"Masz czas w ten weekend?"
Translation:Do you have time this weekend?
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Ah, interesting that many languages have taken the English word weekend, just like my native language Dutch, which has also weekeinde as real Dutch word. Is there a "real" Polish word for weekend?
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The closest thing I can think of is "koniec tygodnia", but we use it mostly in phrases like "pod koniec tygodnia" (around the end of the week), which might refer to literal weekend, but also a few days back, or in some context end of the workweek (like around Thursday, Friday).
"Weekend" is in wide use and very precise.
Not really. Weekend is so popular that you can even find (considered wrong) polonised spelling *łikend on the web. So everybody in Poland just uses weekend.
Julian Tuwim in "Groch z kapustą" writes:
Foreign words should obviously be avoided when they can be replaced with Polish ones. But the creation of new words does not always give good results. We don't like the English "week-end" ("łykend" as the drunkards say ["łyk (np. piwa)"="a sip (e.g. of beer)"]) and we would be happy to replace it with a Polish equivalent but...
And then he lists the following proposals coming from a pre-war competition for the best Polish translation of the word "weekend":
Sobótka, wyraj, sobotnica, świątki, posobocie, świętówka, końcówka, potygodnie, wagary, dwudzionek, przedświątek, wypad, blak (?) [the question marks come from Tuwim], przedświęcie, tygodniak, dwudniówka, słońcówka, marzenko, radośnik, kojnik, pozdrówko, słońcorad, przedświętówka, błogodzień, świętowczas, przedświętówka, błogodzień, świętowczas, potrudzie, wyjaźdżka, kwiatkówka, świątecznik, wylotka, sobotowywczas, sobotniówka, wykapka, kresówka, trudokres, zamiastówka, półtoradniówka, czasopęd, miłoczas, sobniedziela, wydech, potygodniówka, hasanka, turniedziela, turświęto, soboniówka, niedzielanka, swobódka, kontyg (?), wywczaśnik, wytchniówka, niedziałek, sobotnia, wypoczka, odzipka, odnowa, półtorak, uzdrowystyk, krestyg, dobówka, popracówka, wagarówka, preczwilej, wigiliada, dobromarsz, przewietrze, wyrólaba, zefirówka, pokrzepka, odświeżka, półświątki, dowsiciąg, wczasik, saturniak, naturzanka, letkulig, anglosobótka, gajówka, siedmiodniówka, pokrzepiówka, wyskok, przyrodowypoczynek, radojzda, wyjrzywako, dobo świątek, krajówka, świętoczynek, dnioraj, sobotnik, niedzielnik, Świątnik, świątecznik, oponiak, ozonówka, przyśnięcie, przyświątka.
Most of the above words are really weird and Tuwim comments:
For word formation you need talent and inspiration. [...] But, as you can see, this blessed state has not accompanied the authors of these projects. Beware of "new monsters"! [Pol. "Strzeżmy się nowopotworów"!
[translation mine]
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One of the worse proposition from the list. It comes from "przyroda" (nature) and "wypoczynek" (leisure). Connected together with -o-, often used in word formations.
What a great post! So educational , entertaining and also very funny! Thanks so much for sharing!
ngflio Dziekuje for that explanation. Personally I prefer to use a word in its traditional foreign form. I think it honors the language more.
There's even a Polish band called "Weekend" playing in my city (Belfast, UK) this month lol
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Fun fact: one of the cabaret once did a faux-Czech parody of one of their songs and they called the band "Sobota a nedela".
Wait! I am from Pardubice :D Btw. I can understand maybe 75% of the text. It sounds to me like something between Polish, Slovak and Czech...
Were they parodying the Czech accent? I'm guessing those words aren't spelled like that in Czech, but that's how Czech people say them?
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A faux-Czech was sometimes used by Polish cabarets (I see it done less today) for humorous reasons. Generally the point is to make it sound somewhat like Czech while still being understandable to Poles (and not necessarily by actual Czechs).
There are many possible techniques for achieving that and different cabarets could do it slightly different. Overuse of diminutives, making up funny fake words, occasionally using real Czech words, using outdated synonyms, and various methods of Czechyfying Polish words, such as turning "G" into "H" or "Ł" into "L".
Polish Uncyclopedia even has an entire article about it written entirely in faux-Czech. https://nonsa.pl/wiki/Polski_j%C4%99zyk_czeski
I'll show it to my GF (native Polish), it will be beyond me for now lol. I do remember she gave me a funny (but inoffensive) name for Czechs that Poles use: "pepitka" or something (it was before I started studying Polish so I wasn't paying as much attention to spelling etc.)
Anyway I said it to a Czech girl I met in london and she had no idea what I was talking about :D
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The word is "Pepik" or "Pepiczek". The Czechs might not get it, but it might be considered as somewhat condescending, possible in both friendly and unfriendly conversations. Akin to calling Poles "Pshek" in Russian language.
This is far from being interesting to see a beautiful language such as polish being overwhelmed with loan words (mostly english, again...), that doesn't neither appear nor sound good with the rest.
