Lesson 29: Meeting People

We've come a long way and we're able to speak quite elegantly but one thing we aren't able to do is introduce ourselves or talk about ourselves. So let's do that!

"Dzien dobry albo dobry wieczór. No to dobrze, witam na lekcję!"

Introductions

So we have our:

• "Dzień Dobry" - "Good morning/afternoon"
• "Dobry wieczór" - "Good evening"
• "Cześć" - "Hi"
• "Halo" - "Hello"
• "Co słychać" - "What is happening? (What can be heard)"

And we know that if someone asks us "Co słychać?" we can just use the martyr reply of "Oh! Praca, praca, praca" or use "Dobrze".

But we need a little bit more for when we first meet people.

English	Polish
Nice to meet you	Miło mi

Literally this actually means "Nice to me", the "to meet you" bit is implied because that is the situation that is happening - a bit like the English "It's a pleasure".

From this we have our first glimpse of the adjective "Nice" but it's ending in an 'o' and the three endings we've come across so far adjectives are 'y', 'a', 'e' or 'i', 'ia', 'ie'.

Well you'll come across the 'o' ending when it really isn't possible to assign a gender. For example:

English	Polish
Buy cheap, buy twice (two times)	kup tanio, kup dwa razy

Nice phrase this one that says there is no point buying cheap as the item will break or wear out quickly and then you'll have to buy a second one which means you probably won't save any money and you may as well shell out for the premium version now.

But we don't know who is doing the buying or what they are buying so the adjective ends in 'o'. So how do you think you would say:

English	Polish
It's nice to have time	Miło jest mieć czas Click to Reveal

You might not have got the word ordering quite right but even if you said "Jest miło mieć czas" you would be understood.

What about "It's nice to have a vacation". Well we haven't come across "vacation" yet but it's a 'tion' word so we know how to change it into Polish - remembering there is no 'v' in Polish and if it sounds like a 'k' it is a 'k':

English	Polish
It's nice to have a vacation	Miło jest mieć wakacje Click to Reveal

"Wakacje" is an exception in that the 'e' does not have a tail but in spoken Polish you hardly notice. Now you can probably think out these as well:

English	Polish
It's nice to go to town (walking)	Miło jest iść do miasta Click to Reveal
It's nice to be here	Miło tu być Click to Reveal
It's nice to have you here	Miło cię tu mieć Click to Reveal

OK - you probably didn't get the word ordering quite right on the second one but even if you didn't you would be clearly understood.

So, in "miło", because there is no 'i' near the end we know that the dictionary form would be "Miły".

"Miły" is more limited to experiences or people than things. We don't say "It's a nice car" using "Miły".

I call myself

Now if you dabble in enlightenment or meditation you'll know all about 'labels'. So many of the things we think are important are just labels, they are not the thing.

In English I would say "I am Tim" but I'm not really. My name has nothing to do with who I am, it is just a label. If I change my name it does not change who I am or my history. And yet so many people become upset if another person mispronounces their name ... or perhaps even forgets their name.

This idea of understanding your name is just a label can be seen throughout most European languages. From Spain to Poland people say "I call myself ... ". It is a subtle recognition that your name can be a temporary label. Something that can easily be changed and has nothing much to do with who you are. It's a side of European languages that I really like.

English	Polish
I call myself Tim (My name is Tim)	Nazywam się Tim

Now of course we all have two or more names so:

English	Polish
I have for a first name Tim (My first name is Tim)	Mam na imię Tim
My surname is Hill	Moje nazwisko to Hill

"I have for a first name" sounds temporary, something I have now but could put down at any time. "My surname is" sounds more definitive ... even though it too is a label. That subtle switch reflects the higher importance of the surname.

Now you'll find "Imię" and "Nazwisko" everywhere - on internet registration forms, on government applications, etc. But sometimes they switch the ordering around - they'll ask for your surname first. So how to remember which is which?"

Well "Name" is shorter than "Surname" and "Imię" is shorter than "Nazwisko"

But let's go back to "Nazywam" for a moment because it gives us a very nice phrase:

English	Polish
I call things by their names (I say things as they are)	Nazywam rzeczy po imieniu

If you want to tell someone you are a straight talker this is the phrase you need. And in there at the end you can just about make out "Imię" but now with a different ending. The reason for that ending we will come to later!

Now can you think out how to say "I'm buying good things"?

English	Polish
I'm buying good things	Kupuję dobre rzeczy Click to Reveal

"Things" - such a useful word when your vocabulary is limited!

What's your name?

For this question we are again considering the name a simple label so the actual way to ask is "How you have for a name?".

English	Polish
How you have for a name (what is your name)?	Jak masz na imię Click to Reveal

Where are you from?

Well in polite conversation people always seem to want to know where other people are from - who knows why. Gives them something to talk about I suppose. But with your accent people are going to know you are not Polish born and bred and they are going to ask!

English	Polish
From where are you	Skąd jesteś?

Now the word "skąd" is brilliant because, if you think about it, you can use it in so many ways. Can you think out these before revealing them?

English	Polish
From where do you buy (it)	Skąd kupujesz? Click to Reveal
From where do you know (it)	Skąd wiesz? Click to Reveal
From where do you have (it)	Skąd masz? Click to Reveal

In every day life this is how people speak but you can specify the "it" by saying, "Skąd to kupujesz?", "Skąd to wiesz", etc.

But anyway ... someone has asked you "Skąd jesteś" so I suppose we had better answer that.

