Different cultures emphasise different emotions. Britons, for instance, think that calmness is the queen of emotions and that if only everyone would calm down, then the world would be a better place. All those ‘keep calm and…‘ memes (like ‘keep calm and drink tea‘) are part of our propaganda campaign to sell our favourite emotion to the world 😉

If a foreigner wants to appear British, then he or she needs to develop their ability to be detached and ironic while saying ‘we might have a slight issue here‘ as the house burns down.

So which emotions are peculiar in the Polish language? Which emotions does a Polish language learner need to understand not only linguistically, but also emotionally, in order to sound like a Pole?

In my experience, it isn’t positive emotions (like happiness, surprise or relief) that are tough to express in Polish, it’s the words used to describe negative emotions that give me sleepless nights.

The first Polish word used to describe an emotion that I came across was zły. The dictionary translated it as ‘bad’ but I just felt confused.

You see, there are such a variety of declensions of this little word: zła, źli, złe, złemu, złą, złego…some with a ‘z’, some with ‘ź’, some with ‘ł’, and others with ‘l’ – that I didn’t know whether it was one word or many different words. I’ve probably been corrected more often for grammatical errors connected with the formation of the word zły than any other word in Polish.

And then there is the meaning. At first I thought it was a direct equivalent of the English word ‘bad’ as in źle się czuję (I feel bad) and złe zachowanie (bad behaviour). So when I heard Poles say Jestem zły (lit. I am bad) I wondered if they were confessing something about their character and were going to tell me where the bodies were hidden. Of course, it turns out that zły means ‘angry’ too… and a lot more besides.

Type these three letters z-ł-y into an online dictionary and you get a mass of English translations. Angry, bad, evil, ill, malevolent, malicious, malign, miffed, miserable, nasty, peeved, poor, savage, adverse, annoyed, erroneous, evil-intentioned, evil-minded, fierce, incorrect, invalid, mad, pissed off, spare, upset, vicious, wrong, hot under the collar. That’s a lot of meaning packed into three letters! Does the word zły describe many different emotions or just one huge cocktail of badness?

All in all, for a Polish learner, zły is bad word… both in terms of meaning… and grammatically!

Another time I was confused about the word zły was when a Polish colleague wanted to warn me that our boss was in a bad mood and said uważaj, ona jest w złym humorze. I understood that it was a warning about about her sense of humour, and I feared being the victim of some malicious joke. But I was merely the victim of a false friend. ‘Humour’ in English used to mean ‘mood’ as well, but nowadays it just refers to jokes and comedy. So when a Pole says that are in a bad mood (w złym humorze), I like to think that they are just having a ‘bad comedy day’ and so I avoid making jokes they won’t appreciate.

When I first came to Poland I used to buy a sport newspaper called Przegląd Sportowy. Not knowing much Polish, I didn’t read the articles, but simply checked the football results from European leagues. On one particular Monday, the headline on the cover read ‘Hańba!‘. In Scotland, football fans shout this word quite often when they see an opposition player using their hand to play the ball and want to appeal for a penalty. The word ‘handball’, when shouted by a Scottish crowd, sounds just like hańba. So innocently, I assumed the lead story was about a controversial penalty in a football match. Indeed, the picture below the headline showed some hooligans rampaging in a stadium. They must have been really upset by the referee’s decision, I thought.

Of course, it turned out that the story was about some hooligans destroying a stadium and the Polish word hańba means ‘disgrace’. I should have known because if there’s one emotion that is expressed frequently in Polish, it’s ‘shame’. In order to sound even slightly proficient in Polish, it’s necessary for a learner to master one key expression:

Ale wstyd!

Poles are so good at saying this. The slight shake of the head, the way the word ale lasts twice as long as the word wstyd, the sharp, downward intonation at the end. It’s cutting. Whenever the national football team lose an important match, a public institution isn’t functioning properly or a politician makes a silly gaff, I’ve learned to react like a Pole by expressing the emotion of shame and saying ale wstyd!

