Wesołych Świąt 

Extra Credit: Bożego Narodzenia 

English Phonemes: “veh-SŌ-wih shfee[ą]t boh-[Ż]EH-goh nah-roh-DZEH-nyah” 

This week, we learn the generic and popular phrase to say "Happy Holidays", which is a catch all for the season and applies everywhere. We also debut the first ever Extra Credit section where you learn how to add the correct modification to make your Seasonal Greeting about Christmas specifically. 

We see a few Polish letters come back to play! 'ł', 'ś', 'ą', and 'ż' ! If you need help practicing those, drop us a line!

Next week, we'll cover how to say "and a Happy New Year!" 

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Ale mnie ktoś wspominał! 

English Phonemes: “AH-leh mnjeh ktohsh fspoh-MEE-nahw”

This is a nostalgic phrase, yes, but it's also the perfect thing to say as a funny "excuse me" after you burp! Like in English we have the colloquialism "my ears are burning", so here, the meaning is jokingly conveying that because someone out there was thinking of you at that exact moment, it pressured a burp out of you.

*If you're in truly FORMAL polite company, do NOT use this! Read the room, folks! Much like you wouldn't dare follow a loud burp with a joke in front of your boss, same applies in Polish.

Ale = "And How!" or "Oh How!" - Interjection word like "Well" or "Wow" or "Oh boy". Punches up whatever comes next.

Mnie = "Me" - Like in English, we don't use 'I' everywhere, so too in Polish, we change the 'I' word depending on where it appears in the sentence. So 'about me', 'to me', 'of me', etc.

Ktoś = "Somebody" or "Someone"

Wspominał = "[he/she/it] Remembered Fondly" or "[he/she/it] Reminisced" - past tense!

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Uwaga! Or Uważaj! 

English Phonemes: “ooh-VAH-gah! ooh-VAH-[ż]ahy!”

In this lesson, we learn "Uwaga", the general word for "Caution!" or "Attention!" or "Alert!". Often spoken, and often seen on road signs and the like. 

We also see the related imperative instruction version of 'uwaga' that one would hear spoken by one person to another. "Uważaj" specifically means "hey you [singular], be careful", or "hey you [singular], watch out", or "hey you [singular], look out", or any other synonym for making someone nearby pay attention quickly.

We also learn to pronounce the [ż] letter of the Polish alphabet! Learn to love that duck face! So far, we've seen it with the [cz] letter combo, here with [ż]today, and we will see it again, friends! 

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Smacznego! Nawzajem! Dziękuję!

English Phonemes: “sma[cz]-NEH-goh! nah-WZAH-yehm! j[ę]-KOO-yeh!”

Perfect for the upcoming Thanksgiving Day weekend! Here's a culturally specific phrase that all Polish speakers will know. In Poland, it is very common (and good manners) to say "Smacznego!" (literally 'Tastiness!') just before you start eating a meal. The response is "Nawzajem!" which means, 'likewise!' or 'you, too!' or 'right back atcha!'

At the end of the meal, it is also polite to thank your family and friends for the meal and for their company. We do this by saying "thank you" before getting up to do anything else. (See episode 5 for the lesson in how to say 'Dziękuję!')

*Small correction from the audio in the episode: "Nawzajem" is written as ONE word, not two. It's rooted in two words, but written as one.

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Dziękuję!

English Phonemes: “j[ę]-KOO-yeh”

In this episode, Julia teaches us how to say "thank you", (literally, specifically "*I* thank you"), how to pronounce the vowel ę in Polish, and the importance of knowing that "ę" at the end of a verb usually denotes a first person conjugation while "e" at the end of a verb usually denotes a third person (singular) conjugation. That's a lot to learn from just one word!

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O cholera! O choroba!

English Phonemes: “oh hoh-LEH-rah! oh ho-ROH-bah!”

At the top of the show, Julia answers a listener question from last week's lesson. This week's lesson is a duo of common phrases you'll hear used as polite curses, like we say "oh sugar!" or "oh, bother!" in English. Poles very commonly express frustration with polite expletives like this when they're restraining themselves from full-fledged fowl language. If one of your Polish-speaking friends stubs their toe and utters a loud "O cholera!", now you'll know why!

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A special bonus note not mentioned in the audio lesson: You'll notice that "Cholera" is capitalized as a pronoun in English, but written lowercase in Polish. In Polish, only people's names and places are capitalized. Impersonal or inanimate proper pronouns like diseases, days of the week, names of the month, etc., are written in lowercase. Fun fact!

Cześć! 

English Phonemes: “[CZ]ehshch”

Tricky word this week because there is a non-English phoneme on top of there being only one syllable in a word with both the ‘sh’ and ‘ch’ sounds. 

[Note that the brackets [] mean that this phoneme doesn't have an English equivalent.]

This word means hi and bye in the same way 'Aloha' in Hawaii means the same. In this lesson, Julia digs deep into the pronunciation of this word so you get a feel for the difference between the 'cz' phoneme and the Polish letter 'ć' which is pronounced 'ch' like in 'chair' or 'chess'. The letter 'ś', by the way, is pronounced 'sh' like in 'shutters' or 'shimmer'. 

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Miłej zabawy!

English Phonemes: “MEE-way zah-BAH-vih”

This friendly phrase literally translates to "pleasant game" but is used exactly the same way we use "have fun" in English when we send friends or family members off to have a fun time at whatever outing their heading out to enjoy.

As you're embarking on this Polish speaking journey, we hope you have fun, too!

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"Idź Krowie Na Ogon!"

English Phonetics: "Eej kroh-vyeh Nah Oh-gohn"

Literally in English, "Go onto a cow's tail!" One of my favorite phrases. The meaning is the same as when we say in English 'get out of here with that' or 'go fly a kite'. It's a typical phrase you'll hear in Polish if someone is having their leg pulled and calls the other out on it, or when someone wants to playfully shoo someone else away.

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Welcome to "How You Say?"

In this short introductory episode, Julia introduces herself and summarizes the premise of the show. It'll be a weekly show (for now), 5 minutes per episode, in which you'll learn how to say something funny and entertaining in Polish.

Do you have friends who speak Polish? Maybe family? Maybe you've got Polish roots but lost the language somewhere along the way? Well, here's a fun way to connect to the culture without drowning in courseware and having to commit to classes.

Have fun!