Lesson 1: Similar Words - English words ending 'al'

The good news when you start learning Polish is that there are a huge number or words which are the same or very similar to English. Let's take a look at the first set: English words ending 'al'

Words ending 'al' (but not ending 'ical' or 'tional' - we'll come to those in a moment) tend to come from Latin so their base is often the same in both Polish and English.

In fact to get the Polish all we need to do in many cases is simply add 'ny' to the end fo the English word. For example:

English	Polish
Normal	Normalny
Legal	Legalny
Universal	Uniwersalny

Now before any Polish grammar experts jump all over me with "but those words don't always end in 'y'" ... yes, OK, but we'll come to that.

The overall aim of this course is to get you communicating. If you said "normalny" in every Polish sentence where you needed to express "normal" you would be perfectly understood. So we'll start here and refine later.

Now, these three words tell us a huge amount about the way letters are pronounced in Polish.

Firstly letters are nearly always pronounced the same way no matter what word they appear in - unlike English where letters can take on multiple sounds - like the 'a' in "cat" and then in "cart". This doesn't happen in Polish. Once you learn how to say 'a' in Polish every time you see that letter in any word, in any position, you'll know how to say it ... and that's nice!

There are, of course, some exceptions but they are very rare.

So let's look at "Normalny". From this we can tell:

O is like 'o' in Orbit
R gets rolled a little like in Tomorrow
A is like 'a' in Apple
L is like 'l' when we say it like a single letter in the alphabet

From "Legalny" we can tell:

E is like 'e' in Elephant

From "Uniwersalne" we can tell:

U is like 'u' in Uber
I is like the first 'e' in Event
W is what we use to get 'v' but always soft like in Voodoo

Listen to all three words again a few times to pick out those sounds because once you have them you're well on your way to good Polish pronunciation!

You'll soon be familiar with 'W' sounding like 'V' because its used a lot when people talk about websites - 'www'

English	Polish
www	www

Now the way people will tell you the name of a website is often to simply pause where we would say 'dot'. So, for example, in English we say "www dot bing dot com". In Polish:

English	Polish
www dot bing dot com	www bing com

Emphasis

The other aspect you might have noticed while you were listening is where the emphasis goes in the word - we emphasize the penultimate syllable. In all three we're stressing, you might say pressing down on, the last 'a'

Normalny
Legalny
Uniwersalny

And that is where the emphasis should always be placed - on the penultimate syllable - in all words with more than one syllable.

It is

So now we're ready to start making sentences.

English	Polish
It is	To jest

Here we can see 'j' is pronounced like 'y' in 'yes' and that is how it is always pronounced across the entire Polish language.

So can you think out how to say:

English	Polish
It's Normal	To jest normalny Click to Reveal
It's Legal	To jest legalny Click to Reveal

You'll hear these two phrases a lot if you listen to two Polish people gossiping because the question form - "Is it normal?" - is written in exactly the same way - "To jest normalny?". You simply change the way you emphasize the end of the sentence so it sounds like a question as in "It's normal?".

So there you are listening in to a couple of Poles gossiping and one will be telling the other of an outragous experience they had. Then they'll ask, "To jest normalny?". The answer can be exactly the same words, just pronounced like a statement - "To jest normalny!" ("It's normal!")

Alternatively the question could be "To jest legalny?". The other person might sigh and say regretfully, "To jest legalny" ("It's legal").

Now one of the tricks to getting up and running in a language is to think about what you want to say and compare it to what you know. For example you might want to say "It's the same everywhere" .... but you don't know how to say that. But you do know how to say "It's universal".

English	Polish
It's universal	To jest uniwersalny Click to Reveal

Someone, for example, might be telling you about why they think their government is crazy and you could say "To jest uniwersalny" as a way to express "Everywhere is the same".

You can also use this as a question to ask, for example, if a product (like a cable) fits all computers. Luckily the word for "cable". I'll give you two clues and then you should be able to work out the Polish without having to learn it!

It is spoken the same way in Polish except 'a' is said as in 'apple' and 'e' as in 'elephant'
In Polish, if it sounds like a 'k' it is a 'k'

English	Polish
Cable	Kabel Click to Reveal

Now the 'el' at the end of the Polish might have caught you out but it's another great reminder that Polish is written as it is spoken. In fact if you think about it the English spelling at the end of 'cable' just doesn't make sense!

So let's think out how to ask "Is it a universal cable?" from what we know so far:

We'll say it the same way as "It is a uiversal cable" but make it sound like a question
We know how to pronounce all the different letters

English	Polish
It is a universal cable?	To jest uniwersalny kabel? Click to Reveal

Perhaps it isn't. Perhaps it is something specific like a "Bluetooth Adapter". Well more good news. You already know how to say this!

"Bluetooth" is written and said exactly the same in Polish and in English as its a modern technical word that has just been imported directly into the language just like a brand name such as Coca Cola.
"Adapter" is written the same in English and Polish but to speak it we need to remember 'a' as in 'apple' and 'e' as in 'elephant'

English	Polish
It is a bluetooth adapter	To jest bluetooth adapter Click to Reveal

There you go. We're half way through lesson one and you are an IT hardware expert!

