Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Eric: Hi everyone, and welcome back to PolishPod101.com. This is Lower Beginner Season 1 Lesson 5 - Feeling the Hunger in Poland. Eric here.
Marzena: Cześć. I'm Marzena.
Eric: In this lesson you’ll learn how to talk about hunger and thirst. The conversation takes place at a coffee shop.
Marzena: It's between Kasia and Felipe.
Eric: The speakers are co-workers, so they’ll be using informal Polish. Okay, let's listen to the conversation.
DIALOGUE
Kasia: Jesteś głodny?
Felipe: Trochę i chce mi się pić.
Kasia: A co chcesz zjeść?
Felipe: Bardzo lubię pierogi.
Kasia: O, świetnie! Tutaj jest dobra pierogarnia. Lubisz pierogi ruskie?
Felipe: Tak, bardzo.
Eric: Listen to the conversation one time slowly.
Kasia: Jesteś głodny?
Felipe: Trochę i chce mi się pić.
Kasia: A co chcesz zjeść?
Felipe: Bardzo lubię pierogi.
Kasia: O, świetnie! Tutaj jest dobra pierogarnia. Lubisz pierogi ruskie?
Felipe: Tak, bardzo.
Eric: Listen to the conversation with the English translation.
Kasia: Are you hungry?
Felipe: A little bit, and I'm thirsty.
Kasia: What would you like to eat?
Felipe: I really like pierogis.
Kasia: Oh, that's great! There’s a good dumpling restaurant here. Do you like “Russian dumplings”?
Felipe: Yes, a lot.
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Eric: Marzena, those dumplings sound delicious. Can you tell us more about them?
Marzena: Pierogi are a very traditional Polish dish.
Eric: How are they made?
Marzena: You take unleavened dough, roll it out and cut it into circles. Then you spoon some filling into the center and fold the circles over into halves. Usually you serve pierogi freshly boiled, but if you leave the boiled ones for the next day some people like to fry them before eating. They’re served with melted butter and fried onion or sour cream, and sometimes even with melted lard.
Eric: It sounds like quite a hearty meal!
Marzena: It is! There are many types, for example pierogi z kapustą i grzybami
Eric: "dumplings with sauerkraut and mushrooms,"
Marzena: pierogi z mięsem
Eric: "dumplings with meat." What about the “Russian dumplings” they were talking about?
Marzena: ruskie pierogi. There are also other kinds of summer pierogi that have fruit fillings, such as blueberries or cherries. These are only boiled and serve with sugar or sour cream.
Eric: Do people cook them at home?
Marzena: Sometimes, but it takes a lot of time, so the easiest way to try them is by going to the pierogarnia.
Eric: That’s a restaurant specializing in dumplings. Make sure you try it out, listeners! Okay, now onto the vocab.
VOCAB LIST
Eric: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is..
Marzena: głodny [natural native speed]
Eric: hungry
Marzena: głodny[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Marzena: głodny [natural native speed]
Eric: Next we have..
Marzena: trochę [natural native speed]
Eric: a little
Marzena: trochę[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Marzena: trochę [natural native speed]
Eric: Next we have..
Marzena: co [natural native speed]
Eric: what
Marzena: co[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Marzena: co [natural native speed]
Eric: Next we have..
Marzena: jeść [natural native speed]
Eric: to eat
Marzena: jeść[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Marzena: jeść [natural native speed]
Eric: Next we have..
Marzena: pierogi [natural native speed]
Eric: "dumplings"
Marzena: pierogi[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Marzena: pierogi [natural native speed]
Eric: Next we have..
Marzena: świetnie [natural native speed]
Eric: great
Marzena: świetnie[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Marzena: świetnie [natural native speed]
Eric: Next we have..
Marzena: pierogarnia [natural native speed]
Eric: dumpling restaurant
Marzena: pierogarnia[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Marzena: pierogarnia [natural native speed]
KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES
Eric: Let's have a closer look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first word is..
Marzena: świetnie
Eric: meaning "great."
Marzena: It’s an adverb, but it can also be used as an adjective, świetny for masculine, świetna for feminine, or świetne for the neuter.
Eric: It's a rather colloquial word, so you shouldn’t use it in a formal setting. If you’re with friends, though, you can use it whenever you like in response to what another person said or an idea they’ve proposed.
Marzena: It can also be used sarcastically, when you’re actually not pleased with something.
Eric: The most important thing to keep in mind is to use proper intonation and voice, so that it’s clear if you’re being sarcastic or sincere. Marzena, can you give us an example using this word in a positive way?
Marzena: Sure. For example, you can say.. Świetnie się bawię na tej imprezie!
Eric: ..which means "I'm having great fun at this party." Okay, what's the next word?
Marzena: pierogi ruskie
Eric: meaning "Russian dumplings."
Marzena: “Dumplings” is actually just an approximate translation, because pierogi are a little different from dumplings.
Eric: Is there anything we should know about the grammar of this word?
Marzena: The noun pierogi is in its plural form and its singular form, pieróg, is rare. Pieróg sounds like another kind of dish.
Eric: Can you give us an example using this word?
Marzena: Sure. For example, you can say.. Moje ulubione polskie danie to pierogi ruskie.
Eric: .. which means "My favourite Polish dish is Russian dumplings." Okay, now onto the lesson focus.