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It's the nature of all languages to "borrow" words- especially when they are describing an object or idea from that other language. English is full of them but if you are a native speaker and learned it as a child you may not realize that certain words come from another language. The concept of "weekend" is fairly new to Polish workers who worked a six day week for many years. I am a workshop facilitator and when I did workshops in Poland I found it difficult to translate some of my "technical" terms - so I just said it in English and the group began to use these words- for example "sharing" and "feedback" -
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There are at least two kinds of loanwords. One, where „weekend” belongs, contains words that expresses not yet named concepts (for which we would need to create new word). Others, like commonly seen in business, are created, because the loanwords are easier to use for certain people or they just didn't know that the equivalent already existed. Those have the drawback of being harder to understand for people unfamiliar with the jargon.
Interesting. I swear I remember my parents referring to the weekend as "wypad" or "końcówka".
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Well, that's how it is. We use „w” basically for everything that is longer than a day (from weekends to the entire millenias). Of course it doesn't apply for relative terms, like English "in two weeks" (za dwa tygodnie) or "a month ago" (miesiąc temu). Also used before days of the week, like "on Friday" (w piątek).
What case does w take as I've seen it as locative "w kwietniu" and as accusative like in this sentence.
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„W” is a preposition. They don't have a case.
Some prepositions are always followed by a word in a specific case, but some of them can be followed by more that one, depending on the context.
(I can't reply to your reply) Currently I have this as my notes for prepositons:
- Po - in/on/around +gen
- Do - to/up to/towards +gen
- W - at/during/in/on
Anything I should change?
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„Do” is always +gen. „Po” is usually +loc, but can be occasionally +acc. And „w” can be +loc or +acc, but the ratio is closer to the middle than with „po”.
And explaining it with translations to English can be tricky, since the prepositions don't match exactly (but you've probably already noticed that). It's probably best to learn by examples, but if you really want, there are between 5 to 10 usage explanations per either one of these words. If you really want, you might search them on Polish Wiktionary for definitions and examples.
My grammar book didn't have an entry for w + acc = anything to do with time
Luckily wiktionary does:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/w#Polish
w (+ accusative) = on (time/date)
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I can't even find a page where you found this incorrect rule. Care to share the link so we could correct it?
Sorry lads, I meant "w". Z isnt even in the above sentence! it was a typo.
Quick question: The male voice pronounces the "W" in "weekend" like an English "w". Is this because the word is originally not a polish word or because the voice is generated (and it actually gets pronounced like a polish "W") ?
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It is pronounced łikend, so pretty much the same as English. It's not the only foreign word that retains both its original spelling and pronunciation (thus breaking normal Polish rules), but it's probably the most common one.
In Russian we say "выходные", that means "days free from work" :) but "уикэнд" (weekend) sometimes used too))
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Just to prevent confusion. "Days free from work" are called "выходные" alright, but the word "выходной/выходные" (sg/pl) in this particular sense is an adjective literally meaning "[smth] for going out". You can have a "выходное платье" - a dress "for going out", i.e. for special occasions, or "выходные туфли" - a best pair of shoes for going out.
So "выходной день" is a day off, literally "a day for going out." ("День" is omitted in informal speech, "выходной" being used as a substantivised adjective.) The plural form "выходные" usually means weekend, as Saturday and Sunday are the usual days off, but "выходной" can also refer to any day off you might have on any day of the week, and "выходные" can also refer to a group of non-working days around some special day like New Year, which is not necessarily a weekend.
So yes, any weekend is выходные[*], but not every выходные would be a weekend.
[*] Even if you work weekends and have your days off on weekdays, you can also refer to weekend as "выходные" in the calendar sense, in situations when your work/rest is irrelevant. If work/rest is relevant, you'll somehow make clear which выходной you mean, the weekend or the day off.
Is it me or the "w" is almost deaf? Because I cannot seem to hear it no matter how many times I replay it :/. Is she pronouncing it like an "ph" from philosophy? Because that's the best shot I've got so far.
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Because in this sentence "w" comes before "t", the pronunciation changes from the voiced "v" to a devoiced "f". Normally, the first consonant determines if the whole cluster is voiced or devoiced, but "w" is an exception. So in short, yeah, it should sound like "ph" in "philosophy".
I'd say that that's still "in", but days of the week and the weekend don't take Locative here. The colocation here is "w + Accusative". Which for the masculine ones is the same as Nominative.
W + acc vs po + loc? I've seen both "Mam czas po południu" and "Masz czas w ten weekend" here, and was wondering the significance of the different prepositions.
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The preposition "w" can sound either like "v" when followed by a voiced sound or a vowel, or like "f" when followed by an unvoiced consonant. It is attached to the following word when pronouncing, so here it sounds like [ften].
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Is the "w" needed or would it still make sense if it was dropped?
If it is needed, then what are the rules for that?
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Take a look at this comment thread above https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/12397110?comment_id=12871050
The slow audio makes "w" so quiet that it's almost inaudible.
The normal audio does what it should: glues "w" to the following word and devoices it, so it's more like "ften". But at least in the male audio, I guess it's also very quiet.
The Polish sentence wouldn't make sense here without a preposition. English just happens to not use one.
Similarly you can say "Do you have time Sunday?" and also "Do you have time on Sunday?", "on" can be omitted in English, but "w" (w niedzielę) cannot be omitted in Polish.