A note on word order and word use

Some Polish people may look at some of the above phrases and say things like "Well really we say 'It is an adapter bluetooth' or "we don't always say the 'to' in 'to jest'".

This is true but in order to get you communicating the easiest way to learn a new langauge is to transfer over what you know including your own word ordering. Once you are talking to people in Polish you'll naturally hear and start using certain refinements like word order.

For example, if someone asked you "Is this an adapter Bluetooth?" you would understand them without issue. The purpose of these early lessons is to get you understood to the point where you will be able to 'feel out' the refinements later.

No, it's not

But when someone is asking you if something crazy is normal or not they'll be expecting you to say "No, its not normal" so let's learn the Polish for "No" and "Not" ... which are luckily the same word:

English	Polish
No / Not	Nie
No, it's not normal	Nie, to nie jest normalny

You'll see here the word order is different than in English - "It not is normal". Actually word ordering in Polish is very flexible so you can say "Nie, normalny to nie jest" and be perfectly understood. No different from English where you can say "No, normal, it is not".

However I'm going to use the most common ways in these lessons as word order does create slightly different types of emphasis which you'll pick up when you start listening and talking to Polish people more.

So, with what we have learnt so far, can you work out how to say:

English	Polish
No, it's not legal	Nie, to nie jest legalny Click to Reveal
No, it's not universal	Nie, to nie jest uniwersalny Click to Reveal
No, it's not a universal cable	Nie, to nie jest uniwersalny kabel Click to Reveal
No, it's not a bluetooth adapter	Nie, to nie jest bluetooth adapter Click to Reveal

No, it's not virtual

OK, rather than learning parrot fashion let's try thinking out a sentence - "No it's not virtual".

First we need to think about how to transfer "Virtual" from English into Polish

This is a word that ends 'al' so we know it's going to sound the same except we need to stick 'ny' on the end.
But to get the beginning of the word to start with a 'v sound when Polish doesn't have a 'v' we need to think back to "Uniwersalne" to see that we get the 'v' sound by using 'w'.

Well we live in a virtual world with virtual products, realities and all sorts. So how about saying "No, it's not a virtual product"? Don't know the Polish for "Product"? Well you do - it's very close to English.

English	Polish
Product	Produkt

So now we can say "No, it's not a virtual product".

English	Polish
No, it's not a virtual produkt	Nie, to nie jest wirtualny produkt Click to Reveal

This is another great, and commonly used, word because you can really hear the pronounciation of 'o' and 'u' here. And, and once again .... if it sounds like a 'k' it is a 'k'.

Now you know how you try to contact a company on the internet using their 'Chat box' feature. Very often you start by talking to a robot. This is referred to sometimes and a "virtual assitant". "Assistant is said the same way in Polish as in English so we just need to work out how to spell it.

Polish doesn't use double letters so we can get rid of the double 's' -> "Asistant"
In English we pronounce the 'i' as an 'uh' sound. We've seen this sound at the end of "Normalny", "Legalny" and "Wirualny" so we can update our word to -> "Asystant"
In English we pronounce the 'tant' as 'tent' so that's how it is written in Polish -> "Asystent"

So how would "No, it's not a virtual assistant" be in Polish?

English	Polish
No, it's not a virtual assitant	Nie, to nie jest wirtualny asystent Click to Reveal

Yes

Of course you might want to confirm something by saying "Yes, it is normal" and to do that you'll need the Polish word for Yes.

English	Polish
Yes	Tak

And with that you now know how to say:

English	Polish
Yes, it's normal	Tak, to jest normalny Click to Reveal
Yes it's legal	Tak, to jest legalny Click to Reveal
Yes it's universal	Tak, to jest uniwersalny Click to Reveal
Yes it's virtual	Tak, to jest wirtualny Click to Reveal

So let's try some longer phrases

English	Polish
Yes, it's a universal cable	Tak, to jest uniwersalny kabel Click to Reveal
Yes it's a bluetooth adapter	Tak, to jest bluetooth adapter Click to Reveal
Yes it's a virtual productl	Tak, to jest wirtualny produkt Click to Reveal
Yes it's a virtual assistant	Tak, to jest wirtualny assistant Click to Reveal

Now, because you know "tak" and "jest" you also know how to say two very common phrases. The first is "Yes it is!

English	Polish
Yes it is!	Tak, jest

Note that slight pause between "Tak" and "jest". If you don't pause it takes on a completely different, and often used phrase which can be used in two ways:

English	Polish
That's how it is / That's it!	Tak jest

"Tak jest" does literally means "Yes [it] is" but when said without the pause it can mean:

"That's how it is" when said in a defeatist way
or "That's it!" (e.g. "That's what I was looking for!", "That's the answer!") when said in a positive way.

So a very subtle difference in how you say the two words you now know in Polish to give you three Polish phrases!

Summary

Polish letters are always pronounced the same way in al words - 'a' is always like 'a' in 'apple'
Polish speakers sometimes drop the 'to' or 'jest' in "To jest" - experience will tell you when to do this but you will always be understood when using "To jest".