"Nie jestem w gimnazjum, jestem w liceum."
Translation:I am not in a junior high school, I am in a high school.
54 Comments
Can anyone explain junior high school, intermediate school and grammar school to me? I got lost at high school. I feel like this is becoming an english course (I'd totally have written gymnasium if I could, considering that's what i already say on a daily basis in two languages haha)
I can explain "gimnazjum" and "liceum" if you want.
In Poland (right now, that is discussed to change again) Szkoła podstawowa starts when kids are six or seven (used to be seven, let's count from there) It lasts 6 years, so kids are 13 when they finish Gimnazjum is obligarory and starts after szkoła podstawowa. It is years 7-9 of education but nobody calls them that, Teenagers end "gimnazjum" at 16 Liceum is not obligatory , it is for general education , and takes 3 years (you finish at 19). It gives you "średnie wykształcenie"- secondery education , and ends with matura, but does not give you any proffesion You can choose "technikum" or "liceum zawodowe" which is for secondary education. It lasts 4 years and gives you less general education and more professional one, It ends with Matura and profession exams You can choose "szkała zawodowa" (commonly "zawodówka" ) mostly vocation related education, you can't go to university)
So going by ages podstawowa is 7-13 and roughly matches primary school 5-12 Then Gimnazjum is ~13-16(almost thought it said 7-9 years of this level! Oops!) and liceum is 17-19 which together roughly match secondary school 12-18+ sixthform (1 year, 19). I'm going to need to chart up the Polish to american systems and then again to reach scottish system :p
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So English (and Welsh?) closest approximations would be primary school (ages 3 or 4 to 11), secondary school (11-16) and sixth form or college (16-18) (some sixth forms are part of a secondary school, others aren't, most of the ones that aren't are called colleges, and some of both kinds offer vocational qualifications but most are academic, and as of this decade it's compulsory to do one or the other but previously you could finish education at 16, which is why most secondary schools don't have a sixth form) (sixth form or 'further education' college for ages 16-19 not to be confused with the concept of a 'college' as a sub-institution of a university, or with the US informal name for a university - if you say 'when I was at college' in England it can only mean sixth form, not university) (also some secondary schools have 'High School' in their name, but it's not a separate type of school any more in England).
I have read the comments, and it seems to me unnecessary to translate the words gimnazjum and lyceum at all. The speaker's comments concern specific stages of the Polish educational system which do not directly correspond to the UK, US or other English-speaking systems.
'I am not in gimnazjum, I am in liceum' seems the most precise answer.
When a translation obscures meaning rather than illuminates meaning, then perhaps it is is better to stick with the words in the original language? One of the pleasures of learning a language is to discover these differences.
Another good example is Matura. I have heard Poles talking about their qualifications in English (in the UK) and they use the word Matura, They do not talk of having A levels because they specifically sat the Matura not A levels. This seems correct to me.
Well, "gimnazjum" and "liceum" are accepted in the English answer.
I generally agree, although I myself would put simple "middle school" and "high school" as the default ones. I think it shows it well.
And true, with matura I cannot imagine someone trying to 'translate it' into English.
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If I had to translate it I'd use baccalaureate, but it would depend on the context.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/baccalaureate
The answer here is 'the wrong way round' for British and British style education systems. A 'Grammar School' or 'Sixth form School' is the equivalent of the Liceum ending with 'A' levels (Matura) at 18 - 19. The 'gimnazjum' is closer to a 'Secondary School'. . . . .British 'Comprehensives' combine both systems in the one school.
Although different the systems in Scotland, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand approximate the British system. 'The Sixth Form' is post 16 education. . . . 'Secondary School' is generally pre 16 education.
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A grammar school is a secondary school for which you have to pass an entrance exam (the Eleven Plus or whatever it's called now); they usually include a sixth form, and pupils who attended a comprehensive (a non-grammar school secondary school) until their GCSEs (age 16) (comprehensives often don't include sixth form, though some do) can attend sixth form at a grammar school if they do well enough in their GCSEs, but to say that a grammar school is the same as sixth form in the UK is incorrect.
It may confuse you but "technikum and liceum are considered "secondary schools in Poland, not gimnazjum.
Why is that? I was always taught that 'Gimnazjum' is secondary school (and so it is in the UK) and that 'Liceum' is high school/6th form/college (in the UK). I think both answers should be accepted because it is really up to what version of English you speak.
