Endearment, friendship, etc. in Polish

I do not know much Polish yet, but I've been learning some terms, and I'm wondering:

A. If a male uses the word "kochana" frequently to the same femail, is it considered a romantic term? For a (maybe hypothetical) example, if I'm saying it often to a lady, am I implying that I want a romantic relationship? Or just that she's a close friend? Or...?

B. What if someone calls a guy and girl together "kochani"? For another (maybe hypothetical) example, if I'm around a lady, and someone calls the two of us "kochani," is this person saying they think there's a romance going on? Or is the person just calling her and me each other's close friend? Or close friends of the person who is speaking? Or...?

C. And how is this different from the words "kochanie" and "ukochana"?

D. What about "skarbie"/"skarby"? Necessarily romantic or not? And what is the difference between these two?

A. It's not necessarily romantic but if the girl has a crush she might get her Hope's up

B. No romantic suggestions. You will often hear people address groups like that.

C: ukochana means beloved "ukochane auto-beloved car". " Moj kochany" means" My friend"

@Chrzescijanin, Lenka is right about A and B. As for A I think that it's more likely for women to call each other like this, men usually don't address women in this way in case of platonic relations unless they're family, I guess. Of course, in theory if a guy is a really exuberant type he may call his close female friends like this from time to time, but doing that often is more characteristic for gay men, I think. If a heterosexual guy would do that often he could be seen as pretentious or the woman could interpret it in such a way that he's interested in her romantically.

C. You say ukochana when you're talking about someone, and kochanie when you're addressing a beloved person.

D. "Skarbie" is singular and "skarby" is plural. Not necessarily romantic, but, again, it's rather unlikely for a man to call his female friend like this in my opinion. It's common in romantic relationships, also mothers may call their children like this, for example.

@Alien, "mój kochany" doesn't mean "my friend", but "my darling".

a patronizing insult.

@Novichok, in Polish it doesn't sound patronizing and it's definitely not an insult :))

It's been over 50 years but I can still hear it..."no kochaaana, co ty tam wiesz..." with that kochaaaaaana longer than it needs to be.

@Novichok, of course it can be used in a patronizing way, just like some other similar words, but the word itself isn't patronizing. It depends on the intentions of the person using it.

You are right. It's not. It's how it's used 99% of the time that eventually makes it patronizing. Just as "buddy" here. Or even worse, bud, pal,...


Again, no argument. Here, even fu*ck you, a-holes can be said in terms of endearment if spoken to a group of old friends and in the right voice.

In my opinion as an observer, kochana, darling, and similar are meant to neutralize the negativity of the rest of the sentence since they don't add anything of substance to it, at best, or be a putdown. Using the other person's first name will do fine.

@Paulina
You can call "moj kochany" a stranger. Darling is not a stranger. "Moj kochany" means "my darling" for your boyfriend or husband but "my friend" for a stranger.

It should be avoided in all situations unless you are in that special joking mood, only within the family and when addressing a female if the speaker is a man. When I start a sentence with "my darling..." or equivalent, my wife says, "what do you want now?"

@Novichok
Thank you for your explanation.

You can never stop thinking about our exchanges. :):)


So, do you mean I can use "darling" freely and you won`t feel insulted?

What if--and again, this mite be hipothetical, and it mite or mite not be about me--words like kochana and occasionally skarby have often been used with words like:

-piękna
-cuwdowna
or
-buziaki?

And emoticons like:
-heart
-smile face with heart eyes
-two hearts with one floating near the other
or
-winking kissing smile face?
Not all of those emoticions at once, but 1 or 2 at a time, sometimes a few times in a row within the same messege, same post or same comment?

Or what about posting her picture and including several hearts for a caption--or captioning it with a sentence that includes "kochana" or "piękna"?
Do you think this femail (and maybe other people) would get the impression that the male--maybe hypothetical--was trying to be romantic?

Yes, it will be obvious to everywone that you have a crush on her.

How about "Jaka sliczna!" as a term of romantic admiration?

