Learn 10 phrases for surviving back to school
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| Hello everybody. Welcome to Top Polish words. My name is Marzena and today, we’ll learn 10 Phrases for Surviving Back to School. |
| So let’s start. |
| 1. Plecak "backpack" |
| Plecak which basically means "backpack" |
| I guess it comes from Polish word plecy. Plecy which is a “back.” So plecak, it’s something you put on your back, backpack. |
| So we can say, |
| Zapakuj to do plecaka. "Pack this in the backpack." |
| 2. Kolega z klasy "classmate" |
| So introducing your classmate if he’s a guy, you can say, |
| To jest mój kolega z klasy. "This is my classmate." |
| If it’s a girl, |
| To jest mója kolezanka z klasy. "This is my classmate." Who is a girl. |
| We say you know, this kolega, kolezanka, we use it like a friend but not a very close friend. |
| 3. Praca domowa "homework" |
| Praca domowa which basically is “homework” |
| Praca means work and domowa is like home’s. |
| So praca domowa is basically home work. It’s not one word. It’s two separate words. You can ask your kid, |
| Odrobiłeś już prace domową? "Have you done your homework yet?" |
| 4. Egzamin "exam" |
| Egzamin which basically means “exam” |
| And it probably comes from English but the spelling is very different. So pay attention to spelling and when you have, like, very important exam next day, you can say, |
| Jutro mam ważny egzamin. "Tomorrow I have an important exam." |
| Jutro mam ważny egzamin. |
| Especially up to high school, we say, sprawdzian which comes from sprawdzac which means “to check” So sprawdzian means to checking the knowledge. And I guess once you are at the university, you will call it kolokwium which is the sprawdzian but at the university level. For whatever the reason, we’ve got another name for that. |
| 5. Letnie wakacje "summer break" |
| Co będziesz robił w wakacje letnie? "What will you be doing during the summer break?" |
| Co będziesz robił w wakacje letnie? You know summer break actually in Polish schools, it’s pretty long. So up to high school, we got like two months of summer break. Basically July and August and because the school ends at the end of June but there’s still usually one week left, so it’s like two months and one week, small week. |
| 6. Szkoła "school" |
| Szkoła means "school" Any type of school although for university level, we would say, uniwersytet or if you really want to use Szkoła, you can say Szkoła wyzsza which is like the higher type of school if you translate it literally. So if you want to ask somebody where he or she is going to school, you can ask, |
| Gdzie jest twoja szkoła? "Where is your school?" |
| 7. Uczyć się "to study" |
| Uczyć się means "to study" |
| So when you see somebody studying really hard, you can come closer and ask, |
| Czego się tak uczysz? "What are you studying so hard?" |
| Czego się tak uczysz? |
| 8. To jest pierwszy dzień zajęć. "It's the first day of class." |
| So in Poland, up to the high school, the first day is actually the 1st of September and I guess there is always something big going on in each school. So they are not really like classes per se. We’ve got this big ceremony and singing like the school’s item or celebrating. And then the school starts from the next day actually. But we call it the first day of school. And for university level, the first day of school, it depends on the department and on the university but it’s somewhere around October. |
| 9. Jesteśmy w tej samej klasie! "We're in the same class!" |
| Classes in Poland are actually set for the elementary school. They are usually A and B or A, B, C or A, B, C, D and it depends on how big the school is and usually 30 students per class, sometimes 20, 25 in the elementary school and the classes don’t change every year. So you stay with the same people throughout six years of your education and then from junior high and high school, you actually choose a profile to your class. So you can do like more math or more biology or more English if you want and this is kind of very important for whatever you would be doing at the university. So you usually try to choose whatever you’ll need for the university exams because this will be the subject that you will have more classes of like for example, I got the Math &Information Science. So we got a lot of doubts and we didn’t even get a lot of like English classes or Polish classes or we got only you know, half of the history classes for whatever others had. |
| 10. Na jakie zajęcia chodzisz? "What classes are you taking?" |
| Na matematykę i fizykę. "Mathematics and physics." |
| And that’s all for today. So today, we studied 10 Phrases for Surviving Back to School and see you again. Thank you. |
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