I have more trouble with the word żenada (embarrassment) though. It sounds too nice for such a powerful emotion. To my ears, it sounds likes a soft drink. Do you want lemoniada, oranżada or żenada? I just can’t connect it to a feeling of embarrassment.

If there’s one language mistake I’ve made that did cause me to feel żenada, it concerns the expression to describe being ‘in the huff’. For years, instead of hearing the correct version strzelić focha, I thought the Polish version was strzelić foka (to shoot a seal). ‘It’s rather brutal‘, I thought ‘that when a Pole is in the huff they go outside and shoot a seal‘. I did wonder whether there are many seals left in the Baltic or whether they’ve all been shot!

How was I supposed to know that the word was focha and not foka? The only Foch I knew was a French general in the First World War. And while he probably had good reason to be in a bad mood, I doubted that his temper was so infamous as to become part of the Polish language.

So when I informed a room full of Poles that someone had just shot a seal, understandably, they were a little confused. And when they figured out my mistake, I felt embarrassed… just a little żenada.

Of course, language learning can be a minefield. You’re going to trip up from time to time.

So even if I make an embarrassing language mistake in Polish, I revert to the British emotion of calmness:

Keep calm and take care of the seals!

When a learner of Polish gets to the terms that Poles use to refer to other nationalities, the majority are pretty easy to learn. The Polish names for the French (Francuz), British (Brytyjczyk) or Russian (Rosjanin) are very similar to the terms these nationalities use themselves. However, there are three countries that get special treatment in the Polish language, three countries whose Polish names are strikingly different and that a learner has to make an effort to learn. I’ve always been curious why.

The first is Germany. In Polish, why is Germany called Niemcy? English borrowed Germania from Latin to make Germany, while the French use the term Allemange from the Germanic tribe Alemanni. But there was no tribe called the Niemenni, so what influenced the first Poles to call their western neighbours Niemcy?

One day I found the answer… and it’s hilarious!

I learned that it comes from the Polish word niemy meaning ‘dumb’ or ‘mute’. It made perfect sense. Niemcy comes from niemy. How else to refer to the group of people who don’t speak your language? When the first Poles encountered a tribe of barbarians on the other side of the Oder/Odra river, they probably tried to start a conversation. But these strangers didn’t understand a single word and their own language was completely incomprehensible. No wonder the first Poles christened them ‘the dummies’.

And grammatically the words for Germany and Germans are strange. Why is the Polish word for Germany (Niemcy) and Germans (Niemcy) the same? Is it because, rather than talking about the geographical country, Poles are simply referring to the inhabitants? You know, the bunch of dummies next door?

And then there’s the question why one German is Niemiec and Poles, when they are traveling to Hamburg or Frankfurt, say Jadę do Niemiec... as if they were going to visit one particular German? And when they come back, a Pole will then say Byłem w Niemczech. Niem-czech… are the Czechs dummies too?

All in all, the way that the Polish language refers to its western neighbour is rather odd.

The next country that is a special case is Italy. Most languages refer to this country as Italia, Italiano etc. Why do the Poles call the country Włochy and call Italians Włosi? I looked for a similar pattern to the Germans. Perhaps the name comes from a Polish adjective? The closest I could find was włochaty meaning ‘fluffy’. Are Italians known for their fluffiness? Do Poles refer to them as Fluffarians? Probably not, so it remains a mystery.

And the third country that gets special treatment are the Hungarians, who are not called Huns or Magyars but Węgrzy. A woman from Hungary is a Węgierka, which is also a type of plum. Is there a connection? Perhaps to Poles, Attila the Hun was only a fruit salesman? Whatever the reason, there seems to be a very special relationship between Poles and Hungarians – I even heard a Polish rhyme about it – Polak, Węgier, dwa bratanki, i do szabli, i do szklanki (lit. Pole, Hungarian, two brothers, with the sword, and with the glass). Basically, Poles and Hungarians are great friends who get drunk together after beating up the Dummies or the Fluffarians.

So the process of learning the terms for nationalities raises lots of questions for a Polish language learner. And it gets worse when it comes to idioms.

