20 east

Leaving home, Zosia forgot her gloves. Daddy goes back to get them and gives them to Zosia:

Zosia – “Only two?”

Daddy – “How many hands have you got?”

Laughter.

I don’t know about you but I’m getting pretty tired of people asking me directions and then ignoring what I say. Twice today I’ve had people on Ul. Złota asking me directions. First was a middle aged lady looking for the Holiday Inn, which was literally 50m away across the street. Because it didn’t have a flashing neon sign 100m high, she sort of wandered off in that general direction but was still looking around as if she didn’t believe me.

Just now was a young lad looking for ING Bank at number 44. He didn’t seem to know whether he was looking for a branch or an office but I pointed him in the direction of the nearest ING place which is also 50m away across the street. He just wandered off in the other direction.

Few weeks ago was a gaggle of 50’s ladies with travel luggage desperate to flash the plastic in the shopping centre. The ugliest and most aggressive of them came over and asked where the shopping centre was as if talking to a bell-boy. I told her it was the second entrance down the street. She ignored me and dragged her gaggle, luggage in tow, through the small revolving door to the office floors where they all gathered to be told what I had already told them. They promptly squeezed themselves out again and waddled off down the street. It’s at times like that I wish my ability to shout witty quips in Polish język was better than it is.

I know my accent and words might give me away as being foreign but I do understand the questions and I do give the right answers, so why just ignore me? From now on they’re all going to get a sour-faced “nie wiem”, just like they’d get from 90% of other people on the street.

There are so many funny moments these days with Zosia’s language that I forget to note them down but I’ve just this minute finished the bedtime routine and I managed to retain this for the 30 seconds required to get here and type.

We are currently working our way through the Disney Picture Dictionary. I know, not as much fun as Horrid Henry stories but she really enjoys these dictionaries and it is good to be teaching something at the same time as entertaining. The book is full of colourful characters like these guys from Monsters Inc.

We were on the letter ‘C’ and looking at a picture of Sulley (above) holding a large camera to take a photo, the word to guess was of course – “camera”. I asked her what she thought this word was and she answered “aparat”, which a commonly used Polish word for camera – aparat fotograficzny to be precise. She knows perfectly well what the word is in English because she sees me using one all the time and she’s asking for one for Christmas.

I ask her what the word is in English.

She answers – “motor bike”.

We both laugh a lot.

As a part of the attempt to improve my Polish, my new teacher and I are reading through articles taken from the media, stuff like Gazeta Wyborcza, and seeing what parts of the article I don’t understand. It is then my job to try and get these things into my thick skull. We have read through three articles so far, each of between 150-200 words and the good news is that I generally understood what was going on. The number of things I had trouble with was surprisingly small but then it only takes one unknown word or phrase for me to lose all meaning and there are some surprisingly important words that I don’t know!

These are the things that caused problems:

rządowy (as in rządowy plan) – government
władze (as in przez władze regulujące) – government, governmental?
powodem (as in tego powodem są) – reason
straty – loss
udziały – shares (stocks)
ponieść – (as in ponieść straty) – carry, or perhaps bear?
na tym może się nie skończyć- HELP! I didn’t make a note of what this means. My guess is something like “and this might not be the end..” or “it might not finish there…”……….?
jednak – however, still, nevertheless
wśród – amongst
ponieważ – therefore
ogłosić – declare
okazał się – turned out to be, proved to be?
co do (as in co do wielkości) – of this (of this size)

odcinają się – cut themselves off, possibly distanced themselves?
dalej pójdzie (as in Jak tak dalej pójdzie) – if everything keeps going in the same direction?
tłumaczyć (as in zaczną się tłumaczyć) – tricky one this – start to explain, start to understand, begin to realise……..?
ustały oklaski (as in kiedy ustały oklaski) – when the applause stops or stopped
okazało się – they saw, or realised?
wyciskacz łez – brings tears, makes you cry….?
znanym szlakiem – known route, well worn path
zawodowych – professional
lecz (as in lecz film opiera się na…) – but
otoczeni - under attack

przjmie, zostanie przyjęty, zostanie przyjęta – things to do with being received or accepted
by (or aby) – in order to, to, so that
uważam – in my opinion
ktore – which
obecnie – currently, now
zaczna się zastanawiać – will start considering
wówczas – then
wpływ – influence

