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how to say hello and goodbye in Polish?


posts: 34
tessapilipczukThreads: 17
Posts: 21
Joined: Jan 7, 07
Gender: Female 		   Jul 2, 07, 12:23   #1
i am english but want to say hello/hi in polish and goodbye/bye,how would i pronounce them as well? i though do widzenia was goodbye but have been told it isnt?what does do widzenia mean?(pronounced dough vidzenya!!!!) thanks tessa
miranda    Jul 2, 07, 12:25   #2
Quoting: tessapilipczuk
what does do widzenia mean?(pronounced dough vidzenya

that is correct - goobye
dzien dobry = dzien dobree - hello
czesc =tsheshch - hi
MichalThreads: -
Posts: 2455
Joined: Feb 27, 07
Gender: Male 		   Jul 3, 07, 08:57   #3
Czesc can be hello as well as dzien dobry for hello or good day. There is also 'witam' from the verb 'witac' and even an old form 'serwus', meaning my servant. Good bye is usually 'do widzenia' or 'czesc' in less formal settings. See you soon is 'na razie'. Sorry that I do not have the accents on my computer key board.
MichalThreads: -
Posts: 2455
Joined: Feb 27, 07
Gender: Male 		   Jul 3, 07, 09:02   #4
Another informal expression in the sense that 'I have not seen you for ages' is 'kopa lat' literally meaning sixty years, though this may be a little old fashioned now.
hyypiaThreads: 3
Posts: 50
Joined: Feb 17, 07
Gender: Female 		   Jul 15, 07, 15:07   #5
i thought "bye" could be "papa"?
karturnThreads: 11
Posts: 33
Joined: Mar 7, 07
Gender: Female 		   Jul 17, 07, 15:08   #6
I was told that papa is goodbye for close friends & family. You can also say "no czesc" for good bye.
KT
Easy_TerranThreads: 5
Posts: 507
Joined: Mar 31, 08
Gender: Male 		   Apr 23, 08, 15:21   #7
Michal:
even an old form 'serwus', meaning my servant

I thought 'serwus' was borrowed from German 'servus'...
SeanusThreads: 17
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Joined: Dec 25, 07
Gender: Male 		   Apr 23, 08, 15:31   #8
Is serwus pejorative?
JustysiaSThreads: 10
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Joined: Oct 14, 07
Gender: Female GOLD MEMBER 		   Apr 23, 08, 15:51   #9
serwus (also sługus) as a person is like a servant, i'm not sure if it's a pejorative, but judging by the ending -us and the whole condescending sound of it it might as well be. serwus as hi is weird and old-fashioned, nobody speaks like that anymore.
SeanusThreads: 17
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Gender: Male 		   Apr 23, 08, 16:03   #10
The football lads said it to me and it just sounded wrong. If these cretins can be condescending and patronising to me, what would they be to a black man? I'm nobody's servant
JustysiaSThreads: 10
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Gender: Female GOLD MEMBER 		   Apr 23, 08, 16:04   #11
did they say serwus as hi, or did they call you their serwus?? these are two different things!
SeanusThreads: 17
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Gender: Male 		   Apr 23, 08, 16:08   #12
They said it as Hi
JustysiaSThreads: 10
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Joined: Oct 14, 07
Gender: Female GOLD MEMBER 		   Apr 23, 08, 16:38   #13
well thats ok then. a bit old fashioned but its not an insult. so calm down mr. sheep.
KeithThreads: 1
Posts: 19
Joined: Feb 17, 08
Gender: Male 		   Apr 23, 08, 17:03   #14
hyypia:
i thought "bye" could be "papa"?


I was told that it has quite a childish sense, like the English 'tata'. My Polish friend gets her little daughter to say it when she waves goodbye.
I had an interesting discussion with the same friend just today about saying hello, and she said that she finds it strange that people here ask 'how are you' whether they are acquainted or not, as this is just not done in Poland. Interestingly, she says she quite likes it...
JustysiaSThreads: 10
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Gender: Female GOLD MEMBER 		Edited by: JustysiaS   Apr 23, 08, 17:08   #15
i'm not that keen on "how are you" or "alright?". i dont really like small talk, i only use it when im in a good mood lol. i mean how annoying and useless is this:

-hello
*hi
-how are you?
*i'm fine thanks how are you?
-good, thanks
*good

and thats it. whats the point?
SeanusThreads: 17
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Gender: Male 		   Apr 23, 08, 17:11   #16
A bit old-fashioned? Hehehe, sums up many aspects of life here
z_dariusThreads: 17
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Joined: Oct 18, 07
Gender: Male 		   Apr 23, 08, 22:49   #17
JustysiaS:
-hello
*hi
-how are you?
*i'm fine thanks how are you?
-good, thanks
*good

and thats it. whats the point?