Take for instance, the Polish expression meaning ‘once in a blue moon’ which is raz na ruski rok (lit. once a Russian year). I use this expression completely blindly. I know what it means, but I don’t know what it implies? Why is it raz na ruski rok rather than raz na szwedzki rok? When I use it am I ignorantly perpetuating some negative stereotype against the Russians?

You see, it is hard to work out whether this idiom might be offensive. According to NASA, a blue moon occurs every 2.7 years. So how long is a Russian year according to Poles? 2.7 years, 5 years, 10 years? And what is implied if one suggests that a Russian year is a lot longer than a normal one? For all I know, raz na ruski rok could be grossly insulting.

Another one I’m worried about is czeski błąd. If I make a typo, is it okay to refer to it as a czeski błąd or should I stick to błąd drukarski? Why, in the Polish language, is a typo connected to the Czechs? Are they prone to making typos? Are they too lazy to double-check what they’ve written? Or is it that they type with one hand while holding a glass of strong Czech lager in the other?

And then there’s a Polish idiom that describes people from the British Isles: wyjść po angielsku (lit. leave in an English style) which means to leave a social gathering without saying goodbye. In the UK it is acceptable to discreetly sneak out of a party without making a fuss (most British habits and customs are designed to avoid making a fuss). But I wasn’t aware that this behaviour isn’t entirely normal until I came across this Polish idiom. Oh, I thought, Poles have a idiom for this! You mean it’s a bit weird to leave without saying goodbye?

The problem for me is that I’m Scottish, and we Scots can get offended if others call us English. So now I make a special effort to say goodbye to everyone when leaving a party in case anyone dares claim that I left po angielsku!

To be on the safe side, perhaps I should just avoid using Polish idioms that refer to other nationalities completely? Just in case I am reinforcing some negative stereotype.

But then again, maybe I shouldn’t be so sensitive.

Maybe I’m being too fussy? Maybe I should just use these Polish idioms freely and not worry if I’m perpetuating stereotypes nor insulting anyone?

I mean… linguistically … I don’t want to come across like a francuski piesek!

*francuski piesek, (lit. french dog), over-sensitive, fussy.

If you want to do business in Poland, then you’ll need to brush up on your Polish. But you can forget all that language you picked up during your Harvard MBA. If you want a successful career in Poland, then it’s more important to learn the vocabulary of a farm. The Polish language is full of farming metaphors, and Poles often see their workplace the same way a farmer sees his barn. Pick up this key agricultural vocabulary on the Farmyard MBA, and you’ll be laughing all the way to the bank. Ignore it and the only one laughing will be a horse (koń by się uśmiał) at your poor decision-making.  

Take for instance the Polish word: gospodarka. As well as referring to the economic output of the country, it also means ‘farm’. This can be confusing. When you see some figures on wzrost gospodarczy, you may wonder whether it refers to the growth of the Polish economy or the birth of a new calf. Likewise, whereas many English idioms, such as ‘taking coal to Newcastle’ come from a post-industrial world, many Polish idioms come from earlier, agrarian times. Instead of ‘taking coal to Katowice’, the equivalent expression in Polish is nosić drzewo do lasu (take wood to the forest).

So what issues might a foreign business person face when coming to work in Poland? How can they switch their mindset to talk and think like a farmer? How can they communicate so that no Pole, in reply to their strange opinions, will ask czyś ty z byka spadł?!? (did you fall off a bull?).

Communication

The first barrier you’ll encounter when working in Poland concerns communication. As well as language difficulties, you’ll also be facing a different working culture. Indeed, there will be occasions, perhaps during meetings or presentations, when you’ll have no idea what’s going on. At such times, Poles will look upon you as a farmyard animal. Either they’ll compare interactions with you to a conversation between a goose and piglets: rozmawiać jak gęś z prosięciem, or, seeing you stare with open mouth, they’ll view you as a young calf who’s been transfixed by a painted gate: patrzeć jak cielę w malowane wrota.

