Learn top 10 phrases to survive at the station
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| Hello, everybody! This is Marzena and welcome to Polish Top Words. Today, we’ll learn 10 phrases to survive at the station. So, here we go! |
| 1. Jadę do… “I would like to go to ....” |
| Hooah, the first and the most important one is jadę do…; jadę do Krakowa, jadę do Torunia, jadę do Poznania, jadę do Wrocławia. So, jadę do... means “I would like to go…” Lucky for you, this phrase is very short, first of all, and it’s the same for male and female, so you don’t have to change. Well, if you want to use the plural form, it would be jedziemy do… So, the preposition stays the same, do, and, we just change the verb from jadę - jedziemy. |
| And you can say, for example - jedziemy do Gdańska, jedziemy do Krakowa, jedziemy do Torunia, jedziemy do Poznania. |
| So, you may have noticed already that the name of the city changes like, Toruń becomes Torunia, Gdańsk becomes Gdańska, Wrocław becomes Wrocławia, Kraków becomes Krakowa, Łódź becomes Łodzi, and this is because the case changes. So, we change the case to genitive case. That’s the second one, second case. So when you use preposition do as in jadę do…, you change it to the second case, so, the name of the city will change - Jadę do Warszawy. We don’t say jadę do Warszawa, that’s a mistake, Jadę do Warszawy. And actually, I said, it means “I would like to go to…”, but, like very literally, it means, “I’m going to... / I’m heading to...” |
| 2. Czy z tego peronu odjeżdża pociąg do...? “Is this the right platform for …?” |
| Wow, and our next one, is something you would definitely need, important because this changes a lot. It’s a very long one, so, be prepared. |
| Czy z tego peronu odjeżdża pociąg do...? “Is this the right platform for …?” |
| So, let’s just look at this phrase a little bit closer. So, first, we have the particle czy, that’s asking, z tego peronu “from this platform”, odjeżdża “leaves”, and then pociąg do “train to”, Czy z tego peronu odjeżdża pociąg do...? That’s the whole phrase and you can say - Czy z tego peronu odjeżdża pociąg do Warszawy? “Is this the right platform for Warsaw?” |
| Czy z tego peronu odjeżdża pociąg do Torunia? “Is this the right platform for Torun?” |
| And as you probably noticed, there is the same preposition do as in the previous one, jadę do. Hence, we change the name of the city, so again, Toruń becomes Torunia, Warszawa becomes Warzawy and Kraków becomes Krakowa and so on and so on. So, remember to change the name of the city, and it is very important for you to remember, to memorize this phrase, because in Poland sadly, especially as far as I remember, in Warsaw, in the central station, platforms change very often, like last minute, 5 minutes to train and they say, oh, the train, the platform was changed from number 5 to number 1 and you run, and it really happens very often, and it’s very hectic and it’s like... Yeah, so, not to panic, that’s the first rule and then run, that’s the second rule, and ask, that’s the third rule. Even if you go to the platform, the right platform, don’t just rest, reassured that it’s okay and then just waiting and just relaxed. I mean, it’s okay to relax, but always check if this is the right platform again and again, because it really changes a lot. |
| 3. O której jest ostatni pociąg? “What time is the last train?” |
| Our next phrase is - O której jest ostatni metro? which is actually a sentence and it means, “What time is the last metro?” O której jest ostatni metro? So if you’re in Warsaw, it’s very common to travel with a metro even though we have only actually two lines, but it’s going through the whole Warsaw. It is really, really, really convenient. And one thing to remember about Warsaw, while buses are basically 24/7, only that, at night, you have to pay like small additional charge for the ticket. And the other thing about buses is that, well, it’s very convenient because all the buses are going to the city center at night and all the buses are going out from the city center, so basically, if you’re really drunk and you were at the party and you want to get home, just take any busy and sooner or later, you will end up in the city center, and then you can take the correct bus or the right bus that’s going to your house. Nevertheless, it takes time and metro is more convenient. During the weekdays, it’s still running pretty late and then starting pretty fast, but during the weekends, it’s running 24/7, so it’s really, really convenient. Just find the bus stop and get to the bus and go to the city center, get to the correct bus, and that’s it and you can go back home any time you want without paying for a taxi. |
| 4. Gdzie mam się przesiąść w pociąg do...? “Where do I change for...? (train)” |
| Okay, the next very important phrase is - Gdzie mam się przesiąść w pociąg do...? “Where do I change for...?” Actually, “Where do I change for a train to...?”, would be maybe more correct translation. |
| For example, you can say - Gdzie mam się przesiąść w pocią do Wroclawia? “Where do I change for the train to Wroclaw?” |
| Gdzie mam się przesiąść w pocią do Krakowa? “Where do I change for the train to Cracow?” or for a train to Cracow. |
| And, as you may already remembered and if not, then please try to memorize that, after the preposition do, we use the second case, the genitive case, so we change the name of the city, again, Kraków - Krakowa, Warszawa - Warszawy, Wrocław - Wrocławia and so on and so on. Opole, my hometown, to Opola. |
| 5. Gdzie jest stacja kolejowa? “Where is the train station?” |
