Introduction

Society is becoming increasingly international. Low-cost airfares make traveling or moving abroad a more realistic option, global business environments require overseas travel, and friends and neighbors often speak another language. Knowing how to say at least a few words in other languages becomes more and more useful. Additionally, you may want to connect with your heritage by learning a little bit of the language that your ancestors spoke.

Whatever your reason for acquiring some Polish, this book can help. Polish For Dummies gives you the skills you need for basic communication in Polish. I'm not promising fluency, but if you want to greet someone, purchase a ticket, or order something from a menu in Polish, you need look no further than Polish For Dummies.

Recognizing that language exposes you to every aspect of the human condition — allowing you to explore the past, understand the present, and contemplate the future — is important. Language sometimes alters how people express various emotions and conditions. Although people are connected through their ability to speak, you can take it one step further (toward understanding) by being able to communicate in another language. Few things are as exciting as that!

The best way to discover a new language is to immerse yourself in it. Listen to the sounds of Polish, focus on pronunciation, and observe its written form. By listening and repeating, you enter a new world of ideas and cultures. Acquiring Polish through immersion truly feels like a form of magic.

About This Book

This book isn't like a class that you have to attend twice a week for ten weeks without missing any. You can use Polish For Dummies however you want, whether you're aiming to pick up some words and phrases for your trip to Poland or you just want to greet your Polish-speaking friend in their language. This book can help you reach moments of genuine understanding in a new language. Use the text as a language and cultural guide for those moments when you truly need to understand how and why things are done.

Take your time going through this book, reading as much or as little as you want at a time. You don't have to follow the chapters in order; feel free to read only the sections that interest you.

The best way to understand and appreciate a language is to speak it. Throughout the book, you can find plenty of words, phrases, and dialogues (along with pronunciations) for you to practice the language. The audio tracks offer a wide range of spoken dialogues, which you can use to enhance your pronunciation and intonation.

Keep in mind that you don't have to go through this book all at once or from cover to cover. Simply choose a chapter that interests you, and you can find cross-references to other parts of the book.

Conventions Used in This Book

To make this book easy for you to navigate, I set up a few conventions:

• Polish terms are set in boldface to make them stand out.
• Pronunciations, set in parentheses in italics, follow the Polish terms. I underline the emphasized syllables in the pronunciations. The translations, again in parentheses, follow the pronunciations. I occasionally change up the order of the items, but the Polish is always bolded, the pronunciation italicized, and the translation in normal (roman) text.

Verb conjugation tables (lists that show you the forms of a verb) follow this order:

• ja: the I form
• ty: the singular, informal you form
• on, ona, ono: the he, she, it forms
• my: the we form
• wy: the plural, informal you form
• oni, one: the they form for a group with at least one man; the they form for a group with no man

A typical verb conjugation table has columns for the pronoun forms, the Polish verb, the pronunciation, and the translation, as in the following table:

As you may notice, the personal pronouns ja, ty, my, wy (ya, tih, mih, vih) are in parentheses here and in all conjugation tables in this book. That's because you don't actually say those pronouns when you're speaking Polish. I explain the pronoun issue in detail in Chapter 3.

Unlike English, Polish uses special formal forms to address people in official situations. (I write more about how to address people in Chapter 3.) So the you form has the following formal equivalents in Polish:

• pan, pani: pan (pan) is the formal you to address a man and pani (pa-n'ee) the formal you to address a woman (singular).
• państwo, panowie, panie: These terms are the formal, plural you form to address a mixed group, a group of men, and a group of women, respectively. Państwo (pan'-stfo) also means “ladies and gentlemen”; panowie (pa-no-v’ye) means “gentlemen”; and panie (pa-n’ye) translates as “ladies” (plural).

When reading verb tables or conjugating verbs, remember that pan takes on the same verb form as on (he) and pani the same verb form as ona (she) — the third-person singular. In the present tense, the plural państwo, panowie, and panie take on a verb in the third-person plural (the same as oni [they male or mixed] and one [they female]). However, in the past tense and the future that uses past tense forms, państwo and panowie follow oni, while panie follows one in the choice of a verb form. Chapter 2 explains verbs in more detail.

Studying a language is a unique endeavor, so this book includes a few elements that other For Dummies books don't:

• Talkin’ the Talk dialogues: The most effective way to improve in a language is to see and hear how it’s used in conversation. That’s why I include dialogues throughout the book under the heading “Talkin’ the Talk.” These dialogues present Polish words, their pronunciations, and their English translations.
• Words to Know tables: Memorizing key words and phrases is also crucial in picking up a language. Therefore, I gather the important words that appear in a dialogue (and sometimes the nearby text) and list them under the heading “Words to Know.”
• Fun & Games activities: If you don’t have Polish speakers to practice your new language skills with, you can use the Fun & Games activities to reinforce what you’re working on. These word games are enjoyable ways to assess your progress.

Also, because each language has its own ways of expressing ideas, the English translations I provide for the Polish terms may not be literal. I want you to understand the essence of what's being said, not just the words themselves. For example, you can translate the Polish phrase wszystko w porządku (fshih-stko fpo-zhon-tkoo) literally as “everything in order”, but the phrase really means “fine.” This book gives the “fine” translations.

Foolish Assumptions

To write this book, I had to make some assumptions about you and what you want from a book called Polish For Dummies:

• You have no knowledge of Polish.
• You’re not looking for a book to make you fluent in Polish; you simply want to pick up some words, phrases, and sentence constructions to communicate basic information.
• You don’t want to have to memorize long lists of vocabulary words or boring grammar rules.
• You want to have fun while discovering a bit of Polish.

If these statements apply to you, then you've found the right book!

Icons Used in This Book

If you're looking for specific information while reading this book, I've made finding it easier for you by placing the following icons in the left-hand margins throughout the book:

I use this icon to indicate crucial pieces of information that you need to bear in...