Now Sting once said he was an "Englishman in New York" and there we see a trace in English of defining our origin and our gender in one word. We also have it in "Irishman", "Frenchman", "Scotsman", etc. but often it is two words - "American man", "Mexican man", etc. In Polish it is always one word and it is affected by your gender. Let's start with how males would say what they are:

English	Polish
I'm English-male	Jestem Anglikiem
I'm American-male	Jestem Amerykaninem
I'm Irish-male)	Jestem Irlandczykiem

Now ... hmmm ... all these are ending in 'em' - that very distinctive ending from the Instrumental case. And there is a reason for that - we are in the Instrumental case - but how?

Well this is one of those "The Instrumental case is about things you use to do/achieve things, after 'z' and 'pod' ... oh and after Jestem, Jesteś, Jest when it involves defining a thing other than 'it'".

So let's expand out our list for "instrumental":

1. When the noun is instrumental to an action - like the car being needed to go to town
2. After 'z' and 'pod'.
3. after Jestem, Jesteś, Jest when it involves defining a thing other than 'it'.

This will be clearer with some examples:

English	Polish
Robert is English-male (Instrumental)	Robert jest Anglikiem
He is English-male (Instrumental)	On jest Anglikiem
It is English (Nominative)	To jest angielski

OK, so when we are defining something specific - "Robert" or "he", then its instrumental. When the thing we are defining is "it" then its nomnative - that standard base case for answering the question "Co to jest?".

And that sort of makes sense. "Robert is English" is not an answer to "What is it?" so by definition it can't be nominative.

Let's see this with feminine:

English	Polish
Magda is Irish-female (Instrumental)	Magda jest Irlandką
She is Irish-female (Instrumental)	Ona jest Irlandką
It is Irish (Nominative)	To jest irlandzki

... and with something ... in this case a "male cat":

English	Polish
The cat is American-male (Instrumental)	Kot jest Amerykaninem
It is American (Nominative)	To jest amerykański

So

• When we define the thing ("He / Robert", "She / Magda", "The cat") we use Instrumental - the 'em' and 'ą' endings
• When we use "it" to define the thing we use nominative.

So have a go at thinking out these negative forms:

English	Polish
He is not American-male (Instrumental)	On nie jest Amerykaninem Click to Reveal
She is not American-female (Instrumental)	Ona nie jest Amerykanką Click to Reveal
It is not American (Nominative)	To nie jest amerykański Click to Reveal

The bottom line is that learning all the different forms of nationalities is tricky so for the time being learn yours so you can answer "Skąd jesteś?" ... and move on! Most of the time if someone tells you what nationality they are you will understand it - "meksykaninem", "francuską", etc. - even if you don't know it. For now there is far more useful vocab to know.

Professions

My same advice holds for professions. Learn yours so you can reply when answered and we'll learn more later!

But I will just stop off to cover a specific example because when it comes to professions one of my favourite words is "Engineer".

English	Polish
Engineer	Inżynier
I am an engineer-male	Jestem inżynierem
I am an engineer-female	Jestem inżynierka

"Inżynier", for me, encapulates how bad English is as a language in giving different letters different sounds all the time while Polish carefully crafts words to be written as they sound. On paper the English and Polish words look almost completely different while when spoken they are nearly identical.

To learn

Now we've already covered "Mowię po polsku słabo" but we might want to say that we are making progress!.

English	Polish
I am learning Polish	Uczę się polskiego

And here, just like in "Nazywam się" we see this "się" again. "I am learning (myself) Polish".

"Się" actually means "myself", "yourself", "ourself", etc. Whenever there is a verb that involves doing something to ourselves - "calling ourselves something", "teaching ourselves something" we get this "się" after the verb.

But what about this distinctive 'ego' in "Polskiego" that we saw on adjectives like "dobrego" - the Genetive (something is missing) case? Well the sentence "I am learning Polish" is incomplete in theory. You are learning Polish .... what? Polish music? Polish dance? Polish culture? What we are actually saying is "I'm learning the Polish language" ... which makes "language" the noun (the thing) and "Polish" the adjective (the describing word) so it gets the 'ego' adjective ending.

Why are we in the Genetive (something is missing) case? Well something is missing if we are learning it! In our case the full Polish language.

Now, if you are speaking in English with a Polish person who has only basic English skills you might hear them say "I'm learning English language" and that's always a reminder of what the real sentence is and that "English" is the adjective. So if you want to say it in full:

English	Polish
I am learning the Polish language	Uczę się języka polskiego

OK now we have the noun ("language") in the Genetive (something is missing) case - "Języka" - and we know in this case it is Masculine or Neuter nouns that might have an 'a' ending. Well it's masculine and the good news is we get two words for one here.

English	Polish
Language / Tongue	Język

Just like in English we sometimes say "Mother tongue" but now if you go to the doctor and he asked to see your tongue ... you'll understand him or her!

OK. We know how to work out what "Polish" is in other cases from "polskiego" so we can say:

English	Polish
I have a Polish car	Mam polski samochód
I like Polish water	Lubię polską wodę
Do you like Polish beer?	Lubisz polskie piwo?
Why do you like Polish beer?	Dlaczego lubisz polskie piwo?

Good Bye

So we can introduce ourselves, say where we are from, what we do and that we are learning Polish! Time to leave!

English	Polish
Bye (with very close friends/family)	Pa
See you (with friends)	Cześć
See you again	Do zobaczenia
Good bye	Do widzenia

So you can see it's a wide ranging scale which all depends on your emotional connection to the person you are talking to and how final you want to be about the departing moment!

Lesson 30: Messages, From, First, Second and To Call