5 interesting and weird Polish words

Being in love with learning foreign languages, I tend to pay a lot of attention to words, expressions and the language itself. So, as a speaker of a Slavic language (Russian), it was very interesting for me to make notes on Polish, another Slavic language which I was in contact with during my Erasmus experience. I regret I did not study it a semester more when I was in Poland, but at least I know – Polish is an amazing language, and when I have time I’ll dedicate myself to it.

Today I’ll share with you some interesting and somehow weird Polish words. Here we go!

Uroda

If at your arrival in Poland you see around the city Salon Urody, know that they did not create such a place as a salon where you can get ugly and there is probably no one who would like to get less beautiful than they are. Uroda in Polish means beauty, while in Russian, урод (urod) is exactly the opposite – ugly!

Zakaz

At the university I studied in Wroclaw there was written on toilets’ doors: zakaz palenia – smoking is forbidden. When I read it first time I laughed. I knew Russian, not Polish. And in Russian заказ (zakaz) means order. Making a sematic reformulation – we order you to smoke! Oh, no, really?!

Matka

Mother in Polish is matka. You’d say it’s related to the meaning. Both in Romanian and Russian matca/матка is the very womb. Interlinguistic interpretation, isn’t it?

Restauracja

It was so hard for me to get used to restauracja, which is restaurant in Polish. In my language restaurare means restoration. So, every time I saw this word, unconsciously, for a few seconds, I imagined the place is being renovated at the moment. So, no problem. I can eat in a restauracja.

Sztuka

And last, but not least, word by which I was surprised is sztuka, which in Polish means art, but also piece/item. I knew штука (shtuka) from Russian, which has the later meaning, and it was so weird to learn that a word denoting simply a piece may signify also art, which is something so big and so special!

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