Learn how to describe things with Polish adjectives
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Betsey:Hello everyone and welcome to PolishPod101.com. This is Beginner series, season 1, lesson 5, Describing Things in Polish. I’m Betsey. |
| Joanna:And I’m Joanna. |
| Betsey:In this lesson you’ll learn how to describe things in Polish. |
| Joanna:This conversation takes place at a confectionery shop. |
| Betsey:The conversation is between the shop clerk and Kate, who is trying to choose a cake. |
| Joanna:They are strangers, so they’ll be speaking formal Polish. |
| Betsey:Let’s listen to the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| Kate:Przepraszam, jakie to jest ciasto? |
| Sprzedawczyni:To jest piernik, tradycyjne polskie ciasto. |
| Kate:A jaki jest ten tort? |
| Sprzedawczyni:To jest czekoladowy tort. Jest bardzo słodki. |
| Kate:A jaka jest ta rolada? |
| Sprzedawczyni:To jest waniliowa rolada. Jest bardzo smaczna. |
| Alisha: Let’s hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Kate:Przepraszam, jakie to jest ciasto? |
| Sprzedawczyni:To jest piernik, tradycyjne polskie ciasto. |
| Kate:A jaki jest ten tort? |
| Sprzedawczyni:To jest czekoladowy tort. Jest bardzo słodki. |
| Kate:A jaka jest ta rolada? |
| Sprzedawczyni:To jest waniliowa rolada. Jest bardzo smaczna. |
| Alisha: Now let’s hear it with the English translation. |
| Kate:Przepraszam, jakie to jest ciasto? |
| :Excuse me, what is this cake like? |
| Sprzedawczyni:To jest piernik, tradycyjne polskie ciasto. |
| :This is gingerbread, a very traditional Polish cake. |
| Kate:A jaki jest ten tort? |
| :And what is this birthday cake like? |
| Sprzedawczyni:To jest czekoladowy tort. Jest bardzo słodki. |
| :This is a chocolate birthday cake. It’s very sweet. |
| Kate:A jaka jest ta rolada? |
| :What is this roll cake like? |
| Sprzedawczyni:To jest waniliowa rolada. Jest bardzo smaczna. |
| :This is a vanilla roll cake. It’s very tasty. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Betsey:What shall we talk about this time? |
| Joanna:Sweets!! |
| Betsey:Do Poles like sweets THAT much?! |
| Joanna:Yes! We love sweets!! |
| Betsey:What kind of sweet is the most popular in Poland? |
| Joanna:Probably cakes. There’s a really enormous range of cakes, basically anything you can think of. And what’s more, all of them are sold per kilogram. |
| Betsey:Per kilogram?? |
| Joanna:Yes! The reason for that is probably the fact that Poles are never satisfied with a one tiny piece of cake. We eat a lot. |
| Betsey:Do you also bake cakes? |
| Joanna:Yes, we do. Of course these days many people just buy them, but many households still bake cakes, especially for holidays like Christmas or Easter. There’s also one very special holiday in February, which we call ‘Tłusty Czwartek’, “Fat Thursday” |
| Betsey:“Fat Thursday”?! I just can’t imagine what this holiday might be about! |
| Joanna:haha! It’s a donut day! On that day absolutely everyone has to eat at least one donut! |
| Betsey:Sounds funny! |
| Joanna:So yes, on that day, no-one cares about their diet or calories, they just eat donuts basically the whole day. |
| Betsey:Poland is truly an interesting country. Let’s learn some words which can be useful if you go to confectionery shop. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| :Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| :The first word we shall see is:jaki [natural native speed] |
| :"what...like," what (masculine) |
| :jaki [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| :jaki [natural native speed] |
| :Next:jaka [natural native speed] |
| :"what...like," what (feminine) |
| :jaka [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| :jaka [natural native speed] |
| :Next:jakie [natural native speed] |
| :"what...like," what (neuter) |
| :jakie [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| :jakie [natural native speed] |
| :Next:ciasto [natural native speed] |
| :cake |
| :ciasto [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| :ciasto [natural native speed] |
| :Next:tort [natural native speed] |
| :birthday cake |
| :tort [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| :tort [natural native speed] |
| :Next:rolada [natural native speed] |
| :roll cake |
| :rolada [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| :rolada [natural native speed] |
| :Next:słodki [natural native speed] |
| :sweet |
| :słodki [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| :słodki [natural native speed] |
| :Next:tradycyjny [natural native speed] |
| :traditional |
| :tradycyjny [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| :tradycyjny[natural native speed] |
| :Next:waniliowy[natural native speed] |
| :vanilla |
| :waniliowy [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| :waniliowy [natural native speed] |
| :And Last:być [natural native speed] |
| :to be |
| :być [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| :być [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Betsey:Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. Joanna, what’s the first word? |
| Joanna:‘ciastkarnia’ |
| Betsey:“confectionery shop” |
| Joanna:‘ciastkarnia’ is a place where in Poland you can buy all kinds of cakes, cookies, donuts, and quite often also bread. |