How to handle such communication barriers? Well, it’s actually best to embrace the role of a farmyard animal, and ask your co-workers to talk to you as if they were chatting to a cow. Just say ‘talk to me like a farmer explaining something to a cow in a ditch’ and they will immediately recall the idiom tłumaczyć jak chłop krowie na rowie (explain something simply) and switch to a more straightforward communication style.

Simply put, when it comes to effective intercultural-communication, be the cow!

Office Politics

The farmyard can be a hierarchical place where the geese, oxen and hens battle it out to be the top dog. It can get to a point at which even the egg thinks it’s smarter than the hen (jajko mądrzejsze od kury). Your company’s headquarters may just as brutal, packed full of office politics and power struggles.

When working with Polish managers, you’ll need to bear in mind that Poles use farming metaphors to describe various management styles. One common style is to rządzić się jak szara gęś (lit. to rule like a grey goose) which means to abuse one’s position of authority. If any managers are strutting round the office like a dominant goose in the farmyard while their subordinates siedzą jak mysz pod miotłą (lit. sit like mice under a broom), then you may need to bring this up during the annual 360º performance review (as long as the mice are willing to share some feedback!).

Another characteristic of poor managers is when they are too tough on junior members of staff. You may need to remind such managers that they were also young and naive at one time. The Polish proverb zapomniał wół, jak cielęciem był (the ox forgot that he was once a calf) will help to get this point across.

As well as the geese and the eggs around your office, you’d be wise to watch out for any employees who behave like goats. If you’re in a tight spot, don’t reach out to them for help because they’ll only take advantage of your weakness. As all Poles know, na pochyłe drzewo wszystkie kozy skaczą (lit. all goats jump on a fallen tree), so choose your allies carefully and don’t fall victim to such workplace bullying.

Negotiation

When negotiating with business partners and clients in Poland, you also need to think like a farmer. While your MBA taught you not to overpromise and underdeliver, the equivalent concept in Polish is not to offer pears on a willow tree (gruszki na wierzbie). Basically, a negotiation will be fruitful (owocne) provided you don’t bring up the subject of fruit at all.

After years of research, the mathematician John Nash won a Nobel Prize for his work on Game Theory, and helped business people come to the conclusion that the best outcome to a negotiation is win-win. Poles have known this for centuries. So don’t try to school your negotiating partners. They know full well that wilk syty i owca cała (wolf full, sheep whole) is the best outcome for all parties. So openly announce your intentions by saying ‘I’ll feed your wolf as long as you don’t touch my sheep’ and any negotiations with Poles will proceed to a positive outcome for all concerned.

Of course, there’s always a danger that a business partner might play some dirty tricks, so it’s always useful to hire a good legal team. Choose a lawyer carefully – you want an old dog who knows all the tricks. Whenever a rival tries to outfox you, it will be like a scythe smacking a stone (trafiła kosa na kamień) as he or she comes to blows with an equally strong opponent.

Work closely with the lawyer to prepare strategies for various scenarios in which another business person may try to deceive you. If you have been turned into a horse (zrobiony w konia), what will be your legal response? Likewise, if you are led up the garden path and thrown into the raspberry bushes (zostałeś wpuszczony w maliny), what will be your exit strategy?

Time Management/ Productivity

Poor planning and sloppy time management can lead to unproductive work. So which working habits in Poland might have a negative impact on productivity?

The two questions you need to ask are ‘where am I plowing?’ and ‘am I plowing at the right time?’ All Poles know that it’s hard work to plow fallow land (orka na ugorze), especially when your time management skills are poor, and you end up working from the fence to lunch (pracujesz od płotu do obiadu). Use a time management tool, like a to-do list or prioritization, to schedule the right place and time to plow.

Of course, it’s important to set goals effectively, but instead of the SMART model, Poles are guided by the do’s and don’ts of farming. Rule number one is to avoid setting goals that are too high. If an eager colleague is aiming too high, then tell them nie porywaj się z motyką na słońce (lit. not to aim for the sun with a hoe) and they’ll refocus on more realistic targets.

