stella41b
Posts: 4258
Joined: 10/16/2007
From: SW London (UK)
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This thread brings back memories of when I was first living in Poland and some of the bloopers I came out with there.. I decided to learn the language not long after deciding to live there, but this led to some goofy situations.
Like the time when I went to buy half a dozen frankfurters. I went to a local butchers shop and waited in the queue, having practised the phrase I needed and leaving the phrase book at home. My turn came and the women behind the counter asked me what I wanted, and in loud, clear Polish I told her that I wanted half a dozen frankfurters. She asked me to give a weight, which is the precise moment when I realised I hadn't learned Polish numbers that good, and hadn't learned words for weights and measurements at all. So I guessed. The woman took the entire tray of frankfurters from the shop window and weighed them, and put them into a plastic carrier bag. She then looked for and found another string of frankfurters that were hanging behind the counter, weighed them, and stuffed them into another plastic carrier bag. Then she disappeared into the back of the shop.
She returned carrying a large plastic container of... frankfurters, and from this container she started piling frankfurters onto the weighing scales and putting them into plastic carrier bags and she did this once,.. twice,.. three times.. and continued. I didn't know the words for 'stop', 'this isn't what I want', so I just stood there having a sinking feeling. After she had filled six carrier bags she stopped. I had bought about 20kg (44lbs) of frankfurters which took all the money I had with me, about $20. I was sharing a flat at the time, I crammed the fridge with as many frankfurters as I could. I decided to give all the people living in the block frankfurters, I would throw frankfurters towards any dog or cat I came across, and I tried to give away frankfurters to people passing in the street.
Have you ever tried to give people passing in the street free frankfurters?
Polish has a lot of words which sound the same but which have completely different meanings. I caused a stunned silence at a large family dinner when I pointed to the couple sitting next to my hostess and asked her if they were her aunt and uncle. However 'ciocia' (pronounced chocher) means aunt, but 'ciota' (pronounced chotter) is a very vulgar term meaning 'faggot' and so I was really asking 'Is this your uncle and faggot?'
Polish also has two genders - masculine and feminine. I remember moving to a small town to work and the difficulty I had in buying a monthly bus ticket for the town. I had mixed up the genders of the same word. Miesięcznik (pronounced myesyenchick) is masculine and means monthly, or colloqually a monthly bus ticket. However the feminine form 'miesiączka' (pronounced myesyawnch-ka) also means monthly, but relates specifically to menstruation or the period. I had gone round to every kiosk and shop in town over two weeks asking both men and women 'Are you menstruating?' I wouldn't have been none the wiser hadn't the women in the shop where I tried twice got offended and chased me out of her shop with a broom. This earned me the nickname of 'Tampax' from the guys drinking beer outside the shops on the estate and took me some time to live down.
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Then I had to tell the employees to stop looking since I found them. I ended up with having to tell them what I did. Dad wasn't too happy either. LOL 
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