Learn 10 words for the restaurant
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| Hello everybody, welcome back to Polish top words. My name is Marzena and today, we will learn Top 10 Must-Know Vocabulary for the Restaurant. |
| So our first word is... |
| 1. Kelner “waiter” |
| And it’s a masculine noun. |
| So for example, if a waiter is very rude, you can say, |
| Ten kelner jest bardzo niegrzeczny. “This waiter is very rude.” |
| And our next word is… |
| 2. Kelnerka “waitress” |
| So kelner is the masculine form while kelnerka is the feminine. |
| For example, you can say, |
| Ile zarabia kelnerka? “How much money does a waitress make?” |
| So in general, the service in Poland is not that bad. But sometimes you may be unhappy with something and if that’s the case, it’s okay not to tip because the waiter or the waitress, they usually earn enough to cover their salary but a rule in Poland would be to tip more or less 15%, 20% but it’s obviously up to you. So if you are more than happy with the service, you can go for 20%. If you are not so happy, you can go for 10% or just leave. Nobody will be angry at you. |
| Our next word is almost the same as the English one and it’s... |
| 3. Menu “menu” |
| And we’ve so many different restaurants. Maybe there’s some food you don’t eat, something you don’t like and there’s like vegetarian menu and there is a vegan menu and there is of course all the other types like vegetarian menu. |
| So for example, when you walk in the restaurant and you are not so much into fish or meat, you can just ask, |
| Czy mają państwo menu wegetariańskie? “Do you have a vegetarian menu?” |
| And surprisingly even though Polish cuisine is so heavy on meat, we do have plenty and I mean plenty vegetarian restaurants spread all over the Poland but especially in Warsaw. Warsaw is being known as European capital of vegetarian food and vegan food. |
| And of course, one of the very important words when you’re in the restaurant is, |
| 4. Zamówienie “order” |
| So zamówienie comes from a verb zamawiać which means, “to order.” So in English, it’s the same, basically almost the same word. It is just noun and a verb, “order” and “to order.” |
| In Polish, it’s zamówienie as the noun and zamawiać as the verb. |
| So the waiter can come to your table and ask, |
| Czy mogę przyjąć zamówienie? “May I take your order?” |
| Another very important word not only for restaurant but in general is, |
| 5. Woda “water” |
| Woda means just “water” and I know that in some countries, you can get water for free in a restaurant but in Poland, you pay for it always. Be careful when you order it, just check on the menu what the price is because it can be actually pretty high, almost the same as juice or even beer sometimes. And we do have both sparkling and non-sparkling water and it’s very popular, both are. |
| So for example, if you are the kind of person who doesn’t like sparkling water, you would like to ask for non-sparkling one, you would say, |
| Poproszę wodę niegazowaną. “I would like to have non-sparkling water.” |
| And of course, when you finish the meal, the most important thing is, |
| 6. Deser. Deser, you probably feel like you’ve heard it somewhere because it sounds so much like the English word. |
| Deser is “dessert” |
| So when the waiter or the waitress will be taking your order, they will probably ask at the end, |
| Czy życzy pani sobie coś na deser? “Would you like something for the dessert?” |
| So, you got a lot of different desserts in Poland and one of the most famous one would be szarlotka which is an Apple pie served with ice cream and with whipped cream. Another very good one but available I think only for Christmas is the poppy seed cake which is the best for me like my favorite dessert ever. And of course, there is a lot of other pies. There is wonderful cheese cake, very different from what you would see in all the other countries. So please be sure to try it out. |
| 7. Szef kuchni “Chef” |
| So if you go with your friends, it is very nice restaurant and you know that the chef here is very, very famous. You can say in Polish, |
| Szef kuchni w tej restauracji jest bardzo znany. “The chef in this restaurant is very famous.” |
| 8. Fast food “fast food” which is just fast food. |
| I guess the accent is more like Polish and then another thing is that, you know that in Polish, we change nouns, we change the endings. So even though it’s an English word, we would still change it. So it’s like fast food, fast foodów, fast food. So even though it’s an English word, we still change it like fast food sometimes with just become fast-foodów and we do have Polish type of fast food as well which is pretty old. This Polish type... it’s actually Polish hotdog and we still call this hotdog but there is no sausage or anything or any meat inside. It’s just mushrooms and it comes from the time, long, long time ago when we literally didn’t have meat. It was very difficult to get meat. Even though people had money for that, they just couldn’t buy it. So that’s the invention of that time and I still remember it, oh my gosh when I was little, I just love to go with my mom and buy those hotdogs and we called them hotdogs but they were like hotdogs with mushrooms and that’s it. Just mushrooms, like just the bun with mushrooms. You cannot see them so often anymore. You can still probably when you just look around but it’s not that common anymore. |
| If you are like me, and you don’t really like fast foods, you will say, |
| Nie lubię fast foodów. “I don’t like fast food.” |
| 9. Restauracja “restaurant” |
| And you can already hear, it sounds very much like the English word “restaurant” because it’s “restaurant” restauracja. And I guess you know that a lot of restaurants are being judged by having Michelin star or not having it. I don’t think there is a lot of restaurants in Poland with Michelin star but the ones that do have it will be extremely and I mean like extremely expensive. Nevertheless, if you find one, you can always say, |
| Ta restauracja ma gwiazdkę Michelin. “This restaurant has a Michelin star.” |
| 10. Rachunek “bill” |
| Rachunek comes from a very old Polish word which we probably don’t use anymore. A verb rachować means just to count and right now, we would just say liczyć but this word, its form, it’s still there in the word Rachunek. And it’s also very important to just look at your bill before you go back home because sometimes people may make mistakes on purpose or not on purpose but it just happens. And if something is wrong, you can always say, |
| Przepraszam, ale ten rachunek się nie zgadza. “I am sorry but this bill is not correct.” |
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