| Betsey:This noun derives from some other words, doesn’t it? |
| Joanna:Yes, from the noun ‘ciastko’ |
| Betsey:which means “a cookie” in English |
| Joanna:and the end -arnia is usually added to names of places. So altogether, we get a place where cookies are made and where we buy them - ‘ciastkarnia’ |
| Betsey:“confectionery shop”. Okay, so what’s the next word? |
| Joanna:‘tort’ |
| Betsey:“birthday cake” |
| Joanna:In Poland there’s a very wide variety of birthday cakes - different flavors, creams, fruits, and decorations. And here comes an interesting piece of information - ‘tort’ is not necessarily a cake that is bought to celebrate someone’s birthday. |
| Betsey:You buy it for different occasions too? |
| Joanna:Yes, ‘tort’ is a cake that has a certain look - 2 or 3 layers of sponge cake with cream and jam in between. Poles also buy them for anniversaries or name days as well.. |
| Betsey:We’ve learned a lot about Polish cakes, confectionery shops and unusual Polish holidays today! It’s high time to move on to the grammar point. |
Lesson focus |
| Betsey:In this lesson you’ll learn how to describe features of objects and people, and also how to ask about them. |
| Joanna:The first thing you need to pay a lot of attention to is the gender of nouns. |
| Betsey:We hope you’ve spent some time working on recognizing noun gender. |
| Joanna:Yes, because this skill is crucial for asking questions about features! |
| Betsey:So Joanna, if we want to ask what something is like, what do we have to say in Polish? |
| Joanna:Everything depends on the gender of the object we are asking about. |
| Betsey:We have three options then, right? |
| Joanna:Yes. We can start the question in three ways. Let’s start with masculine nouns. |
| Betsey:How would the question sound if we were asking about a masculine object or person? |
| Joanna:‘Jaki to jest …?’ |
| Betsey:“What is this [blank] like” Let’s break down this question. |
| Joanna:First comes the pronoun ‘jaki’, which we have to use for masculine nouns... |
| Betsey:...it stands for the English “what”. |
| Joanna:Then we have the demonstrative pronoun ‘to’... |
| Betsey:...which means “this”. |
| Joanna:Next comes ‘jest’... |
| Betsey:...the third person singular form of the verb “to be”. |
| Joanna:And lastly after ‘jest’ we have to put the name of the object or person we’re asking about, for example ‘jaki to jest tort?’ |
| Betsey:This is the question Kate asked the confectionery shop clerk. It means “What is this birthday cake like?” |
| Joanna:The noun ‘tort’ is a masculine noun, so we have to use the question word ‘jaki’ |
| Betsey:So what is the question word used for asking about feminine nouns? |
| Joanna:It’s ‘jaka’ |
| Betsey:In the dialogue Kate asked “What is this roll cake like?” |
| Joanna:‘Jaka to jest rolada?’ |
| Betsey:I see the way the question is built doesn’t change at all. |
| Joanna:That’s right. The only thing that changes is the question word, since it depends on the gender of the noun and the noun itself, which appears at the end of the question. |
| Betsey:Ok, got it. Now let’s learn how to ask about neuter nouns. |
| Joanna:The correct question word in this case is - ‘jakie’ |
| Betsey:So how do we say - “what is this cake like?” |
| Joanna:‘jakie to jest ciasto?’ |
| Betsey:So the noun for “cake” is a neuter noun. is that correct? |
| Joanna:Yes. ‘ciasto’ is a neuter noun, so it requires the ‘jakie’ question word. |
| Betsey:Let’s test our listeners a little bit. We will say the gender and you try to choose the correct question word, before Joanna says it. What you should use for masculine nouns? |
| Joanna:[pause]...... ‘jaki’ |
| Betsey:feminine nouns? |
| Joanna:[pause]….......’jaka’ |
| Betsey:and lastly - neuter nouns? |
| Joanna:[pause]…......’jakie’ |
| Betsey:We hope you got all the answers right. Be sure to check the lesson notes for more examples of this kind of question. |
| Joanna:Since we’ve learned how to ask questions, now it’s time to learn how to answer them. |
| Betsey:Here, again, being able to recognize genders of nouns will be very important. |
| Joanna:Yes, because the form of an adjective changes according to the gender of the noun it describes. There has to be gender agreement between those words. |
| Betsey:Can you give us some examples? |
| Joanna:Let’s use one from the dialog. ‘To jest czekoladowy tort’ |
| Betsey:“This is a chocolate birthday cake” |
| Joanna:The sentence starts with the demonstrative pronoun ‘to’ |
| Betsey:which means “this” |
| Joanna:Then it’s followed by the third-person singular form of the verb “to be” which is ‘jest’. And then come the adjective and noun that are being described. |
| Betsey:We have to make some changes at the end of adjectives to make them masculine, feminine or neuter, right? |
| Joanna:Yes. So usually masculine adjectives will end with the vowel -y, just like in the example from the dialog. If the adjective is feminine it will end with the vowel -a and if it’s neuter then the ending will be -e. |
| Betsey:For the full table with adjective endings and examples, please refer to the lesson notes. |
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| Betsey: Okay, that’s it for this lesson. Thank you for listening, everyone! |
| Joanna: Do widzenia. |
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