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can you also say gymnasium and lyceum? or do you have to put the high schools here 
So, if "{gimnazjum | gymnasium} is a school, what is the place called, where Polish people go to get exercise? Google Translate suggests "siłownia", and Google searching for that word seems to confirm it.
Yes indeed.
There's something that is called "sala gimnastyczna", but that's usually the name for the room where there are P.E. lessons.
Isn't it strange that gymnastics take place in a gymnasium, but in Poland it is a word for school?
In reality, even in English, the "gym" is a strange word because gymnastics is completely unrelated in most cases.
In Russian it's called sportzal
Sportzal - clearly loanword from german.
Gymnasium and Lyceum are names that origin from ancient Greece.
Besides:
- Gimnazjum -> gimnazjalny
- Liceum -> licealny
- Gimnastyka -> gimnastyczny
Also in Germany, I believe.
As for the root of the word "gymnasium", it's a place to be naked; it can get very hot in Greece.....
Rather li-CE-um, but there is an explanation as to why some people accent it on LI. Greek "lýkeion" was accented this way, but the word came to Polish through Latin, and "lycēum" was accented on the penultimate syllable.
Here in California, I went to junior high school in 7th and 8th grade in the 1980s, but my son is in 7th grade now, and it's called middle school.
Yes. I put "middle school" in for my first attempt at this, and it worked. Here in England, we actual call this level a "junior school" (without the "high" part), which I didn't try yet.
I'd like to point out that although the suggested translation for liceum is "high school", in England liceum would be known as college or a sixth form, whereas gimnazjum would be high school.
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Any chance we can get a list of accepted answers/translations for gimnazjum and liceum?
Sure, I can give it to you, right now it's:
I am not [in/at] [a/the/] [junior high school/grammar school/gymnasium/middle school/gimnazjum/junior high/junior school], I am [in/at] [a/the/] [high school/secondary school/lyceum/liceum/sixth form]. - plus also intermediate school for gimnazjum.
But I really advice to just use 'middle school' and 'high school', I do not see much sense in comparing the Polish schools to other education systems. And just remember that gimnazjum is years 7-9 and liceum 10-12 of education.
Also, 'gimnazjum' will be liquidated soon, most probably.
shouldn't "gimnazjum" and "liceum" be Locative (because of the "w")? or the verb być makes them Nominative? Thanks?
According to Wiktionary, both words are invariant in the singular.....
See https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/liceum#Declension and https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gimnazjum#Declension .
Thanks, but the hovering dictionary states that these words are both nominative.
I think that the hovering dictionary might not always take note of the context. "Liceum" is the Nom. form of this word, but it seems also to be all the other Sing. forms of this word. So, without noting the context, it may be that the HD just gives the top case on its list. Perhaps.
In Ukraine, I study at school, which is called "School-Lyceum", and there are primary school (from the age of 6 or 7, it lasts 4 years), secondary school (which lasts 5 years) and high school (2 years). If you finish secondary school, you can go to the technical school or college, or you can finish high school and go to study at the university or institute.
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There's a lot about educational nomenclature and organisation, but little about 'w'. Idiomatically,this would translate as 'at' perfectly well. The problem here is one of context. Where is the speaker and is the discussion about generalities or actualities? For example, "I am at school"can mean "I am of school age/receiving education but not necessarily physically on the school's premises at that moment. Or it can answer the question "Where are you right now?" As if often the case, the preposition rather than the nouns create unforeseen possibilities.
"at" is accepted as well. True, this can be just a sentence about being somewhere physically, despite being - let's say - 50 years old.
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With the new format in Duolingo, the bottom words you can select (aka not using the keyboard) are cut off when there are 3 rows of words. I can't scroll down, so there's no way to check what words they are. is there a way to fix this?
You are not alone in this; unfortunately, I don't think that the Mods on this forum can fix it, although they can probably advise where to report it.
I confirmed that this has been already reported, hopefully it gets fixed soon.
Don't worry :) Although yeah, if a problem is not strictly about language (or audio on a specific sentence), then it should rather be posted in the Troubleshooting subforum.
This chapter gets worse. Half of the words needed to compose the answer are missing! I'll leave it for a day or two until someone fixes this whole chapter.
