition? with who? why? |
11 | Beforevotingative | Przedwybornik | Pz | komu? po co? co damy? | whom? for what? what are we going to give? |
12 | Aftervotingative | Powybornik | Po | co ja, kurwa, zrobiłem? | for fuck's sake, what did I do? |
13 | Obaman vocative | Wołacz obamowski | Wo | yes, we can! | yes, we can! |
14 | Intimative | Intymnik | Iz | kto? z kim? | who? with who? |
15 | Material intimative | Intymnik materialny | Imz | kto? z kim? za ile? | who? with who? for how much? |
16 | Kidative | Dziecinnik | Dz | kto? z kim? ile ma? | who got? with who? how many? |
17 | Reasonative | Powodownik | Pd | dlaczego? dlaczego ja? | why? why me? |
18 | Confusative | Dziwnik | Do | o co chodzi? | what's going on? |
19 | Idiotative | Tępownik | T | Eeee.... oooo??? | Ummmm... Uuuuh? |
20 | Hungoverative | Kacownik | K | gdzie jestem? kim jestem? | where am I? who am I? |
21 | Vomitative | Wymiotnik | Wm | gdzie? po czym? po ilu? | where? after what? after how many? |
22 | Beatative | Przypierdolnik | Pp | komu? czym? | whom? using what? |
23 | Material beatative | Przypierdolnik materialny | Ppm | komu? czym? za ile? | whom? using what? for how much? |
24 | Corruptative | Łapownik | Ł | kto? komu? ile? | who? whom? how much? |
25 | Thievative | Złodziejnik | Z | kto? komu? co? | who? whom? what? |
26 | Shoutative | Krzyczalnik | Ko | kto? kogo? o co? | who? whom? for what? |
We did not show suffixes of nouns in certain cases as they are totally random and while learning Polish, students have to learn cases for each noun, and that includes separate suffixes for singular and plural forms. Basically there are some similarities in certain cases but still, it's random and the suffixes most often eats whole words. The best example is word pies (dog) that in singular form Nominative is pies, in Genitive is psa, in Dative is psu, in instrumental is psem and in Vocative is psie. In Plural form in Nominative is psy, in Genitive is psów etc. How would you know that all those forms are actually the same word??
At least there is a one positive about Polish nouns. Regardless of case, Polish nouns DO NOT HAVE ANY ARTICLES! At least that! That's actually only thing in Polish language that is easier than in English.
However Polish nouns do have different genders of antecedent which is even worse than the articles. They are not identified in regular speech, but if you want to speak with a proper degree of clarity you need to know a gender of every Polish noun! But obviously, there is a total randomness in this case and no easy to follow rules. If you are foreigner, you will never know a noun's gender (so again, this is your last chance to give up!).
Genders of antecedent are also flectable.
So... If you are able to learn the Polish inflection system as a foreigner, you are either Chuck Norris, or God. Oh wait... God is Polish, so you need to be Chuck in order to learn the Polish inflection system.
Verbs[edit | edit source]
If you think that the nouns are hard, now please meet the Polish verbs. In the Traditional Polish they have six tenses, five moods, four voices, ten persons and three aspects which gives a total of (6*5*4*10*3)= 3600 possible forms for every Polish verb in Traditional Polish'. Just as an example, we proudly present the verb być (to be). So there are:
Tense, Mood, Voice and Aspect in Polish... | ...and English | Form of "być" |
Ja, teraźniejszy przypuszczający czynny niedokonany | Me, present conditional active not done | Być może jestem będącym |
Ty, przeszły oznajmujący bierny niedokonany | You, past announcing passive not done | Byłeś będącym |
My, przyszły warunkowy bierny dokonany | We, future conditional reflexive done | Najpewniej będziemy wydobyci |
Note that each group of words actually refer to single to be' meaning. Now try to imagine 3597 additional forms for to be in Traditional Polish language and for every other verb. Fortunately, the Poles simplified it a bit in Modern Polish. However there are still three tenses, three moods, three voices, eight persons and two aspects remained but verbs now share forms on different occasions, although they are totally random and you still have to learn exact forms of an every Polish verb (though under 100 of each verb).
Tense, Mood, Voice and Aspect in Polish... | ...and English | Form of "być" |
Ja, teraźniejszy przypuszczający czynny niedokonany | Me, present conditional active not done | Wciąż jestem |
Ty, przeszły oznajmujący bierny niedokonany | You, past announcing passive not done | Byłeś |
My, przyszły warunkowy bierny dokonany | We, future conditional reflexive done | Wydobędziemy się |
And we see that Modern Polish is shorter but still weird.
