Potato - kartofel or ziemniak?

No matter how you going to call this earthy root, all Poles know what it is.
It sure makes a very delicious placki ziemniaczane lub kartoflane (potato pancakes) Never heard of placki pyrowe... :)

That's because we call it plince here in Wlkp. :)


And serve it mostly with sugar. :)

Yes I did and you are wrong

Please elaborate. The general concensus is that ziemniak is the official word, but some people use kartofel, depending on the region.

I say whichever comes to my mind first ;-)

I only knew potatoes as 'kartofel' and I don't think it was just 'some' people. Think it is or was quite the popular word for potatoes of which we always had plenty of. My mom even grew her own too !

Does it really matter ? Why get so hung up about it. In the UK we have potatoes, spuds etc etc.

Life is far too short to worry about what to call potatoes. Lol @ this forum sometimes. The things people debate to the ends of the earth. <g>

Some posters got rather excited. I was just wondering which was the preferred word. I'd heard kartofel when learning some vocabulary but never encountered the word real life.

Don't they just !! Lol.



We always used it and in fact I've never heard any Polish person using anything else but of course I haven't spoken to every Polish person in the world. It is interesting to a point.

I don't eat potatoes at all lol....

Do you speak polish sausage ?

I'm an avid learner. Been to Poland 4 times on relatively short trips. I hate bilingual menus, takes all the fun out of it.

Do you find it hard to learn the language ?

I'm finding it pretty hard. My memory isn't as good as it was when I was younger.

I think many people find it hard to learn.

But it's nice that you are making the effort to learn :)

I'm watching some English films on YouTube right now (with Polish subtitles). I'm finding that interesting.

I plan to move to Poland next year, I need to make the effort.

It's easier to learn if you don't need to learn.

But being able to speak some Polish might lead me into a situation where I do need it. Then things will get tricky.


I almost don't believe you. Where's the lektor?

Agreed. It's all very well asking for sok pomaranczowy. But then they ask you something you don't understand like "freshly squeezed" or whatever.

Just been watching Tenacious D, "Pick of Destiny". So I am picking up quite a few swearwords.

Not with ziemniak / kartofel though. But yes, that is a very valid point and one that writer and publishers of phrase books want to avoid.

The best tasting pickles in the US are labeled: "polski wyrób."

Sticking with the vegetable theme. Another thing I have been losing sleep over....
warzywa or jarzynowa? (both meaning vegetables?)
Is jarzynowa only used in the context of vegetable soup?

It could be a surname, or potrawa jarzynowa

Generally, it is soup though

It depends on the region, generally the adjective "jarzynowa", as you said, is preferred to the "warzywna" for a mixed vegetables soup.
If you serve (for the main dish) some potatoes, meat and cooked/fried vegatables (for example cauliflower), then in my city, we call the cauliflower "warzywa"(noun, plural: "na obiad jadłem kartofle/ziemniaki z kotletem i warzywami"), but in Poznań (at least in the family where I lived) they would say "jarzyna" (noun in signular: "na obiad jadłem ziemniaki z kotletem i jarzyną").
I'm not sure how is the usage of the adjective with the word 'salad'. I say "sałatka warzywna", but maybe in other regions of Poland people use "sałatka jarzynowa" too?

Thanks for your very thorough answer Krzysztof