Quick question on Polish language fundamental

My Russian lodger

I once heard a Polish mum correcting her child's speech, and she said something along the lines of "To jest błęd." The correct word is "błąd."

And I once got into an argument with my primary school teacher because she marked me down for spelling "a lot" as two separate words instead of one. Of course, she was well-meaning, but after consulting the dictionary, it turned out that I was right and she was wrong. I wasn't being a smart alec about it, but I still ended up in her bad books for the rest of the year.

The moral of the story is that you can't always trust people who should know better, because quite often they don't. This applies to native speakers vs language learners too. Learning a language is complicated enough, and it's always good to double-check to avoid having to learn complicated rules that are actually just another (well-meaning) person's whims and fancies.

Tell me about it!
Sometimes i've regretted asking grammar questions when i've been with a group of friends, because often they can't agree amongst themselves, and i always end up none the wiser! Having said that, they always try their best to help:):)

Maybe you can help me with another query i have :):)
I t concerns Kiedy and Gdy ( when ). I don't know how to differentiate between their usage.
E.g A kiedy jest ślub? ( when is the wedding? )
Gdy byłam nastolatką, pilnowałam dzieci. ( when i was a teenager, i used to babysit ). Not sure if my grammar is correct in this example to start with, think it's instrumental case though, as it follows być.

The only difference i can see in these examples, is that the 1st question is asking about an event in the future, whereas the 2nd example is a statement about an event in the past.

I'm sure it can't be that simple..........this is Polish we're talking about!
Any help much appreciated:):)

Not to confuse you like your friends do, I'll tell you only that:
1) Kiedy jest ślub - only kiedy is possible
2) Gdy byłam nastolatką - both kiedy and gdy are possible, albeit kiedy sounds more colloquial.

Of course it can't be that simple. It's simpler! :D As a side note, I imagine that historically, gdy probably appeared as an abbreviation of kiedy, and in the closely-related Czech, the word for both is kdy.

As a rule of thumb, gdy tends to correspond quite closely to English while or as. On the other hand, kiedy usually corresponds quite closely with English when, but it's a forgiving word, and can also be used in both senses. So if while and when both make sense in English, kiedy and gdy will generally both make sense in Polish too.

So, saying, "While is the wedding?" in English wouldn't make much sense. Saying "Gdy jest ślub?" in Polish could also be met with a blank stare for the same reason, or it could be misinterpreted as a statement of surprise, "[You want to do that] while the wedding is going on!?"

On the other hand, "While I was a teenager, I used to babysit" still sort of makes sense in English, though English prefers to use when in this context, whereas Polish isn't fussy. In fact, it might sometimes prefer to use gdy or while where English would prefer to use when, but the two are quite often interchangeable. There may be a stylistic preference of one word over the other in certain situations, and as zetigrek said, gdy can sometimes sound a little more posh, but usually, it's hardly a noticeable difference.

Generally speaking, kiedy is the safer word to use, since it means both while and when. You don't usually have to use gdy except in set phrases, such as podczas gdy ("whilst", "at the same time as"), w przypadku gdy ("in the event that").

Don't let the related word, gdyby (the "if" in "if...would" sentences) confuse you. There is no corresponding "kiedyby" form. Only gdyby exists.

And since I've brought it up, and to clear up any confusion before it arises, the difference between the two Polish ifs is as follows:

gdyby is used in "if...would" sentences:
"Gdybym była bogata, jadłabym kawior na śniadanie."
"If I were rich, I would eat caviar for breakfast."

you could also switch things around and say:
"Jadłabym kawior na śniadanie, gdybym była bogata."
"I would eat caviar for breakfast, if I were rich."

Notice, that in English, "if...would" sentences are a special case too. Good English grammar requires the use of "If I were" instead of "If I was" or "If I would be," and the verb must be in the past tense. In fact, both Polish and English require the verb to be in the past tense, but Polish also uses a different word for "if" altogether.

In plain old "if" sentences that don't use the word "would", you use jeżeli or jeśli (their usage is identical. Jeżeli is a little bit more posh):

"Jeśli spadnie deszcz, zostanę w domu."
"If it rains, I will stay at home."

tl;dr

gdy means while
kiedy means when or while

kcharlie

You should become a Polish teacher. You're even better than gumishu :)

he is much better than myself zeti ;)

Lol, I've spent a lot of time tearing my hear out about these very same questions, and it usually turned out that the answer was a lot simpler than it first seemed :)

+1
Your explanations make a difficult language a lot easier to understand :)


Oh good, this is simpler than i thought it was going to be! ( It's not very often i get to to say that about the Polish language lol )

Wow! After I posted this question I read the first few replies until things went quiet but now on returning I see a whole, fantastic, conversation has ensued! Thanks very much guys, especially kcharlie, I'm going to go go back and re-read all of this slowly and make sure I have covered all the info. I have started to form an understanding along the same lines, as in translating Polish words to phrases in English and memorising them as such, but so far its all a little too vague to really be useful. My Polish friends visited this weekend and although I know a fair bit of vocab along with conjugations etc I found it hard to really speak to them with any substance. Your advice, Kcharlie, will help no end, I'm sure I will come back to this thread with questions once I have started to get my teeth into it!

Thanks again,

Owen