That said, while long-term goals are useful, sometimes you need to focus on the here and now. If, over a cup of coffee, a Polish colleague hints that you’re a turkey, then don’t take this as an insult. He or she is merely referring to the proverb myślał indyk o niedzieli a w sobotę łeb mu ścięli (lit. the turkey thought of Sunday but on Saturday they cut his head off). Basically, they’re suggesting that you should focus on more immediate dangers rather than long-term plans.

Finally, modern corporations use ‘recognition schemes’ to identify hard-workers. These are also common in Poland, however, you may need to adapt to local culture when it comes to the name of program. You see, to the Polish way of thinking, to work hard is harować jak wół (lit. to work like an ox). So if your boss asks you to come up with a new name for the ’employee of the month’ scheme, then play cleverly with the word ‘rock star’ and suggest naming the scheme ‘ox-stars’.

Team-building / Building Relations

Modern teams just don’t work effectively without an annual team-building trip. However, when working in Poland, you’ll need to get used to a new set of team-building activities. Instead of paintball or abseiling, Poles build strong relationships by engaging in more agrarian tasks. Don’t be surprised, for instance, if you’re asked to eat a barrelful of salt with your co-workers. As the Polish proverb, zjeść z kimś beczkę soli testifies, once you’ve all been through this ordeal, then you’ll have a much stronger bond (and, unfortunately, much higher blood pressure).

How will you know when you have fully gained the trust of a co-worker or business partner in Poland? Well, there are some clear signals, but they are easy to misunderstand. One thing you might hear is that you are a równy chłop, and you might take this to mean that you’re a drunken peasant who’s flat on his back in a ditch. Similarly, once you have built a strong relationship with a Pole, then they might suggest a shared project, namely, stealing a farm animal together. If a business partner says the following z tobą można konie kraść (lit. with you, one can steal a horse), you might fear that he or she is suggesting that you kidnap a prize stallion in the middle of the night. Don’t panic. Both of these are just Farmspeak, and are Polish ways of saying ‘you’re a nice guy’!

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How important is this farmyard wisdom? Will your career grow and prosper in Poland if you don’t think like a farmer? Perhaps. You may get lucky and find yourself in the right place at the right time. As the Polish proverb says, trafiło się jak ślepej kurze ziarno (even a blind hen finds grain).

But why risk your future on stumbling across a few grains of corn? Why not aim higher? Thanks to our unique academic program based on folk know-how and real farming case studies, your career will flourish like a well-run farm.

Złap byka za rogi (grab the bull by the horns) and sign up for the Farmyard MBA today!

What colour is the Polish language?

It seems like a bizarre question, right? But actually many people have subjective experiences in which their senses overlap. It’s called synesthesia and often involves perceiving numbers, words or sounds as colours. My wife, for instance, colours the days of the week – Tuesday is dark grey, Thursday is green and Sunday is yellow.

So if the Polish language has a colour, what is it?

Blue?

There’s a Polish idiom myśleć o niebieskich migdałach (literally, to think of blue almonds) which means ‘to daydream’. Why blue almonds? It’s actually a good choice because blue food only exists in your imagination. Blueberries are purple, blue cheese is only blue because it’s turned bad, and as for smurf-flavoured ice cream, well that comes straight from a dye factory. So thinking of a blue-coloured food is a perfect metaphor for daydreaming.

And thinking of blue almonds is also a good metaphor for a foreigner trying to master Polish. Sometimes I daydream about being able to speak the language fluently, reeling off perfectly-formed sentences like a native-speaker, understanding all of its grammatical complexities, and being able to spice up my utterances with idioms, street slang or regional dialect. Yet, deep down I know this is just chasing rainbows. At the end of the day, the Polish language is just a huge blue almond and it’s a hard nut to crack.

Gold?

Perhaps Polish is a golden language? Złoty in Polish is used in expressions like złoty interes (lucrative deal) and obiecywać złote góry (promise wonders). So perhaps the real question should be, does learning Polish offer you the chance to get rich? Not really. While many people learn English for economic reasons, I don’t think learning Polish is a złoty interes. So, no Polish isn’t a golden language.

Grey?

