Learn how to describe yourself using Polish adjectives
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Betsey:Hello everyone and welcome to PolishPod101.com. This is Beginner series, season 1, lesson 6, Describing Your One and Only in Polish. I’m Betsey. |
| Joanna:And I’m Joanna. |
| Betsey:In this lesson you’ll learn how to describe yourself. |
| Joanna:This conversation takes place in an online chat room. |
| Betsey:The conversation is between Kate and Robert. |
| Joanna:They are around the same age, so they’ll be using informal Polish. |
| Betsey:Let’s listen to the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| Robert:Jak wyglądasz? |
| Kate:Jestem wysoka, szczupła i mam brązowe oczy. Jak ty wyglądasz? |
| Robert:Jestem wysoki, młody i mam blond włosy. Jaki masz charakter? |
| Kate:Jestem towarzyska, cierpliwa i pracowita. A ty? |
| Robert:Jestem towarzyski, pogodny i leniwy. |
| Alisha: Let’s hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Robert:Jak wyglądasz? |
| Kate:Jestem wysoka, szczupła i mam brązowe oczy. Jak ty wyglądasz? |
| Robert:Jestem wysoki, młody i mam blond włosy. Jaki masz charakter? |
| Kate:Jestem towarzyska, cierpliwa i pracowita. A ty? |
| Robert:Jestem towarzyski, pogodny i leniwy. |
| Alisha: Now let’s hear it with the English translation. |
| Robert:Jak wyglądasz? |
| :What do you look like? |
| Kate:Jestem wysoka, szczupła i mam brązowe oczy. Jak ty wyglądasz? |
| :I am tall, slim and I have brown eyes. What do you look like? |
| Robert:Jestem wysoki, młody i mam blond włosy. Jaki masz charakter? |
| :I am tall, young and I have blond hair. What is your personality like? |
| Kate:Jestem towarzyska, cierpliwa i pracowita. A ty? |
| :I’m outgoing, patient and hard-working. And you? |
| Robert:Jestem towarzyski, pogodny i leniwy. |
| :I’m outgoing, cheerful and lazy. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Betsey:Ok, Joanna, what cultural tips are you sharing with us in this lesson? |
| Joanna:The Internet in Poland! |
| Betsey:Great! Sounds interesting! So when did the Internet become available for Poles? |
| Joanna:The official date is 1991, but of course at that time only about 2,000 people had actual access. In 2000, a lot of people still didn’t have computers, let alone the Internet. |
| Betsey:Did you have Internet cafes in Poland? |
| Joanna:Oh yes, we did! In those days that business was flourishing, because not many people had the Internet at home, and one hour in one of these cafes was very cheap. |
| Betsey:How did the situation change during the years? |
| Joanna:Of course the internet grew more popular, and in 2011 there were around 16 million people online. |
| Betsey:That’s quite a lot! |
| Joanna:Yes, but compared to other European countries the situation is not so good. According to research done in 2009, only 13.5% of Poles had internet at home, which made us almost the worst country in the EU! Only Romania had a lower number of users, which was incredibly close to Poland - 13%. And prices for the service are considered to be the most expensive in Europe too. |
| Betsey:Of course in big cities there’s no problem with the service, right? |
| Joanna:Yes, maybe the only problem there is the price, but Poles still rely on the Internet in their daily lives, for work, and so on. Also it has become one of the most common ways to communicate, right next to mobile phones. |
| Betsey:Ok, let’s move on to the vocabulary section now. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| :Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| :The first word we shall see is:wyglądać [natural native speed] |
| :look like |
| :wyglądać [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| :wyglądać [natural native speed] |
| :Next:oko [natural native speed] |
| :eye |
| :oko [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| :oko [natural native speed] |
| :Next:charackter [natural native speed] |
| :character, personality |
| :charackter [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| :charackter [natural native speed] |
| :Next:wysoki [natural native speed] |
| :tall, high |
| :wysoki, [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| :wysoki, [natural native speed] |
| :Next:młody [natural native speed] |
| :young |
| :młody [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| :młody [natural native speed] |
| :Next:szczupły [natural native speed] |
| :slim |
| :szczupły [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| :szczupły [natural native speed] |
| :Next:leniwy [natural native speed] |
| :lazy |
| :leniwy [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| :leniwy [natural native speed] |
| :And last:towarzyski [natural native speed] |
| :outgoing |
| :towarzyski [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| :towarzyski [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 our first word? |
| Joanna:‘pogodny’ |
| Betsey:“cheerful” |
| Joanna:This is one of the words that has more than one meaning. |
| Betsey:So one of them is “cheerful”, and what’s the other one? |
| Joanna:It has nothing to do with describing people. We use it to describe weather. |
