Polish For Dummies^®

Polish For Dummies^®

by Daria Gabryanczyk

Polish For Dummies^®

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ISBN: 978-1-119-97959-3 (paperback), 978-1-119-95120-9 (ebook), 978-1-119-95121-6 (ebook), 978-1-119-95122-3 (ebook)

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International, Padstow, Cornwall

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About the Author

Daria Gabryanczyk has been teaching Polish literature and Polish as a foreign language for almost a decade. She holds an MA in Polish Language and Literature from the University of Łódź. Daria is a teacher and an examiner for the Ministry of Defence Language Examinations Board and the University of Westminster. She has worked as a language teacher for the European High Commission, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, United Kingdom Environmental Law Association and University College, London. Daria provides Polish Business Etiquette and Culture Training for Businesses. She is also an author of the Polish Easy Readers series and runs a school of Polish in London.

Author’s Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank my husband, Piotr, for hanging in there through the ups and downs of a first-time author, and to my parents for cheering me up and making food for me when I was well and truly lost in writing the book. I’m very grateful to my friends who pre-ordered the book when not a single word had even been written.

Many thanks to all the people at Wiley for making this book possible, especially to my commissioning editor, Kerry Laundon, for finding and selecting me for ‘the Polish job’; to Rachael Chilvers, for her coordination, supervision and invaluable help in developing this book; to Kathleen Dobie for her insight, thorough and much-appreciated editing (she made this book a better one!); and to my technical editors, Izabela Mayne and Iwona Dembowska-Wosik, for ensuring that I didn’t miss anything.

I owe much gratitude to my student and friend, Simon Williams, for so many scribbling-on-a-napkin conversations about pronunciation and grammar and to Matthew Culver for his help in taking me through the legal aspects of this project.

Publisher’s Acknowledgements

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Commissioning, Editorial, and Media Development

Project Editor: Rachael Chilvers

Commissioning Editor: Kerry Laundon

Assistant Editor: Ben Kemble

Technical Editors: Izabela Mayne and Iwona Dembowska-Wosik

Proofreader: Kate O’Leary

Production Manager: Daniel Mersey

Publisher: David Palmer

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Composition Services

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Publishing and Editorial for Consumer Dummies

Kathleen Nebenhaus, Vice President and Executive Publisher

Kristin Ferguson-Wagstaffe, Product Development Director

Ensley Eikenburg, Associate Publisher, Travel

Kelly Regan, Editorial Director, Travel

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Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher

Composition Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Introduction

Society is becoming ever more international in nature – low-cost airfares make travel abroad a more realistic option, global business environments necessitate overseas travel, friends and neighbours may speak another language. Knowing how to say at least a few words in other languages becomes increasingly useful. You may also want to get in touch with your heritage by learning a little bit of the language that your ancestors spoke.

Whatever your reason for acquiring some Polish, this book can help. Polish For Dummies gives you the skills you need for basic communication in Polish. I’m not promising fluency, but if you want to greet someone, purchase a ticket or order something from a menu in Polish, you need look no further than Polish For Dummies.

About This Book

This book isn’t a class that you have to drag yourself to twice a week for six weeks. You can use Polish For Dummies however you want to, whether your goal is to learn some words and phrases to help you get around when you visit Poland, or you simply want to be able to say Hello to a Polish-speaking friend. This book can help you reach moments of true understanding in a different language. Use the text as a language and cultural guide for those moments when you really need to know how and why things are done.

Go through this book at your own pace, reading as much or as little at a time as you like. Also, you don’t have to trudge through the chapters in order; you can just read the sections that interest you.

The only way to know and love a language is to speak it. Throughout the book are lots of words, phrases and dialogues, complete with pronunciations you can use to practise the language. The audio tracks provide you with a broad sample of spoken dialogues, which you can use to improve your pronunciation and inflection.

Remember that you don’t need to chew through this book all at once. So you don’t need to read it cover to cover. Just pick a chapter that interests you and you can find cross-references to other parts of the book.

Why I Wrote This Book

Language exposes you to every aspect of the human condition, allowing you to study the past, understand the present and ponder the future. Language sometimes changes the ways in which people express various emotions and conditions. People are connected through their ability to speak, but you can go one step further – to understanding – by being able to communicate in another language. Very few things are as exciting as that!

The best way to discover a new language is to immerse yourself in it. Listen to the way Polish sounds, concentrate on the pronunciation and look at how it’s written. By listening and repeating, you enter a new world of ideas and peoples. Acquiring Polish through immersion really does feel like a sort of magic.

Conventions Used in This Book

To make this book easy for you to navigate, I set up a few conventions:

Polish terms are set in boldface to make them stand out.

Pronunciations, set in brackets in italics, follow the Polish terms. The translations, again in parentheses, follow the pronunciations.

Verb conjugation tables (lists that show you the forms of a verb) follow this order:

• ja: the I form

• ty: the singular, informal you form

• on, ona, ono: the he, she, it form

• my: the we form

• wy: the plural, informal you form

• oni, one: the they form for a group with at least one man; the they form for a group with no man

A typical verb conjugation table has columns for the pronoun forms, the Polish verb, the pronunciation and the translation, as in the following table:

As you may notice, the personal pronouns ja, ty, my, wy (ya, tih, mih, vih) are in brackets. That’s because you don’t actually say those pronouns when you’re speaking Polish, so I put them in brackets in all conjugation tables in this book. I explain the pronoun issue in detail in Chapter 3.

