Praca vs robota

In my Polish learning book they always speak about "praca", but now I'm watching Londynczycy, they talk about "robota". Are these words interchangeable? Is "robota" maybe more informal like "czemu" instead of "dlaczego"?

yeah same thing, robota is just more colloquial

Robota may refer to a "task" as in "Mam robotę do zrobienia". But usually they are interchangeable. It's an informal word.

this sentence is a good example of masło maślane, frd lol

Yeah I know.. or "cofać się do tyłu" but if you google it, it's used much more often than similar monsters ; )

I thought robota was Silesian, LOL. It is used quite often here and some Silesians claim the word as theirs.

Hmm never heard of it as a Silesian word.. but who knows

Thanks Justysia and Frd!


Only I know the Russians use the word to denote "work". However since the word is use in a Polish serial, you could presume it's a general Polish word. ;-)

Perhaps it is :)

I would call 'praca' and 'robota' rough synonyms.

That is, they have the same basic meaning and are sometimes interchangeable but often they aren't.

IME 'robota' maybe implies more physical and/or unskilled labor while office or skilled labor would more be 'praca'.

Also, robota can refer to a particular task in a way that praca can't.

If you're asking if someone is employed, you always use 'praca'. On the other hand, robota can refer to a temporary or one time job.

In the context of Londonczycy, robota makes sense because most Polish people think of their jobs there as more temporary rather than permanent.

Sometimes you can say "Miałem ciężki dzień w robocie". Which means in your work place. In this example it indicates a normal full time job.

sometimes i used a word robota, sometimes praca... and i had an office job. I'd say these words are interchangeable, but generally speaking robota is informal and i wouldn't use this word in front of my boss :D

OK I think I get it. Thanks a lot for the extensive explanation! :)

Of course they overlap and a lot of times you can use both, but I note that:

ciężki dzień w pracy : 53,500 google hits

ciężki dzień w robocie : 1100 hits

or

znaleźć robotę : 1200

znaleźć pracę : 205,000

Also go to google images and look at what kind of pictures show up for

robotnik (almost all shovels and hardhats)

pracownik (more people at desks)

that russian word "robota" means "praca" :). it's more informal.

"Robota" seems to be an all-Slavic word. The noun "robot" which was first used in a Czech novel as formed on the original Czech word "robota" was later imported into English with the same meaning as in the novel, that is a "humanoid machine which does boring and dull work". "Robot" is one of the very few examples of words of Slavic origin in the English language.