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Thursday 11 November 2010

It wasn't what I meant



If you tried to make a conversation in Polish and after a few sentences you  (or rather the person you were talking to) got stuck, run out of topics or even switched to English the reasons are:


... ok, there might be hundreds of reasons, but I'm interested in only one of them...
No, let's say that you were polite and the person was trying their best, but you both just couldn't figure out what was wrong.
No, this wasn't in the church or in the lift and the person wasn't your dentist either.
No, your accent is ok and you have a broad vocabulary in Polish...


Ok, ok: the reason was - you weren't speaking Polish, I mean you were using Polish words and combining them into sentences, but they weren't Polish - they were literal translation from English.

I'm sure you heard of a Polish mistakes like:

Thank you from the mountain = thank you in advance (lit. z góry dziękuję);
Or It's not my fairy tale = It's not my cup of tea (lit. to nie moja bajka).
and many more which I'm sure can you can hear at our weekly classes :-))
You must have done the same mistake asking someone whether they had a good time you would say (no there is no other reason - I have just eliminated them):

"Miałeś/Miałaś dobry czas?" and what you should say is "Czy dobrze się bawiłeś/bawiłaś?"

How would you say: "No thanks I'm fine?" 

Would you choose: "Dziękuję, nie trzeba", czy "Dziękuję, wszystko w porządku?". 
Would both mean the same or would they mean something else, or maybe the context would bring the distinction. (Yes, the last answer is correct).

See you in class,
Ola

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