LESSON NOTES

Absolute Beginner S1 #18

Are There Still Knights in Poland?

CONTENTS
2 Polish
2 English
2 Vocabulary
3 Sample Sentences
3 Vocabulary Phrase Usage
4 Grammar
6 Cultural Insight

# 18
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 POLISH

1. Alex: Łał! Ten zamek jest ogromny!

2. Gosia: Podoba ci się?

3. Alex: Jest świetny!

4. Gosia: Ten zamek zbudowali Krzyżacy w 1406.

5. Alex: Ponad 600 lat temu!!

ENGLISH

1. Alex: Wow! This castle is enormous!

2. Gosia: Do you like it?

3. Alex: It's awesome!

4. Gosia: Teutonic Knights built this castle in 1406.

5. Alex: More than six-hundred years ago!!

VOCABULARY

Polish English C lass Ge nde r

non-masculine-
lata years noun personal

zbudować to build verb

ten this (masculine) pronoun masculine

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 świetny great adjective

ogromny huge adjective masculine

ponad more than comparative

temu ago time particle

zamek castle noun masculine

SAMPLE SENTENCES

Ile masz lat? Mój tata zbudował ten dom.

"How old are you?" "My dad built this house."

Ten telewizor jest stary. Ten film jest świetny!

This TV is old. This movie is great!

To jest ogromny pies! Ten zamek ma ponad 500 lat.

"This is a huge dog!" "This castle is more than 500 years old."

5 lat temu miałam długie włosy. To jest bardzo stary zamek

"5 years ago I had long hair." "This is a very old castle."

VOCABULARY PHRASE USAGE

ogromny - "huge"

One of the adjectives used in the dialogue is ogromny. This masculine adjective means
"huge" in English. Its feminine form is ogromna, and the neuter form is ogromne. The root
word of ogromny is the noun ogrom, which means a big amount or size of something and can
be translated into "hugeness" or "greatness."

świetny - "great/splendid"

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Another adjective we have heard in the dialogue is świetny. Of course the form given is
masculine. The other forms are śwetna (feminine) and świetne (neuter). This adjective means
"great, splendid" in English. It's a very commonly used word among young generations.
Another form, which is very popular among Poles, is the adverb świetnie. Whenever you're
irritated or unhappy about something, the natural reaction is Świetnie! But then you must
remember to use the correct intonation, which will make it obvious to the listener that you're
unhappy. If your intonation is not correct, this word will imply that you are happy instead.

Zamek

Zamek is a masculine noun with more than one meaning. The one that was mentioned in the
dialogue is "castle." Other English nouns which are also translated into the Polish word
zamek are "lock" and "zipper."

GRAMMAR

The Focus of this Lesson is the Numbers from Two-hundred to One-thousand

Ponad 600 lat temu!!

"More than 600 years ago!!"

As you have already noticed, counting in Polish is rather easy and straightforward. In this
lesson, we will continue the study of Polish numbers.

dwieście "two-hundred"

trzysta "three-hundred"

czterysta "four-hundred"

pięśset "five-hundred"

sześćset "six-hundred"

siedemset "seven-hundred"

osiemset "eight-hundred"

dziewięćset "nine-hundred"

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tysiąc "one-thousand"

The first three—dwieście ("two-hundred"), trzysta ("three-hundred"), and czterysta ("four-

hundred")—are a little irregular, so the only thing you can do is memorize them, but for the
rest, there's a pattern. As long as you've mastered smaller numbers, you will have no
problems with counting to one-thousand. All hundreds above four-hundred end with the suffix
-set. So we have:

pięć + set = pięćset (500)

sześć + set = sześćset (600)

siedem + set = siedemset (700)

osiem + set = osiemset (800)

dziewięć + set = dziewięćset (900)

When creating numbers like 170 or 537, just like in English, you just need to put the
component numbers together. For example, 170 is made from sto, which means "one
hundred," and siedemdziesiąt, which means "seventy." Then 537 will be pięćset trzydzieści
siedem. Let's go through a few more examples:

1. 862 - osiemset sześćdziesiąt dwa

2. 199 - sto dziewięćdziesiąt dziewięć

3. 481 - czterysta osiemdziesiąt jeden

4. 665 - sześćset sześćdziesiąt pięć

5. 232 - dwieście trzydzieści dwa

In the dialogue, Alex and Gosia were talking about a Teutonic Knights' castle, which was built
six-hundred years before. How did Alex say that in Polish? It was Ponad 600 lat temu! ("More
thansix-hundred years ago"). Let's break down the sentence. The first component is the
preposition ponad, which means "more than," and then we have the number 600 (sześćset).
Next there's lat, which is the declined form of the noun lata, meaning "years," and lastly, temu,
which means "ago." All together, we have Ponad 600 (sześćset) lat temu.

1. Mam 234 (dwieście trzydzieści cztery) płyty CD.

"I have 234 CDs."

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2. 222 (dwieście dwadzieścia dwa) to moja ulubiona liczba.
"222 is my favorite number."

3. Ten ser waży 460 (czterysta sześćdziesiąt) gram.

"This cheese weighs 460 grams."

4. Ta książka ma 1893 (tysiąc osiemset dziewięćdziesiąt trzy) strony.

"This book has 1,893 pages."

5. Mój tata dostał rachunek telefoniczny na 612 (sześćset dwanaście) złotych!

"My dad got 612 zloty phone bill."

CULTURAL INSIGHT

Malbork Castle

In the small town of Malbork in northern Poland, there is one of thirteen Polish sites which are
on the UNESCO World Heritage List: Malbork Castle—built in 1406 by Teutonic Knights. The
castle is the largest brick building in all of Europe. The tour around the castle takes roughly
three hours and can be done in a group, together with a guide, or with an audio guide, which
is available in many foreign languages. The castle's museum organizes many exhibitions
through the year and also a few annual events. The most spectacular is the Siege of Malbork.
It's a four-day outdoor spectacle, the largest in Europe. The event is rich in all that can make
us more familiar with a knight's life: workshops, archery, lance and sword tournaments,
medieval cuisine, fashion, and plebeian games and dances. The main attraction is the siege
of the castle, during which you can see the Polish king, knights on horses, amazing sword
fights, some siege machines in use, fires, explosions, and much more. Malbork Castle is
definitely a place no one should miss while visiting Poland.

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