Unlike English, Polish uses special formal forms to address people in official situations. (I write more about how to address people in Chapter 3.) So, the you form has the following formal equivalents in Polish:

pan, pani: pan (pan) is the formal you to address a man and pani (pa-n’ee) the formal you to a woman (singular).

państwo, panowie, panie (pan’-stfo pa-no-v’ye pa-n’ye): the formal, plural you form to address a mixed group, a group of men and a group of women, respectively. Państwo also means ladies and gentlemen, panowie are gentlemen and panie translates as ladies (plural).

When reading verb tables or conjugating verbs, remember that pan takes on the same verb form as on (he) and pani the same verb form as ona (she); the third person singular. In the present tense, the plural państwo, panowie and panie take on a verb in the third person plural (the same as oni (they male or mixed) and one (they female)). However, in the past tense and the future that uses past tense forms, państwo and panowie follow oni, while panie follows one in the choice of a verb form. Chapter 2 explains verbs in more detail.

Studying a language is a peculiar beast, and so this book includes a few elements that other For Dummies books don’t:

Talkin’ the Talk dialogues: The best way to improve with a language is to see and hear how it’s used in conversation, and so I include dialogues throughout the book. The dialogues come under the heading ‘Talkin’ the Talk’ and show you the Polish words, the pronunciation and the English translation.

Words to Know blackboards: Memorising key words and phrases is also important in language, and so I collect the important words that appear in a chapter (or section within a chapter) and write them on a ‘blackboard’ under the heading ‘Words to Know’.

Fun & Games activities: If you don’t have Polish speakers with whom to practise your new language skills, you can use the Fun & Games activities to reinforce what you’re discovering. These word games are fun ways to gauge your progress.

Also, because each language has its own ways of expressing ideas, the English translations that I provide for the Polish terms may not be literal. I want you to know the gist of what’s being said, not just the words being said. For example, you can translate the Polish phrase wszystko w porządku (fshih-stko fpo-zhon-tkoo) literally as everything in order, but the phrase really means fine. This book gives the fine translations.

Foolish Assumptions

To write this book, I had to make some assumptions about you and what you want from a book called Polish For Dummies:

You know no Polish.

You’re not looking for a book to make you fluent in Polish; you just want to know some words, phrases and sentence constructions so that you can communicate basic information in Polish.

You don’t want to have to memorise long lists of vocabulary words or a load of boring grammar rules.

You want to have fun and discover a bit of Polish at the same time.

If these statements apply to you, you’ve found the right book!

How This Book Is Organised

This book is divided by topic into parts, and then into chapters. The following sections tell you what types of information you can find in each part.

Part I: Getting Started

You get your feet wet in this part as I give you some Polish basics: how to pronounce words, what the accents mean and so on. I even boost your confidence by reintroducing you to some Polish words you probably already know. In addition, I outline the basics of Polish grammar that you may need to know when you turn to the more detailed chapters of the book.

Part II: Polish in Action

In this part, you begin practising and using Polish. Instead of focusing on grammar points, as many language textbooks do, this part focuses on everyday situations in which you may find yourself if you’re living in Poland or dealing with your Polish-speaking friends. The chapters in this part hone your small-talk skills and take you on shopping and dining excursions. At the end of this part, you should be able to do some basic navigation in the Polish language.

Part III: Polish on the Go

This part provides the tools you need to take your Polish on the road, whether you’re going to a local Polish restaurant or a museum in Warsaw. These chapters help you to survive the Customs process, check into hotels and nab a cab, and have a great time doing it. Sprinkled throughout are cultural titbits that introduce you to people, places and things that are important in Polish culture.

Part IV: Polish in the Workplace

This part transports you to the world of the Polish business, office and worksite cultures and their specialised language.

Part V: The Part of Tens

If you’re looking for small, easily digestible pieces of information about Polish, this part is for you. Here, you can find ways to speak Polish quickly, useful Polish expressions to know and celebrations worth joining.

Part VI: Appendixes

This part of the book includes important information that you can use for reference. I give you a mini-dictionary in both Polish-to-English and English-to-Polish formats and provide some brief facts about Poland. I include verb tables that show you how to conjugate a regular verb, and then how to conjugate those verbs that stubbornly refuse to fit the pattern. I also provide a listing of the audio tracks so that you can find out where in the book those dialogues are and follow along.

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:

I use this icon to indicate crucial pieces of information that you need to bear in mind.

This icon highlights tips that can make Polish easier for you.

Languages are full of quirks that may trip you up if you’re not prepared for them. This icon points to discussions of these weird grammatical rules.

If you’re looking for information and advice about culture and travel, look for this icon.

The audio tracks that come with this book give you the opportunity to listen to real Polish speakers so that you get a better understanding of what Polish sounds like. This icon marks the Talkin’ the Talk dialogues that you can find on the audio tracks.

Where to Go from Here

Discovering a new language is all about jumping in and giving it a try (no matter how bad your pronunciation is at first). So make the leap! Never feel at all ashamed when speaking Polish! All your attempts to speak even just a few words will be much appreciated and any language mistakes or cultural faux pas easily forgotten by Poles. What counts is you making an effort to learn and speak the language. Of course, the better your Polish, the more impressed your Polish friends, family or business partners will be.

If you’ve never taken Polish lessons before, you may want to read the chapters in Part I before tackling the later chapters. Part I gives you some of the basics that you need to know about the language, such as how to pronounce the various sounds.

After that, pick a chapter that interests you or listen to some audio tracks. Above all, make sure that you have fun!

Part I

Getting Started

In this part . . .

Here you can jump right into the Polish language – I start by showing you Polish words whose meaning you can work out without consulting a dictionary; then you discover how to make Polish sounds and how to crack the Polish ‘grammar code’. I also give you a few quickie phrases to impress your Polish friends!