| Betsey:What kind of weather? |
| Joanna:If you go out and the day is very nice, it’s sunny, the temperature is just perfect, it feels so good to be outside - what would you say in such case? |
| Betsey:It’s a fine day. |
| Joanna:Exactly! This is the meaning of the Polish adjective ‘pogodny’, or we can say ‘pogodny dzień’.. |
| Betsey:...which translates exactly into “fine day” in English. |
| Joanna:So remember - ‘pogodny’ has two completely different meanings. One to describe a person who’s “cheerful” and the other one to say a “fine day” |
| Betsey:Okay, what’s the second word? |
| Joanna:‘blond’ |
| Betsey:wow! the same as in English - “blond” |
| Joanna:yes, but there are not many words like this in Polish. The adjective ‘blond’ is a special adjective. |
| Betsey:Why is that? |
| Joanna:In the last lesson, we said that there has to be gender agreement between the adjective and the noun it describes. |
| Betsey:That’s right and that means you have to make some changes to the endings of adjectives. |
| Joanna:But in case of the adjective ‘blond’ there are never any changes. |
| Betsey:So it always stays in the same form? So if we say, for example, “blond hair” that will be... |
| Joanna:‘blond włosy’ |
| Betsey:How about “blond color”? |
| Joanna:Also no changes - ‘blond kolor’ |
| Betsey:That’s great! At least one word we don’t have to memorize endings for! Let’s hope that in the grammar section we will hear such good news too. |
Lesson focus |
| Betsey:In this lesson, we’re going to learn about self-description in Polish. |
| Joanna:In the dialog we heard Robert ask the question |
| Betsey:“What do you look like?” |
| Joanna:In Polish ‘Jak wyglądasz?’ |
| Betsey:Let’s break down this question. |
| Joanna:‘jak’ is a pronoun which stands for the English.. |
| Betsey:...“how”. |
| Joanna:The other part of the question is ‘wyglądasz’, which is the second-person singular form of the verb ‘wyglądać’ |
| Betsey:and it means “you look like”. |
| Joanna:For the details about conjugation of the verb ‘wyglądać’ please refer to the lesson notes. |
| Betsey:So let’s hear the question once more. Listeners, please repeat after Joanna. |
| Joanna:‘Jak wyglądasz?’ …............ |
| Betsey:“What do you look like?” |
| Joanna:Now it’s time to learn how to answer this question. |
| Betsey:Let’s take Kate’s answer as an example. |
| Joanna:‘Jestem wysoka, szczupła i mam brązowe oczy’ |
| Betsey:“I am tall, slim and I have brown eyes” |
| Joanna:Kate chose two adjectives to describe herself, which were ‘wysoka’ and ‘szczupła’ |
| Betsey:“tall” and “slim”. |
| Joanna:Both of these have the feminine ending - the vowel -a |
| Betsey:Listeners, we hope you remember the adjective endings from the last lesson! |
| Joanna:So we start the sentence with conjugated verb “to be” - ‘jestem’... |
| Betsey:...and then give the adjectives which describe the feature. |
| Joanna:The other components of Kate’s answer are - ‘i’ |
| Betsey:which stands for the English “and”... |
| Joanna:...then ‘mam’, which is the first-person singular form of the verb ‘mieć’... |
| Betsey:...which means “to have”. |
| Joanna:And finally ‘brązowe oczy’... |
| Betsey:...which means “brown eyes” |
| Joanna:When it was Robert’s turn to talk about himself he said - ‘Jestem wysoki, młody i mam blond włosy’ |
| Betsey:"I am tall, young, and I have blond hair." |
| Joanna:As you can see, since Robert is male, the endings of adjectives he chose to describe himself have masculine endings - the vowels -i and -y |
| Betsey:In the lesson notes you will find lists of other adjectives which can be used to describe oneself with masculine, feminine and neuter forms, so be sure to check them out. |
| Joanna:Ok, there was one more question in the dialog. |
| Betsey:Yes, it was - “What is your personality like” |
| Joanna:‘Jaki masz charakter?’ |
| Betsey:The components of this question are... |
| Joanna:‘jaki’ , which means “what”, then ‘masz’, the verb “to have” conjugated for the second person singular and lastly ‘charakter’ |
| Betsey:the noun for “character” or “personality” is a masculine noun, that’s why we have to use the form... |
| Joanna:‘jaki’ |
| Betsey:If you don’t remember why, be sure to check lesson 5. |
| Joanna:Also if you want to learn some adjectives that will be useful when talking about your own personality, please check the lesson notes. |
| Marketing Piece 6 |
| Betsey:Listeners, have you ever dreamed of starring in one of our lessons? |
| Joanna:If your answer is yes, use the voice-recording-tool on the lessons page! |
| Betsey:Record your voice with a click of a button, |
| Joanna:...and then play it back just as easily. |
| Betsey:Then, compare it to the native speakers in the lesson... |
| Joanna:...and adjust your pronunciation! |
| Betsey:After a few tries, you'll be speaking better Polish than Joanna here! |
| Joanna:Hey! |
| Betsey:Go to PolishPod101.com, and rapidly improve your Polish pronunciation! |
| Betsey: Okay, that’s it for this lesson. Thanks for listening, everyone. |
| Joanna: Do widzenia. |
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