American Polish lessons

It’s amazing that an American girl gives Polish language lessons. She’s good. Her lessons are well structured and her explanations are clear. And she seems to be saying everything from the top of her head! Impressive! She says that she’s extremely busy but hopefully she will put more recordings on YouTube in the near future. Maybe the quality of the video is quite rough but I actually find it rather cuteJ

Emily's pronunciation is near perfect. It is very difficult to pronounce Polish sounds such as ‘ś’ and ‘ć’. Therefore I always show my students where they have to put their tongues to say it correctly. It really helps but it still takes time to get used to the ‘weird’ tongue positions. You have no choice but to listen and practise endlessly. And don’t worry if you feel it is still not right. I’ve been an English language user for over three years now and I'm reconciled to the idea that it will take years and years, if not forever, to sound like a native speaker.

My lovely drawings present tongue positions while pronouncing ‘sz’, ‘ś’, ‘cz’ and ‘ć’. Remember that your tongue must be close to the middle of the palate when you pronounce letters with the [‘ ] sign above. They are supposed to be soft and it will soften them! Try!

Hope that was of some use.

Silniejszy i mocniejszy

Gradation of adjectives:

silny – silniejszy – najsilniejszy

strong – stronger – the strongest

mocny – mocniejszy – najmocniejszy

powerful – more powerful – the most powerful

Remember!

stronger than =

silniejszy od (+ genetive)

silniejszy niż (+ nominative)

Jestem silniejszy od mojego brata.

Jestem silniejszy niż mój brat.

Vocabulary:

siła – strength

silniej – stronger (adverb)

moc – power

mocniej – more powerful (adverb)

przesąd – superstition

stereotyp – stereotype

wątroba – liver
mocne i słabe strony - strengths and weaknesses

jak na Polaka/mężczyznę/ojca przystało – as befits a Pole/a man/ a father

Jeden ze stereotypów o Polakach mówi, że dużo piją. Zapewne dlatego, że mają mocną wątrobę...
Znasz inne stereotypy?

Zeszyt i globus

This is going to be a challenge! That notebook speaks so fast, it's hard to separate the words. But glob is nice and easy. Really cute ad! Enjoy!

Idioms:
coś jest w kratkę - it means that something is variable and unstable; we often say "pogoda w kratkę" or "chodzić do szkoły w kratkę" meaning: 'the weather is variable' and 'skipping school'. "W kratkę" also means 'checkered'. In Poland we like checkered notebooks, they are extremely popular.

obracać się w wielkim świecie - literally 'rotate in the big world'. I'm sure you have the equivalent in English. It's being used to describe someone who is cosmopolitan and knows important people from the 'big world'. (Karol suggested 'high flyer' - thank you!)

innego wyjścia nie ma - there's no other option, wyjście - exit.

O masz! A tam! - these are exclamations used to express hopelessness in any given situation.

... ... ...

Panie globus, co mam robić? Bo ja, proszę pana, ja …………. być taki ……… pan, obracać się w ……………… świecie. Co ……….. robić?

No, na to jest …………… …………… rada, chłopcze. Musisz się ………… uczyć.

O masz, ……………… wyjścia nie ma?

Nie ma. A jak ci ………….. nauka?

A tam, w ………………..

Produkty z Biedronki polecają się …… ………………..

The streets of your city

zdawać sobie sprawę - to realize
sprawa - matter, affair, point,
kryć/ukrywać/chować - to hide
historia is both a story and history

Demotywatory.pl

Demotywatory.pl is a website presenting various demotivational pictures. I thought it might be a fun way to learn Polish so I am going to post demotivators here from time to time.




kliknij na zdjęcie, aby je powiększyć / click to see a bigger image


Useful expression: wyglądać jak / wyglądać tak jak - to look like
Twoja córka wygląda tak jak ty.
Wyglądasz jak twój dziadek.

!

Kocham moje życie!!!!!!!

Słownik - a dictionary

What makes a good Polish dictionary?
Well, it seems that the most important thing for you should be verb endings. To be able to conjugate our verbs you need to know the endings of the 1st and 2nd persons singular. And this is what a good dictionary will offer you. (I wrote about verb endings here)
You will be able to guess the pattern of conjugation of a particular verb and in time you will get the same feeling like a native speaker. But even if your Polish is quite advanced, there are still some irregular verbs that can surprise you as they often surprise Poles themselves!

Most of my students use a Collins Polish dictionary. I posess one too and can certainly recommend it. It gives you the endings. It has a lot more in it. You can read a description here: Literia.pl.
The cheapest way to get a dictionary would probably be Amazon.