Prefixes of verbs[edit | edit source]
Verbs' prefixes make every foreigner who try to learn Polish cry. Actually small change at verb prefix can totally change its meaning. The best example is a verb lecieć (to fly) that has following suffixed translations:
Verb in Polish | Translation to English |
Lecieć | To fly |
Wylecieć | To get out of the place; fly to another country; get fired |
Nalecieć | To attack another country or place using aircraft force |
Dolecieć | To arrive at the airport by plane |
Ulecieć | When smell disappears or when somebody is so happy that he could fly |
Polecieć | To fly, past action |
Przelecieć | To have an adventurous sex with an accidentally met person, to have sex with a girl you knew but you are not going to have any more intercourses with her, to have sex with somebody first time and you are going to have more sex with her but it's not based on love |
Wlecieć | To fly or fall into something - in the latter case, it sometimes emphases that it is hard to get out from the place (Klucze wleciały mi do kanału - My keys fell into a drain) |
Zlecieć | To fall from somewhere to a lower place |
Odlecieć | To get high; to fly away |
Wzlecieć | To fly up |
Przylecieć | To come by plane or to arrive in haste |
Yes... change of the letter at the start of the lecieć base is really significant. Instead of saying I'm going to fly to visit my mum in London, you can accidentally say I'm going to have sex with my mum while visiting her in London.
Lecieć is not a remote example. There are many Polish verbs with prefixes (imagine how many swearwords you can make :-).
Word order[edit | edit source]
Polish is a rare example of the language that has totally random word order and this includes creating questions. Therefore you can write sentence Ala ma kota (Ala has a cat) in following ways:
Sentence |
Ala ma kota. |
Ma Ala kota. |
Ala kota ma. |
Ma kota Ala. |
Kota Ala ma. |
Kota ma Ala |
All sentences above mean same. And that's short sentence. Now imagine randomness in saying sentence like: Zrobiłem już dziś zadanie domowe i mogę pobawić się z moimi kumplami.(I have already done my homework today and I can play with my friends.) My calculator can't count exact number of the possible ways of writing this!
If you want to create question you simply have to add question mark at the end of the sentence without need of changing words' order. For example: Zrobił pracę domową (he did the homework) and Zrobił pracę domową? (did he do the homework?). Only difference is a pitch of the sentence (in similar fashion as in Molvanian).
Double negation[edit | edit source]
Polish is probably the only language in the world that uses ONLY the double negation. Because of that Poles can't translate the phrase I am Nobody and Nobody's perfect. It can be translated to Polish as Jestem nikim i nikt nie jest doskonały and that can be LITERALLY translated to English as I am Nobody and Nobody is not perfect.
Another examples may be like: "You don't take drugs, do you?"/"Nie ćpasz, co nie?"/"You don't take drugs, don't you?" and many other you can imagine
The Poles actually DO know that they use double negation. They DO know that it's weird and retarded but... it's considered correct.
You think it may be enough for your little brain, but there's even more.
Polish language is also propably the only language that (theoretically) uses single negation for making negation, double negation to make negation, double negation also to make confirmation, single confirmation to make confirmation, double confirmation to make confirmation, and finally double confirmation to make negation. But both double confirmation and negation are only in theory; legends says that there are also used multiple confirmation and negation, even reaching numbers of 20. Now think, what would be the meaning of sentence: "No nie mogę nie napić się tego, co nie, bo co by się nie stało?" ("Well I cannot not drink, can't I, because what wouldn't have happened?"). There is also famous sentence full of negations: "Nikt nigdy nie robi niczego niepotrzebnego" and it can be literally translated to English as: "Nobody never doesn't nothing useless". It makes perfect sense.
You can also notice, that "No" has been translated to "Well". However, it is correct. And it doesn't matter, that in many languages around the world (our beautiful English, Italian, etc.) "No" means "No", but it just simply couldn't happen in Polish. It can be translated in many ways:
Q: Jesteś pedałem? (Are you gay?) A: No (Yes)
"No no, kogo my tu mamy?" (Well well, who do we have here?)
Sentence written few lines up: "Nie ćpasz, no nie?" (You don't take drugs, do you)
Somebody says, that "No" in Polish is almost as universal, as "Perkele" in Finnish...