If you asked a British person (older than 30) to say which colour best describes Poland, they would probably answer: grey. In Cold War films and books, communist countries were portrayed as grey and bleak, and this image has stuck. So when such people happen to visit Poland, especially in the summer, they’re surprised to discover so much colour.

In keeping with its dull shade, the colour grey in the Polish language is used to describe a shady place or person: szara strefa (grey area) is place of uncertainty, while robić kogoś na szaro (lit. turn someone grey) means to swindle someone, and a szara eminencja (grey eminence) is a mysterious figure in the background who pulls the strings.

So is Polish grey? Well, it’s definitely a szara strefa, where the rules are as murky as a Polish winter, and I frequently feel swindled when I try to learn ten new words, but only remember two. And when I try to pronounce certain Polish words, I do feel as if there is a szara eminencja behind me, pulling my tongue in the wrong direction!

White & Red?

Colours were one of the first group of words I tried to learn in Polish, and I distinctly remember having a real moment of language shock when I first saw the Polish word for the red. I was expecting a word beginning with the letter ‘r’ just like words for red in other European languages – rouge, rot, rosso, rojo… in Polish it will probably be ‘rusz’ or ‘rzot’, I thought. But no, it’s czerwony, and it was then that I realised that learning a Slavic language was going to be tougher than I thought.

Since the national flag of Poland is white and red, you could easily assume these two colours would be very prevalent in the Polish language too.

In English the colour white is associated with purity and innocence. A white lie is told for a good reason, and if you’re whiter than white, then a white knight might come to rescue you. Conversely in Polish, the colour white seems to be associated with madness. While białe szaleństwo (white craziness) only refers to winter sports, the expression dostać białej gorączki (lit. get a white fever) means to go into a furious rage, something that in English, we express as red: to see red mist.

But the madness doesn’t end there. In English, when someone drinks do białego rana (until dawn) and has hallucinations when sobering up, they see pink elephants. I was amused to discover that the equivalent in Polish is widzieć białe myszki (see white mice). Now, white mice aren’t that exotic – you’re much more likely to see a white mouse than a pink elephant. And this made me wonder whether the hallucinations of Polish drunks aren’t as psychedelic as those in the English speaking world. Perhaps it’s a result of the purity of the vodka?

So there are certainly plenty of white idioms in Polish. What about red?

Curiously, there’s hardly any red idioms in the Polish language at all. Indeed, any that I came across seemed to be translations of foreign idioms (e.g. dostać czerwoną kartkę, czerwone światło) rather than original Polish ones. Why, despite Poland having a rather bloody history, does the Polish language ignore the colour red?

An armchair psychologist might suspect there’s something going on here. Why does the Polish language focus on white half of the flag? Why are there no red idioms? And why, when red is suppressed, do most of white idioms suggest craziness?

Green?

Then, perhaps Polish is a green language? The colour green is associated with youth and inexperience as the expression zielony jak szczypiorek na wiosnę (as green as chives in spring) poetically describes. Yet, to me, Polish feels an old language, more like a gnarly old hedge that’s full of thorns and practically impenetrable.

However, I did experience some greenness early on in the process of learning Polish. After getting bored of repeating nie wiem so often, I switched to the response nie mam zielonego pojęcia (lit. I don’t have a green concept/idea) when asked difficult questions. Even though I didn’t know the answer to the question, by expressing this fact idiomatically, it felt like I was making progress.

And why is it that a lack of green ideas signifies not knowing? I’ve often wondered whether Poles, when searching for information, go through a quick checklist in their heads. Red ideas? Check. Blue ideas? Yes, lots of those. Orange ideas? Yep. Green ideas?… green ideas? I’ve got no green ideas!… I don’t know anything about this!

So what can I conclude?

I know three languages – English, German and Polish. For me, English is bluish-grey, German is green, what about Polish?

I’m pretty sure it’s not red or gold, but it could be grey, white or blue.

But, at the end of the day, all I can really say is nie mam czerwonego pojęcia, nie mam niebieskiego, żółtego ani pomarańczowego pojęcia. I na pewno nie mam pojęcia zielonego!