I also have to work out the differences between these: głos, ogłosić, ogłoszenia, głosowanie, głosować, przegłosować

It is strange the way different words react with my brain cells. For example I hear what sounds like lecz all the time but not in the meaning of ‘but’. What I hear very often are a lot of words coming from lecieć meaning run, go or flow - leć, leci. So, I read lecz, it sounds the same and I jump to the wrong conclusion! Similarly with uważam, I’m thinking it has something to do with a warning, or ‘be careful’ or whatever (from uważać) when it actually means ‘in my opinion’!

Some words just feel like what they mean. For example wśród feels exactly like amongst. On the other hand, jednak, is far away from feeling like it means ‘however’. To me it should mean something more closely related to jeden like “one example of” or “one of them”……..?!

Then there are words like ktore, which I hear all the time and are really pretty simple but for some reason just won’t lodge themselves in the grey matter. Others like tłumaczenie where the only meaning I have in my head is to do with translation but can also mean explanation, excuse or justification.

One of two things is going to happen; either I’ll work all this out, or my head will explode. Not sure which is going to happen first!

The Polish language is delightful although at times I do wonder which particular hallucinogenic root was being chewed on when certain ‘rules’ were decided.

I’m recently intrigued by two matters;

1. Why are there different endings for one, two/three or four and then five or more? I can relate to their being something different for singular versus plural, but what’s so special about two/three and four that they require an ending all of their own?
2. Why is there, in some cases, a different ending when you don’t have something versus when you do have something? Why does the negativity have to be emphasized in these cases? Of course, we all know the Poles love being negative, phrases like “nic nie mam” (nothing, I don’t have) are common and I’ve got used to them by now but when it comes to the difference between I have a car or I don’t have a car, why have a different ending.

I should add that after the amount of time I’ve been here some of the strange things, like some of the double negatives, do not ‘jar’ with me any more. I’m just accepting that that’s the way it is. The examples above though, do still bug me. I wonder what it is that makes my brain dislike some rules but accept others, even when they are equally strange?

I should also add that most of my interest, certainly in the case of 2-4, is in the matter of what was it about 2-4 that made someone think they needed to be treated differently from 5 or more? Was there some historical reason like, I don’t know, if you killed between 2-4 people in battle you got more land from the King than if you killed one but less than if you killed five or more? What other possible reason could there be for it, aside from mind altering drugs?

ENGLISH

One beer
Three beers
Five beers
One hundred beers

One car
Three cars
Five cars
One hundred cars

POLISH

Jedno piwo
Trzy piwa
Pięć piw
Sto piw

Jeden samochód
Trzy samochody
Pięć samochodów
Sto samochodów

You’ll notice that for good measure they also change the word for “one”!!!

ENGLISH

I have a car
I don’t have a car

POLISH

Mam samochód
Nie mam samochodu

One last linguistic issue that is driving me nuts is the difference between “ciapka” (spot / dot) and “czapka” (cap / hat).This is all about the difference between pronunciation of “ci” and “cz”. Of course, I didn’t know I had a problem for a very long time, until my family decided to let me in on the secret that for years now I’ve been telling my daughter to “put on your spot/dot”, or ask her “where is your spot/dot”. Must have been very amusing – HA bloody HA. I genuinely cannot hear any difference between the two AT ALL unless the speaker emphasises the difference to a stupid extent. I am also completely unable to pronounce the two words any differently. Yet. Give me another 10 years and I’ll have it down!

I had similar trouble for a very long time, and still do if I’m not concentrating, with “miś” and “mysz”. They at least look very different but I can assure all you non-Poles that you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between them if you heard them. They both closely resemble “meesh” but the first one really is close to “meesh” while the second is more of a “mysh”. Impossible to explain because of the funky way they say the “y”.