Punctuation[edit | edit source]
Interestingly, Modern Polish language is probably the only language in the world that expresses marks of punctuation as separate words in a speaking language. Instead of a comma Poles use the word kurwa, instead of a period mark they use words i chuj and instead of exclamation mark they use ja pierdolę.
Simplified Polish alfabet/Modern Polish | Spoken as | Translation |
No to chodźmy, bo się spóźnimy. | No to kurwa chodźmy bo się spóźnimy i chuj | Let's go cuz we're gonna be late. |
Zaraz to skończę, no! | Zaraz to skończę kurwa no ja pierdolę | Soon I will finish it! |
No i kiedy poszedłem do Janka, to normalnie nie uwierzysz, ale on tam się normalnie pieprzył z moją byłą, no. Normalnie nie mogę! | No i kurwa kiedy poszedłem do Janka kurwa to normalnie nie uwierzysz kurwa ale on tam się normalnie pieprzył z moją byłą kurwą no i chuj Normalnie nie mogę ja pierdolę | At the time I arrived at the John's house, you won't believe that, he was having intercourse with my ex. I couldn't believe my eyes! |
Please note that comma word (kurwa) may be moved around sentence... as well as every other word.
Words and phrases[edit | edit source]
However, we assume that if you are living in country close to Poland or in the United Kingdom you might want to know some Polish phrases to be able to speak to Poles at basic level. Before we will present you National Greetings, you might want to read some simple examples of Polish phrases just for warm-up and tongue preparation.
Simple examples[edit | edit source]
- W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie i Szczebrzeszyn z tego słynie, że chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie.
- Żółte żaby żałośliwie żalą się żółwiowi, że żółtodzioby żuraw z Żywca zamiast żyta żaby żre.
- Stół z powyłamywanymi nogami.
- Król Karol kupił Królowej Karolinie korale koloru koralowego.
- Wyindywidualizowałem się z rozentuzjazmowanego tłumu.
- Szedł Sasza suchą szosą, susząc sobie spodnie.
- Pocztmistrz z Tczewa.
- To cóż, że ze Szwecji?!
- Wyrewolwerowany rewolwerowiec wyrewolwerował się
- Gdy Pomorze nie pomoże, to pomoże może morze, a gdy morze nie pomoże to pomoże może Gdańsk (note that there is no difference in pronunciation of "ż" and "rz")
- Czarna krowa w kropki bordo gryzła trawę kręcąc
pornomordą - Leży Jerzy koło wieży, i nie wierzy, że na wieży leży gniazdo nietoperzy
- Mama ma Mamałygę
- Szymon może nie może iść nad morze bo morze może wyjechało nad morze
- Wydrze wydrzę wydrze wydrze wydrze wydrzę. (A little otter will snatch a little otter from an otter.)
- Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.. Oh wait, that's an even worse language than Polish.
Now you can poke out your eyeballs with a spoon.
National Greetings[edit | edit source]
And now here are some National Greetings in Polish. Note that the pronunciation is very approximate (as the exact one obviously cannot be reproduced) to actual Polish, but should be somewhat understandable for the Polish native speakers.
- Nie rób wiochy. (pronounced: nee roob vioha, meaning: Pretend you're not a redneck.)
- Ty chuju jebany. (pronounced: tea who-you yeah-bunny, meaning: Good morning.)
- Skocz mi, ty chuju. (pronounced: scotch me tea hoo-you, meaning: Good afternon.)
- Chuj ci w dupę (pronounced: whooy tsee v doopeh, meaning: You look very good)
- HWDP (for police, pronounced: hah voo de pe, meaning: to serve and protect)
- Ty stara cipo! (only used when referring to ladies, pronounced tih stara tseepo meaning You look so lovely today.)
- Wypierdalaj! (pronounced: vy-pyer-thala-y, meaning: Could you possibly leave this place, please?)
- Ty skurwysynu! (only to guys, pronouced: tea skoor-vee-seenoo, meaning: You are my best friend!)
- Pies cię jebał. (only to dogs, pronounced: peace see-e yee-bow, meaning: OK, I'll do it.)
- Chuj ci w zęby. (pronounced: khuuy tchea v zen-bee, meaning: Bon appetit!)
