How to say ... in Polish? September 12 2015, 1 Comment

Useful Polish phrases with audio.

No matter how quickly you can pick up a language, the how do you say... question will be the one you're going to need on many occasions, and on all levels of fluency.

Here is how you do it in Polish:

Jak powiedzieć po polsku ...?

Jak się mówi ...?

for example: 

Jak powiedzieć po polsku smile? 
How do you say smile in Polish?

Jak się mówi I like you?
How to say I like you?

When something a Polish person has just said is not so clear you can use a phrase I teach my students on the very first Polish lesson:

Co to znaczy? 
What does it mean?

or

Co to znaczy ... ?

where the three dots ... stand for any word or any phrase you want to know the meaning for. For instance you can say the following:

Co to znaczy kocham cię? 

What does kocham cię mean? (which by the way means I love you)

In case you haven't got a clue what someone is saying, try this one:

 

Nie rozumiem 
I don't understand.

Przepraszam, nie rozumiem 
I am sorry, I don't understand

You can ask them to rephrase:

Czy możesz to powiedzieć inaczej? (informally)

Proszę to powiedzieć inaczej. (formally)

You can always excuse your Polish by saying the following: 

Dopiero się uczę polskiego.

Literally: I'm only learning Polish

Słabo mówię po polsku.

I speak Polish not so well/(literally: poorly)

Nie znam dobrze polskiego.

I don't speak [literally: know] Polish well

Having said that you will be surely assured of how great your Polish is.

Which in fact is very true :)