WHY DO POLES USE ENGLISH WORDS IN CONVERSATION?

Hardy is actually polish word. It can mean 'haughty, arrogant, impudent'


The problem is I dont know if theres polish equivalent for 'hardcore'. Many people understand it though and it seems it got accepted into youth language.

Check out "jestem hardcorem / hardkorem" on youtube. It's a classic by now. The T-shirts are a reflection of that ;-)

just saw "pułapki last minute" on onet.pl.
F;uuuuuuuuccccccccckkkkk!

There is no Polish equivalent to the "last minute" notion - maybe if you find a nice Polish phrase which would describe "bilety albo zakwaterowanie kupowane w ostatniej chwili i dlatego o wiele taniej niż normalnie", you might be able to eliminate this borrowing. Please feel free to try. ;-p

True enough. My wife is a manageress in the travel industry and she uses 'last minute' all the time. It's like 'all inclusive', only true buraks don't know what it means.

i often hear a lot of Polish words in a conversation with the words NON STOP thrown in the middle of it....

How about "bilety z oztatnej chwili"?

Hi there,

I think this is just because of English is became a world known language. Most of the people use English in this world.

"najbardziej cool"

1) Compare the length. Oferta last minute - oferta bilety z ostatniej chwili. Awkward, huh?
2) It's not only "bilety" AFAIK. You can also get accommodation and other stuff last minute, right? How do you call that then?


Absolutely legitimate Polish :-)


Personally, I prefer the ironically polonised "kulaśny" - that's cool for ya! ;-)

Magdalena wrote:


there's ridiculous, and then there's ridiculous.......

If only people in the Polish tourist industry were not so lazy, they could easily start to use the following terms in Poland:
last minute = "oferty z ostatniej chwili" or "ostatnia minuta"
all inclusive = "wszystko w cenie"

The Polish people in the manufacturing industry were once very eager to replace many of the German terms for technical tools, thus we have today, for example:

hebel = strug
messel = pilnik
---------------------------------
Not only the Polish use English words in conversation. Here is an example of the French using English:
"Ce week-end, j'organise une pasta-party. Si tu es O.K., man, envoie moi un mail. PS Tu peux te garer sur le parkingdevant mon loft, à côté de mon cross-over! Bye." [source: klub-beskid.com/forum]

Do you see how they are one-for-one equivalents? I don't see that happening with oferta ostatnia minuta or wszystko w cenie - they are longer and don't exactly trip off the tongue. To be fair - I don't overly love the all inclusive last minute type jargon either, but as long as its use is limited to the tourism industry, I don't really care that much either.

"Ostatnia minuta" is precisely the equivalent of "last minute". But people are not used to the Polish term, so they may argue that it is not the same as the English one. The English term "last minute" used in tourism is built on agreement as to what it may mean, and this will exactly be the case with its Polish counterpart "ostatnia minuta" as well. Likewise, the British term "prime minister" is only roughly the same as its Polish equivalent "premier", as the prerogatives of both are sometimes strikingly different, but you will always say in Polish "brytyjski premier" rather than "brytyjski prime minister". If the term "ostatnia minuta" have been used in Poland for the last 5-10 years, no one would ever think today that it is not a one-for-one equivalent.

The term "wszystko w cenie" perfectly renders what the English term "all inclusive" wants to say to the customer of the tourist industry. The meaning of the English word "all" here is vague, just as the meaning of the Polish word "wszystko" is vague, and it is only the subject of "agreement" as to what the customer should expect from a tourist company after having read an offer labelled as such.

what's wrong with "pelne wyzywienie"?

last minute - 3 syllables
ostatnia minuta - 6 syllables

all inclusive - 4 syllables
wszystko w cenie - arguably also 4 syllables, but much more awkward to say, esp. in a long sentence and when you're in a hurry ;-)

pełne wyżywienie - 6 syllables

Please realise that I'm not advocating taking whole phrases from one language into another because they're somehow inherently "better". What I'm saying is, if in a specific professional jargon a foreign phrase is shorter and easier to use (and also internationally understood - which is important here!), why not use it?

Magdalena, i did not write:

"Ostatnia minuta" is precisely the equivalent of "last minute"

someone else did.

Sorry about that, it's either me hitting the wrong "quote" button or the quote function going haywire ;-) Probably the former, though...

My wife just said to our little one - 'zjeść chickena'. I asked her where she got it from and she says it's instinctive! The little one answered ..umhhh?? with a very confused look on his face...bless him.

Frankly, if there was an offer about tickets "na ostatnią minutę", I'd probably think that I am supposed to pay more for them, because I'm so late :-)

Also, someone mentioned "non stop". It may be a borrowing, but it is the time honored borrowing. It was widely used as long ago as in the late seventies. Maybe even earlier, I woudn't know, but I am using this word all the way from my childhood...

"Władca nad mocą jest cool"

bleh.

This kinda related BUT why do they call it Tour de Pologne when it takes place in Poland?

szlafrok
szlauch
kortofel

kartofel?

of course:) thanks :)

Only cause they are on the stove beside the gołombek ;-)

lucky guy:)

I see very many Polish garages at the road side with the words CAR WASH on a sign........

I can,t seem to find it in the Polish section of my Slownik...??

just this week in Gazeta Wyborcza, there was a big headline which read:

"Nocny Happening Pod krzyzem"

"happening" has been a fullf-ledged Polish word for a long time now and is regularly declined. True, AFAIK no one has seriously used the word in English with that meaning for several decades, but that doesn't change its status in Polish.

I assume the thread is supposed to be more about nonse borrowings and/or people who use English words instead of common Polish words.