- Kurwa! (pronounced: koorvah, meaning: , [comma])
- Co narobiłeś, ty jebany baranie. (pronounced: cho naa-robeyesh tih yeabonih baraneeah, meaning: I truly appreciate what you have done.)
- Pierdolisz... (pronounced: pyer-doll-isch meaning: I agree with you. Really!)
- Ni chuja. (pronounced: nee khou-ya meaning: Yes I'll do what you want.)
- Przypierdolę ci. (pronounced: pshy-pyer-dolle-e tshi meaning: I'll take good care of you)`
- Czego, kurwa? (pronounced: che-goh koorvah, meaning How could I help you?)
- Morda, psie. (pronounced: moardah ps-ie, meaning Could you please stop talking to me?)
- Co ty kurwa pierdolisz?! (pronouced: tso tea koorvah pyer-doll-isch..?!, meaning: Excuse me, what are you talking about?)
- Dawaj co masz, kurwa, albo cie zajebię! (pronounced: Da-vayy txo mash, kur-vaa, albo tziea zayea-byeea, meaning: I' d like to buy it, how much does it cost?)
- Kurwa jebana!!! (pronounced: koorvah yebana, meaning: Oh, no!)
- Popierdoliło cię? (pronounced: Poo-phierdoliuo che?, meaning: Are you sure?)
Idioms[edit | edit source]
- Dziękuję z góry. (pronounced: tchyen-ku-yah s goo-ry, literal meaning: Thank you from the mountain, meaning: Thank you in advance)
- Chuj mnie to obchodzi! (pronounced: khuuy mnee toh obkho-tschy, literal meaning: Penis is walking around me, meaning: I do not care)
- Czuję do ciebie pociąg. (when you take someone out, pronounced: tchu-yea doh tschye-bye poh-tschyong, literal meaning: I feel a train to you, meaning: I like you very much)
- Zwierzę ci się. (pronounced: svie-tsche tshi shae, literal meaning: I'll animal to you, meaning: I'll unbosom myself to you)
- Wierzę w Boga (pronounced: vie-tsche v bogha, literal meaning: I tower in God, meaning: I believe in God)
- Wiocha zabita dechami (pronounced: vio-kha sa-bee-tah daekha-mee, literal meaning: village killed by boards, meaning: jerk town, rathole)
- Marynarka wojenna (pronounced: mah-rynah-rkah voyennah, literal meaning: military jacket, meaning: navy)
- Spółka z.o.o. - (pronounced: spooukah s-oh-oh, literal meaning: company with zoological garden or company with about about, meaning: private limited company (ltd))
- Rozwodzić się nad faktami (pronounced: ros-vo-dtchitsch shae nahd fuck-tah-mee, literal meaning: to divorce over the facts, meaning: thinking much)
- To nie działa. (pronounced: toh nye tchyawa, literal meaning: these are not cannons, meaning: it doesn't work)
- O kurczę! (pronounced: oh coor-tscheh, literal meaning: oh, chicken!, meaning: what the fuck?)
- Pokój z tobą. (pronounced: poh-ckooy s toh-byom, literal meaning: room with you, meaning: peace with you)
- W mordę jeża! (pronounced: v mor-deh yetscha, literal meaning: in the face of a hedgehog, meaning: holy shit!)
- Siwy dym! (pronounced: shee-wee deem, literal meaning: gray smoke, meaning: holy shit!)
- Jaja sobie robisz? (pronounced: yaya sah-bee rah-beesh, literal meaning: are you making eggs?, meaning: are you kidding?)
- Obrazy Moneta (pronounced: oh-brah-sy moh-nae-tah, literal meaning: paintings coin, meaning: paintings of Monet)
- Nie wkurzaj mnie! (pronounced: nyeh vkoo-zh'eye mun-yeah, literal meaning: don't dust me in, meaning: don't annoy me)
- Wymiatasz (pronounced: vee-mya-tash, literal meaning: you sweep up, meaning: you're awesome (at that skill))
- Nie wychodzi (literal meaning: It's not going out, meaning: i can't do it)
- Masz babo placek (pronounced: mash baboh platzekh, literal meaning: You have a pie, grandma, meaning: holy shit/goddammit/oh shit etc.)
OK... We tried to show correct pronunciation but it's fucking impossible using fucking English letters and sounds. IPA sucks too so get lost you fucking pommy poofter!