You failed to mention the exciting part - the bit about the weather :)
Guest    Apr 23, 08, 22:55   #18
Spierdalaj huju = good bye.
MakdaamThreads: -
Posts: 34
Joined: Mar 7, 08
Gender: Male 		   Apr 24, 08, 00:54   #19
It's so easy to mistranslate if you're a foreigner.
Primo it's:
"spierdalaj chuju"
Secundo it means:
"fuck off you dick"
It may be interpreted as "bye" but definitely not a good one.
FoxxiGoldThreads: 4
Posts: 48
Joined: Apr 30, 08
Gender: Female 		   May 1, 08, 07:57   #20
dzien dobry, would I offend someone if I greeted them with witam? and is this considered formal or informal?
Grzegorz_Threads: 66
Posts: 5540
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Gender: Male 		   May 1, 08, 11:43   #21
FoxxiGold:
would I offend someone if I greeted them with witam?


No...
SeanusThreads: 17
Posts: 17854
Joined: Dec 25, 07
Gender: Male 		   May 1, 08, 12:44   #22
Witam is simply welcome. My landlord always shows me the utmost respect, bless him, and he used witam a lot. It's polite and nice to hear
Guest    Nov 12, 08, 20:52   #23
are you sure.
Guest    Nov 14, 08, 15:36   #24
My Grandfather taught me to say "Yakshimash"(Jak sie masz) meaning hello how are you?
Then to answer "Dosbra"(dobry) meaning good or I'm fine
He my Gandpa was very young (born 1898)in Chicago when he left his large Polish family to work on a farm out in Huntley and hamshire Illinois.His father was Polish and his mother might have been more Russian. His parents met on the Boat coming to America.
Kamil_pl    Nov 23, 08, 09:13   #25
Hello - cześć.
Bye - cześć, or na razie.
That's all. No other things needed here.
SammyThreads: -
Posts: 5
Joined: Dec 1, 08
Gender: Female 		   Dec 1, 08, 04:10   #26
So when my boyfriend's dad was yelling at him in polish and he replied "cześć" he was politely telling him to go away?
MistyThreads: 6
Posts: 208
Joined: Jul 20, 08
Gender: Female 		Edited by: Misty   Dec 1, 08, 04:20   #27
He was saying "bye".

Well, he could have been saying hello but if they were arguing who knows...
gumishuThreads: 4
Posts: 1245
Joined: Apr 6, 09
Gender: Male 		Edited by: gumishu   Jun 8, 09, 11:40   #28
Sammy:
So when my boyfriend's dad was yelling at him in polish and he replied "cześć" he was politely telling him to go away?

it could have been a sort of sarcasm - somebody's bitching you and you just part and stay unattached still address the person in a proper manner (but perhaps not an apprioprate one ;)

so yes actually it could be meant as you have put it
lila008Threads: -
Posts: 9
Joined: Oct 20, 09
Gender: Female 		   Oct 31, 09, 08:11   #29
omg, i can pronoun czesc now. thankyou
MattTThreads: 1
Posts: 9
Joined: Sep 15, 09
Gender: Male 		   Nov 4, 09, 21:21   #30
Don't know if I'm imagining this, but I keep noticing a difference with the way dzien dobry is pronounced..

Sometimes its a 'dzien dobree'.. other times more of a 'dzien dobra'

Could this be a gender difference or just different ways of saying the same thing!?
VincentThreads: 14
Posts: 890
Joined: Sep 9, 07
Gender: Male [Moderator] 		   Nov 4, 09, 21:55   #31
MattT:
Could this be a gender difference or just different ways of saying the same thing!?

Maybe it could just be a local dialect? In your second example the noun and the adjective don't agree in gender so it seems a bit strange. :)
ludmilaThreads: 1
Posts: 4
Joined: Nov 4, 09
Gender: Female 		Edited by: ludmila   Nov 4, 09, 23:24   #32
I think that he meant "ee" in "dzien dobree" and "a" in "dzien dobra" phonetically. In first case it probably sounded to him like /ı/, and in the second like shva. Probably it was just the matter of personal pronunciation.

edit. I really have to learn how to quote properly here
gumishuThreads: 4
Posts: 1245
Joined: Apr 6, 09
Gender: Male 		   Nov 4, 09, 23:45   #33
ludmila:
edit. I really have to learn how to quote properly here

you mark the bits you want to quote just like you mark parts of text to copy and then use (click) the 'Quote' link right below the message you want to quote from
ludmilaThreads: 1
Posts: 4
Joined: Nov 4, 09
Gender: Female 		   Nov 4, 09, 23:53   #34
gumishu:
you mark the bits you want to quote just like you mark parts of text to copy and then use (click) the 'Quote' link right below the message you want to quote from

Thanks a lot, and sorry for offtopic:)
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