What you know so far [Toggle]
There are 6 ways to ask questions - how, who, when, what, why and where. We know 'Where', 'When' and 'Why' ... time to learn about 'What'
But to begin - "Witam! Dzien dobre albo dobry wieczór. Mam lekcję. Ty też bo mamy lekcję razem."
Before we go into "what" do you remember the verb "to buy" from Lesson 14?
 English |  Polish |
|---|---|
| To buy |
As a common verb it follows the pattern of being a little unusual:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| She is buying a house |
But from there you can still work out the 'we' and 'you (informal)' forms in the usual way:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| We are buying red wine | |
| You are buying good tea |
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| I'm buying a new computer |
So how would you say:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| I'm buying a new computer because my computer is old | |
| Are you buying a new computer? | |
| Why are you buying a new computer? | |
| Why aren't you buying a new computer? |
Yes, you might have been caught out by that last one - "komputera" ending in 'a' when most masculine nouns end in 'u' in the "something is missing" case. Don't worry about it too much, you will still be understood and the more you talk and listen in Polish the more you'll pick up the exceptions.
But that all brings us nicely to "Dlaczego"
Now I did say that "Dlaczego" was made up of two words - "Dla" ("For") and "czego" ("what") ... which is true, or at least partly true.
If I ask you "For what are you doing something?" you must be doing something to get something ... which means you are missing something - yes we are in the "Something is missing" case. In the "something is missing" case "What" is "Czego". But in the other two cases "What" is "co"!
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| What |
Now you know how to say "Is it?" (which is the same as "It is") and you know how to say "Have you?" (which is the same as "you have") ... and so on ... so can you think out ...
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| What is it? | |
| What do you have? | |
| What do you know? | |
| What are you buying? | |
| I don't know what you want |
Yep, real short and easy! But if we are asking "What don't you have" - in other words we are moving into the "Something is missing" case ... then we use the "czego" part of "Dlaczego". So how would you say
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| What don't you have? |
Spot on! So let's try a few examples to make sure we're getting the right "What"
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| What do you like? | |
| What don't you know? | |
| What is he saying? | |
| What are you thinking? | |
| What aren't you buying?? | |
| What doesn't she have? | |
| What don't you say? (What are you not saying?) | |
| What don't you understand? |
So far we have 3 cases:
But proper Polish grammar revolves more on seeing all three cases as ways to answer questions:
So to help embed those concepts (and some verbs) into your mind from now on I'll refer to the cases in Polish - so, for example, I'll say now we are in the "Co masz/lubisz/mówisz?" case ... "Rozumiesz? No to dobrze ;)"
"Co" is key to the beginning of many conversations which often start like this:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| Hi! What can be heard? |
Unlike in English where we might say "Hi, how are you?" and protocol suggests the other person should answer "fine", Poles only ask that sort of thing if they are genuinely interested in knowing your overall physical and mental state. And as that could be a very long answer they don't often ask it!
"Co słychać" is akin to "What's happening?" or "What's going down?". Google translate had it (when I wrote this) as "What's up?" but that could also mean "What's wrong?" ... and no one starts an everyday conversation like that!
It would be wrong even to translate it as "What's happening?" because if you turned up at an incident and asked "Co słychac?" you might get some puzzled faces ... so best to remember the literal translation.
But even for some "Co słychać" is still a little risky because there are plenty of bad things that can be heard which would make for a depressing discussion so they say:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| Hi! What good (things) can be heard? |
Ah - what do we have here? "Co" with a verb means we should be in the "Co masz/lubisz/mówisz (after a verb)" case but "dobrego" is from the "Czego nie masz/lubisz/mówisz (something is missing)" case. Yes, we have hit our first exception. Verbs to do with listening and hearing are in the "Czego nie masz/lubisz/mówisz" case.
I remember this by thinking if you are listening it must mean you want to hear something and if you want to hear something it is because you want that information ... you are missing it ... "Nie masz".
Now if you are listening to someone talking on a mobile phone it isn't going to be long before you hear this:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| Can I be heard? |
Of course the real meaning translation is "Can you hear me?" but I always prefer to see the more literal version, otherwise you start thinking "Słychać" is "Can you hear" ... and it isn't!
So if you are able to eves drop on a Polish person when they are on a call listen out for "Słychać mnie?". It happens in almost every call!
That phrase we use in English almost without noticing, "You know what?" - "You know what? I like you", "You know what? I'm going". Now, excuse the pun but you know "you know" ... and you know "what" so how do you say:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| You know what? I like you | |
| You know what? I'm buying it | |
| You know what? I'm going | |
| You know what? I don't know | |
| You know what? I like it | |
| You know what? I understand why |
And if you know that you also know how to say:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| You know why? Because it's red wine | |
| You know why? Because it's Saturday | |
| You know why? Because I know why |
"No to dobrze. Dalej!"
Lesson 21: To do, To make, How and Like