Why learning Polish is totally senseless?[edit | edit source]
OK, some people are actually able to learn Chinese. Therefore we can assume that some people are actually able to learn some Polish. However, there is one significant problem with the Polish language. The official Polish language is officially spoken in the whole country, but unofficially spoken only in Central Poland and Lower Silesia. Every other region has its own dialect or regional language that differs so much from Polish, that Polish native speakers have problems understanding it.
Name of dialect | Where is it spoken? | Example | Polish translation | Trivia |
Kashubian language | Northern Poland | kaszëbskò-słowińskô mòwa | język kaszubski | This is spoken widely by mountaneers that were late for the ship to United States. They stayed at Baltic Sea andconverted their Podhale language to Kashubian. For some reason kaszubski is officially recognized by the European Union. |
Silesian language | Silesia; Southern Poland | pů naszymu | gwara śląska | This language is actually mixed up Polish and German. It uses Traditional Polish flexion and German words with some exceptions where they use broken Polish words. Adding funny accent, Silesians can't be understood by the other Poles. |
Masurian dialect | Masuren; North-Eastern Poland | F'scebzesynie hzonsc bzmi w ćinie a dzdzownica sobie plynie | W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie a dżdżownica sobie płynie | Masurians are the most enlightened Poles that actually understood that all funky letters and sounds are sensless, therefore they intentionally do not use them! Instead of cz, sz, dż, ż they use simple c, s, dz, z so in fact they lisp. Because of that they sound even funnier than Kashubians and every Pole laughs at them wherever hears them. Unfortunately it's also hard to understand what Masurians actually say. |
Podhale dialect | Tatry, Podhale, Żywiecczyzna; Southern Poland | E dy przydźciéz huoćkie ku nom na jakié posiady coby my sié tyz troske uweselyli | Hej, zajrzyjcie kiedyś do nas na jakąś imprezę, żebyśmy się też troszkę rozweselili | It's Polish language infected by Slovak so much that it no longer sounds like Polish nor Slovak. Nowadays nobody outside Podhale can actually understand them. Funky accent, broken words and singing instead of speaking doesn't make communication easier. Definitely no foreigner would be able to understand them. |
Dialekt Benedykta XVI (Benedict XIV's dialect) | Watykan - Vatican | Ott-muff-më täraas Eutsche Naasch sa' papie'escha I'aanaa Pavu-a Drugie'eggo. | Odmówmy teraz Ojcze Nasz za papieża Jana Pawła Drugiego. | It's German/Vatican/Polish dialect used exclusively by Benedict XVI - written in German (but the words are in Polish). The most famous phrase in Benedict XVI's dialect is: ßärr-dätsch-nie'e posdravie-am wschëßt-kiech Polaak-uff (it means Greetings for all the Poles). |
Russian | Russia | русский язык | język rosyjski | Many scholars have demonstrated that Russian is actually a Polish dialect. As one of many proofs they refer to the Polish-Russian dictionary, many words sound very similar or even the same. Russian also uses an alphabet very similar to the Polish tzirillitza. It is entirely inconsequential that there are more Russian than Polish speakers, just like not all English speakers have a misfortune of being English. |
And there are about 25 more local dialects (in Eastern Poland they speak more Ukrainian or Belarusian). Therefore if you visit Poland and want to make an attempt at communicating with the Poles, you must stay within the administrative borders of Warsaw, otherwise, you're screwed royally.
Trivia[edit | edit source]
- Polish can also be mistaken for a dark, creamy substance found in small tins in your local cobblers.
- The only country other than Poland where the Polish language is learned in schools as a second language is the Czech Republic. On the other hand, Czech is not learned in Polish schools. Instead of that, the Slovak language is sometimes learned. This way Poland subtly shows digitus impudicus to Czechs.
- The Polish language reached such a high level of total incomprehensibility that Communists in Poland were able to make 3 hour speeches by using only 200 (two hundred) words (without repeating a word or being understood by anyone else).
- Sometimes in Polish sentences you can connect the word "nie" (eng. "no/not") with the word you're trying to deny. This can look like "nierobienie", "niefajny", "nieładnie", etc. and can be translated to English as not-doing, not-cool, not-nicely. We can all agree that it looks retarded.
- Israelis used Polish language to encode their meassages during the Israel-Egypt conflict (and it was succesful for a long time, until the Egyptians discovered the trick and started flooding the Polish language departments at universities in Poland with students, whose only mission was to learn how to read, but not write in Polish).