That's what you say about somebody's 3-year-old daughter.
What is she supposed to say after "Jaka sliczna!"? Thank you? and give him a chance to say, "you are welcome"? This dialog would be wooden enough to make a dining set out of it.

How about simple body language? Women are smart enough to detect how the guy looks at her or holds her hand when crossing the street. But leave it to the linguistic experts and it's a cringe-worthy mess.

IME I've hardly ever heard men use any form of 'sliczna' (except quoting a female).

I'm not saying it doesn't happen but.... it seems more like a female word (like 'lovely' in the US).

Some things I've overheard guys use as flirting include 'malpiszon' (monkey) 'mała' (little thing/baby) or my favorite 'cwana bestia' (cunning beast)

Englíshmen though I've heard use "lovely" as a term of endearment in contrast with the Americans.

No, you didn't. A guy is trying to score while standing next to you?
Normal people don't say "lovely" to a woman and mean her. It's a gay word and applicable only to things - like her jewelry. If that's what the Brits say, no wonder their women like going to France and Italy so that they don't have to listen to such royal bs. Sometimes, not knowing the language is good.

Brits then obviously aren't as hung up about their masculinity as Yanks-:)

It has nothing to do with masculinity and everything with fake bs verbosity.

In your (most) humble and ethnocentric opinion!

There is nothing humble about my opinions. Women don't like talkative men because they want to do the talking.
My first sentence to my wife was "can I have your phone number" instead of you have such lovely eyes. I did it because I wanted to know what her phone number was and couldn't care less about her eyes.

If--maybe hypothetically--if I'm the male in question.
So...what, out of all the things I mentioned, would have made it the most obvious?

Why are you so hypothetically defensive??? :):)


The most obvious thing would be saying you are crazy about her and she is the eternal heroine of your dreams, both at night and during the day.

@Alien, you can't call a stranger "mój kochany". Especially if you're a guy and you want to address another guy like that lol


Yes.


"Małpiszon" definitely isn't common and sounds more like an inside joke between people who know each other well. I wouldn't risk it with someone you don't know too well ;) "Mała" can be a bit cringeworthy (it's like "babe"), it's usually associated with simpletons who listen to Disco Polo or sth like that, I think. I actually wouldn't discard "śliczna", as in: "Cześć, śliczna!", for example. I'd prefer to be called "śliczna" than "mała" (as I already wrote, "mała" is a bit lame, unless among teenagers or maybe people in their early 20s?).


Why so mysterious? You're anonymous here, so you can be honest with us. If you tell us what you want exactly we may be able to help you then.

@Joker, I agree, women aren't "typically" attracted to physically abusive men lol They are likely to be attracted to men who are able to protect themselves and their family. That doesn't mean throwing themselves at everyone in sight, picking fights, trashing everything around them or beating the crap out of your wife because the soup was "too salty". That means that the guy has the physical strength and the mental abilty to use it in a dangerous situation (i.e. he can spark some agression in himself when needs be).

I've heard it a few times and it did seem they knew each other (but it was also flirting).


what about ślicznotka? And yeah 'mała' definitely seems to have a young and dumb feeling...

research (science!) has shown that on average women find men with the dark triad (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy) more attractive than well-behaved men.

Not all women and not all to the same degree but general female attraction to 'dark' personality traits and social dominance is pretty well established.

Recently saw a reference to research that indicated that women find men displaying happiness to be less attractive than those displaying pride or shame.... for men it was more or less reversed with happy looking women being the most attractive.

Human attraction patterns are what they are....

Less so, imho.


That goes for both sexes, boys and men get attracted to the so called "mean girls/women" too. I think it's connected to the fact that people with 'dark' personality traits can often be confident, successful and manipulative (they know how to win people over). But that's short term attraction:

scientificamerican.com/article/psychology-uncovers-sex-appeal-dark-personalities/

there are different types of attraction for most men

short term sexual gratification - meanness can work here as a proxy for 'crazy' which is a proxy for 'uninhibited' and 'kinky'

long term life partner (wife) - here meanness is a definite turn off, a controllable degree of.... spunk (US meaning) or self-assertiveness in the right context is an asset (will be able to keep kids in line) but not generalized b|tchiness