Dialogue

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Vocabulary (Review)

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Lesson Notes

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Hello and welcome to Polish Survival Phrases brought to you by PolishPod101.com, this course is designed to equip you with the language skills and knowledge to enable you to get the most out of your visit to Poland. You will be surprised at how far a little Polish will go.
Now, before we jump in, remember to stop by PolishPod101.com and there, you will find the accompanying PDF and additional info in the post. If you stop by, be sure to leave us a comment.

Lesson focus
Whatever the reason for traveling to Poland, you won't leave the country without having met people.
Therefore, it's necessary to learn how to introduce yourself and how to respond to people introducing themselves.
So, let's jump right in.
In Polish, "My name is," and we will use my name this time, therefore, "My name is Beata" is Mam na imię Beata."
The first word mam means, "I have."
Then we have na imię, meaning "for a name." To recap here, we have Mam na imię, which we will translate as simply "my name is."
Then there is the name, in this case Beata.
All together, we have Mam na imię Beata, which means, "My name is Beata." When using this form of introduction, you can only say your first name.
There is another way of introducing yourself, more appropriate in formal situations, which allows you to say both your first and last names.
So for practice purposes, we will use Jan Nowak.
"My name is Jan Nowak" in Polish is Nazywam się Jan Nowak.
Let's look at the components of this phrase. Nazywam się literally means, "I am called."
This is followed by the name and the last name. In our example it's Jan Nowak.
After that, we will cover "Nice to meet you." Since in Polish we have both official and unofficial levels of speech, we will first cover the official way, followed by the unofficial.
In Polish, "It's nice to meet you, sir," is Miło mi pana poznać. First, we have miło, which means "nicely."
Next, we have mi ("me").
Then we have pana, meaning "sir." Finally, we have poznać, which stands for "to meet."
If you would like to say "It's nice to meet you, ma'am," it would be Miło mi panią poznać.
As you can see, we only replaced pana with panią.
The universal way of saying "It's nice to meet you," which can be used both in the official and unofficial contact, is Miło mi. As you have probably noticed, in this phrase we simply dropped pana and panią and the verb poznać. We just have here Miło mi. "It's nice to meet you."
Cultural Insights
Simple things, such as greeting someone in the morning with dzień dobry instead of "good morning," or introducing yourself in the native language, will go a long way in making friends with your hosts. In addition, inquiring about words and their meaning is an excellent way to carry on a conversation for hours between people who don't share a common language.
Official contact is usually between people who don't know each other, between people of different age, or between people of different social status.
The official form is simply used to show respect. In official contact, people do shake hands, but this custom is regulated by certain rules of savoir vivre. Men often may also kiss a woman's hand as a greeting.
On the other hand, unofficial contact occurs among people of the same age, the same social status, and of course, people who know each other. Also, members of the same family use unofficial forms of address. In unofficial contact, people can shake hands, kiss cheeks, and give hugs.

Outro
Okay, to close out this lesson, we'd like you to practice what you've just learned. I'll provide you with the English equivalent of the phrase and you're responsible for shouting it aloud.
You have a few seconds before I give you the answer, so powodzenia, which means “good luck” in Polish.
"My name is Beata." - Mam na imię Beata.
Mam na imię Beata.
Mam na imię Beata.
"My name is Jan Nowak." - Nazywam się Jan Nowak.
Nazywam się Jan Nowak.
Nazywam się Jan Nowak.
"It's nice to meet you, sir." - Miło mi pana poznać.
Miło mi pana poznać.
Miło mi pana poznać.
"It's nice to meet you, ma'am." - Miło mi panią poznać.
Miło mi panią poznać.
Miło mi panią poznać.
"It's nice to meet you. (formal/informal)" - Miło mi.
Miło mi.
Miło mi.
All right, that's going to do it for today. Remember to stop by PolishPod101.com and pick up the accompanying PDF. If you stop by, be sure to leave us a comment.

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