Difference between kąpać się and brać prysznic in Polish language

Hi everybody.

I am studying polish by myself and I have doubts with these two expressions: kąpać się and brać prysznic.

1) I take a shower <Ja kąpię się> <Ja biorę prysznic>

What is the difference? Both mean the same?

Best Regards,

Philosophia

kąpać się - take a bath

brać prysznic - take a shower

However often in Poland people are saying that they gonna take a bath, but in reality they just take the shower :)

Yeah, kąpać się is broader in meaning and might be better translated as 'wash oneself'.

Are you familiar with the earlier form, common before WW2: brać tusz (from French douche)? Just curious, since you seem to be linguisitically stimulated.

I am not familiar with that although Polish is my mother tongue. Tusz is what you have in a pen (especially in a ball pen, for a fountain pen it's called atrament), or in a printer (if it is an inkjet printer - drukarka atramentowa). Ink. It sounds as if you wanted to wash yourself in ink :-)

Kąpać się is general, you can do it in a bath, under a shower, in a lake, see, swimming pool - whereever.
Brać prysznic means to have a shower.

By the way, do you know how we usually call a shower head in Polish? :-)

how (Polish is my native language, but I'm curious)?

You never heard "słuchawka"?

But słuchawka is only ther hand-held shower device typical in Poland. The fixed above-mounted one in a stalll wouldl surely not be called a słuchawka unless it was holdable.

I'm not even sure if I've ever seen that in Poland, the hand held type is all but universal.

I meant "słuchawka przysznicowa". The fixed one installed above your head is sometimes called "deszczownica", if you mean a very big square one. Otherwise, I think it would be called just "głowica", so a direct translation of "head" as a technical word, a part of a device.

By the way, I don't like the situation when the shower has only a fixed head, it's difficult then to wash (and, exactly, to rinse) the lower parts of the body.

To get all the soap washed off from those cracks and crevices it's best to stand on your head!

Dziękuję! Now I understand the difference.

Ja biorę prysznic ale Ja mogę kąpać się w wanna.

Using the new vocabulary I learnt here, the correct expression would be "Ja biorę prysznic z (jedna) słuchawka prysznicowa"?

Best regards.

no, but you can "kąpać się w wannIE" :)

Oh, declension.

Thank you!

Ja kąpać się w wannie :)

Dziękuję! :)

you have lost "mogę" somewhere :P

Did you want to translate:
"I am having a shower using a (single) shower head"
? :-)

It sounds stupid :-) Who normal says that he is having a shower using a shower head? :-)

Anyway, correctly in Polish, it would be:
"Biorę prysznic (jedną) słuchawką prysznicową"

We have the Instrumental case, we don't use the word "with" for that.

Ahh yes, I forgot "mogę" :)

Yes, I thought it sounds stupid but new vocabulary is all time interesting for me :)

Thanks for all your help :)

Now I understand the difference between "kąpać się" and "brać prysznic", and I learnt new vocabulary.

Dziękuję bardzo!

Ależ nie ma za co! :)
Miłego uczenia się!

Your welcome!

I first encoutnered "wziąć tusz" years ago in "Kariera Nikodema Dyzmy" -- the first Polish novel I ever read in Polish.

It's a book from the 1930's, so I think, this expression is just no longer used.