Lesson focus

Eric: In this lesson, you'll learn how to talk about hunger and thirst. Let’s start with hunger.
Marzena: As you should remember, gender is very important in Polish, so the form of the question will depend on whether you’re asking a man or a woman.
Eric: So when you ask a woman “Are you hungry?”, you have to say...
Marzena: Czy jesteś głodna?
Eric: And if you want to ask a man?
Marzena: Czy jesteś głodny?
Eric: Let’s break down the question.
Marzena: First we start with the question marker czy which has no meaning. Its only function is to indicate a question...
Eric: ...just like “do” or “does” in English.
Marzena: Right. Poles often omit the word, because even without it we can still understand that something is a question, not a statement. Also in many cases questions starting with czy sound a little bit unnatural and stiff. So we can ask the question in the same way as Kasia in the dialogue, simply by saying Jesteś głodny?
Eric: What are the following words?
Marzena: The next word in the question is jesteś, which means “you are,” and it’s in the second person singular form, because we’re directing it to another person. And last is the adjective “hungry,” which is głodny for a man or głodna for a woman.
Eric: How can we handle the question?
Marzena: To answer the question, you can just say tak, meaning “yes,” or nie, meaning “no.”
Eric: What about if you want to give a different answer, like “Not yet”?
Marzena: Jeszcze nie
Eric: or “Very much.”
Marzena: Bardzo.
Eric: On the other hand, if you want to say that you’re hungry without being prompted, what can you say?
Marzena: you’ll have to use the verb być, “to be,” in the first person singular form, followed by the adjective głodny or głodna which means “hungry.” It’s Jestem głodna, if you’re a woman, or Jestem głodny, if you’re a man. Another way to say you’re hungry is Umieram z głodu
Eric: Which means “I’m dying of starvation.”
Marzena: We can use the same expression to say we are “dying” of other things, too, like thirst, which is umieram z pragnienia, or dying of boredom, umieram z nudów.
Eric: Ok, good to know! Now let’s take a look at how to ask if someone is thirsty.
Marzena: It is slightly different from asking someone if they’re hungry. “Are you thirsty?” in Polish is Chce ci się pić? The question is making use of the verb chcieć, meaning “to want,” followed by the phrase chce ci się,
Eric: This form can’t really be translated in English, so the fastest way to learn how to use it is to memorize it.
Marzena: That’s right. For now, keep in mind that it’s used whenever we haven’t made a conscious choice about an action.
Eric: Like in cases of hunger and thirst, we don’t choose to feel hungry, we just do.
Marzena: In these cases, we use the phrase chce mi się, or the opposite, when you don’t feel like something, nie chce mi się.
Eric: To recap, “Are you thirsty?” in Polish is
Marzena: Chce ci się pić?
Eric: To answer this question with “I’m thirsty” you have to say
Marzena: Chce mi się pić.
Eric: If you want to answer “A little bit...”
Marzena: You can say Trochę.
Eric: And if you’re not thirsty?
Marzena: Nie chce mi się pić. As we said, the phrase chce mi się can be used also with hunger, Chce mi się jeść. Please note that jeść is a verb that means “to eat” and pić means “to drink”.

Outro

Eric: Okay, that’s all for this lesson. Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time! Bye!
Marzena: Do widzenia.

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