| Even if you know all the phrases, you will never, ever get to the right place if you don’t know this one - Gdzie jest stacja kolejowa? “Where is the train station?” So, you may already know that the gdzie means “where” and stacja kolejowa is just “train station”. Usually, the main train station would be somewhere around the city center, but for bigger cities, they will have few train stations like around the city, even though within the city, you don’t really travel by train, you travel by trams, we travel by buses. Well, in Warsaw, there is metro as well, but you don’t really travel by train within the city. But you will still never, even, like, maybe medium or big cities, you will have a few train stations located along the city, with the main train station usually in the city center or, I think, 99.9% of examples, it will be so. |
| 6. Gdzie mogę nabyć bilet? “Where can I buy a ticket?” |
| Our next phrase or actually a sentence is - Gdzie mogę nabyć bilet? “Where can I buy a ticket?” And, well, you probably remember, gdzie is “where” and bilet is a “ticket” and the word nabyć is actually maybe a little bit difficult, nabyć. Nabyć means just “to buy” and of course, you can use - Gdzie mogę kupić bilet? You probably know already kupić. Kupić means “to buy”, but nabyć is a more fancy way of saying, “to buy something”, and we use it very often as well. So, gdzie mogę kupić bilet is perfectly fine. Gdzie mogę nabyć bilet is level up if you want to learn another word for kupić, nabyć. |
| 7. Ile kosztuje bilet do...? “How much is it to.....?” |
| Okay, and the next very important one is… Ile kosztuje bilet do...? “How much is it to get to.....?” Ile kosztuje bilet do...? “How much is it to.....?” Or actually, literally, “How much is a ticket to…” and, as I already said, within the city, I don’t think there will be a big difference. I mean like, the ticket will be within the city, so that’s okay. So there will be one ticket, but if you are going, for example from Warsaw to Cracow or from Cracow to Wrocław or anywhere else within Poland, then of course, this is very useful phrase to learn and the same preposition, do. So, remember, we use second case, genitive case for a city, so we can say, for example - Ile kosztuje bilet do Krakowa? So Krakow changes to Krakowa. |
| Ile kosztuje bilet do Krakowa? “How much is the ticket to Cracow? |
| Ile kosztuje bilet do Warszawy? “How much is the ticket to Warsaw? |
| Ile kosztuje bilet do Gdańska? “How much is the ticket to Gdansk? |
| And so on and so on and so on. |
| 8. Gdzie jest przystanek autobusowy? “Where is the bus stop?” |
| Yeah, and to take the bus, you really need to know how to ask where the bus stop is and in Polish, we say - Gdzie jest przystanek autobusowy? “Where is the bus stop?” |
| So przystanek is a “stop” and autobusowy means “bus” so bus stop. And for big cities like Warsaw, there is a lot of plenty of bus stops everywhere around. So basically, you just walk around and you will find one, sooner or later. |
| In smaller cities like my hometown, Opole, there is not so many. I basically always opt for walking around than taking a bus. So yes, it’s very important to know how to ask where one is - Gdzie jest przystanek autobusowy? |
| 9. O której będzie następny autobus? “What time is the next bus?” |
| Now, once you get to this przystanek autobusowy or the “bus stop”, you may want to ask - O której będzie następny autobus? “What time is the next bus?” And yeah, I mean, like you can always check it, right? But sometimes, the timetables are very confusing and then you have weekdays and weekends and bus numbers and so on, and some buses will not go this way or this way and maybe, like sometimes, you know you’ve got different times for the same bus and depending on which color it is, this bus will go this route or this route and then you may end up missing your own bus stop, which by the way, another thing to remember, in some cities like Warsaw, some bus stops are on demand, so if you don’t press the button, it will not stop. And, the thing is that, if you look at all the bus stops in line, the one on demand , they are being marked. I don’t remember exactly how, but as far as I remember, there is like, for normal one, is like a circle filled black and then, for the one on demand, there is like circle just white inside. But when you look at it, it’s kind of obvious that there is something wrong with those bus stops, so yeah, so remember to press the button. |
| 10. Gdzie są biletomaty? “Where are the ticket machines?” |
| And our last one for today is - Gdzie są biletomaty? “Where are the ticket machines?” Actually, the word biletomaty or biletomat sounds very weird even for myself. Since it’s a new word, it’s basically a word that was created, I don’t know, maybe 5 years ago, when we got those ticket machines and saying something like, maszyna na bilety, maszyna do biletów, maszyna, gdzie się kupuje bilety where “machine” maszyna, yeah. Maszyna means “machine”, so yes, so saying a long phrase like that was just really not the thing you want to do and somebody, someone, I don’t know, made this phrase, this word, biletomat, and right now, we have biletomaty, I mean, of course, next to the metro, on some bus stops, on many, many, many tram stops, inside of a tram, inside of a bus as well. So not all, but many, so I wouldn’t say it’s always there, but in many, many, many occasions, yes. I mean in Warsaw at least. So, what it is therefore is that, if you buy like 40-minute ticket and you are stuck in traffic jam, you cannot even go out of the bus and say like, save yourself paying a fine once your ticket is not valid anymore. But you cannot buy a ticket as well unless you got this machine over there, sitting there and waiting for you to buy a new one, which is very often the case. So, it’s actually pretty convenient right? |
| Thank you for listening. Today, we learned top 10 phrases to survive at the station. Thank you again and see you next time! |
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