I was writing a semi-official letter the other day, and even before I managed to get to “Szanowna Pani“, I was already stumped. Not that it’s anything usual, me getting stumped, but it’s been happening with amazing regularity lately.
Anyway, my MS Word automatically fills in the current date according to the American system: the month comes first, then the day, then a comma, and then the year. And suddenly, I was sitting there in front of my laptop deep in thought, not entirely sure how to properly write it in Polish. The key word here, of course, is “properly.”
Dates in Poland are written in several different ways.
– rok (year), miesiąc (month), dzień (day),
– dzień (day), miesiąc (month), rok (year),
– as numerals: 3.10.2009, or 3.10.09,
– or like this: 3 X 2009
– sometimes there’s a lone “r” following the year: 2009 r.
– with the month spelled out, and so on…
– and if we’re going to spell the month, does it decline, or not?
You see where I’m going with this, right? Such a simple, everyday thing as the current date left me scrambling for some heavy-duty Polish language help.
And what did I learn? That when it comes to the correct date format(s) in Polish, pretty much anything goes, except (hey, of course there would be an “except” – after all this is Polish we’re talking about here, and everybody knows we live for “excepts”):
– the date format should be appropriate to the text (official, private, etc),
– if you choose to write the month as a Roman numeral, it’s a mistake to write the date like this “3.X.2009 r.” There should be no dots before and after the Roman numeral,
– and, yes the month does decline. So, we need to write “3 października 2009 r.”, and not “3 październik 2009 r.”
– and finally, the date should follow this order: day-month-year, or year-month-date (for official correspondence), and unfortunately, it means that you can’t begin with the month, as my MS Word insists on doing.
The “r.” is short for “rok” (year) and if you feel like it, you can spell out the whole word. But of course, it declines as well. So it’s “3 października 2009 roku” and not “3 październik 2009 rok”. But if you don’t like that “r”, you can skip it altogether and write “3 października 2009” or “3.10.09” or “3.10.2009”.
So, how did I finally write it in my letter?
2009.10.03 for easy filing of official correspondence that nobody bothers to read anyway.
PS. For my native Polish readers who, I’m sure, will feel the need to tell me that my info is incorrect, or not entirely correct – this post was written based on advice taken from PWN’s “Poradnik językowy” and my conversation with a polonistyka professor at a very prestigious Polish university.
Comments:
sandy maher:
Why didi all the extra stuff show up?
for example.
Maria Clara Soares Correia:
Hi!
Unfortunately my mail text is again blank and I can’t fully read this text either. Something is going on the wrong way and I am missing this wonderful blog. Sooooooooooooooorry
Love from
Clara
David Honley:
Hi
Yes, like the previous commeny, what’s happened to these blog presentations of late? There seems to be a lot of program language around. Please correct. Thank you.
Pozdrawiam
David
Michael:
Maybe Anna thought that the Polish language was getting too easy for us and we should learn a computer langauge also! 🙂
Anna Ikeda:
Guys, I don’t see any computer language on my end. Let me look into it and see what’s going on, OK?
GEORGE SZYMANSKI:
An unrelated question. I have finally installed a “telewizja na karte” card and can receive TVP1 and TVP2 on my satellite system. Tried watching Plebania and Klan expecting English subtitles but was disappointed. Are there any serials on TVP, TVP1, TVP2 with English subtitles?
p.s.Installed the card in my existing (technomate) receiver and activated it on the internet with no problems.
basia:
Hi George:
The lack of subtitles is baffling. I’ll take a look thru TVP’s offerings over the next few days and suggest a few others.
thomas westcott:
Anna,
Just out of curiosity, Is your ms word on your computer in Polish? Or is it in English?
Do you have a Polish keyboard or do you use the character set to get : Ą , ą , Ć , ć , Ę , ę , Ł , ł , Ń , ń , Ó , ó , Ś , ś , Ź , ź , Ż, and ż ? If I want to display Polish letters correctly here when I write a post, then I use open office. There is a macro that I use which allows me to type in both English and Polish in the same document. 🙂 The spell checker is in English only. I doubt if their is a spell checker for Polish. If there were then you could use that for correcting your declensions. 🙂
Mchl:
There is a Polish spell checker for Open Office 3, although I had some problems making it work (and eventually I do not know, what exactly I did, but it works).
Also there’s a Polish spell checker for Firefox.
The easiest way to type Polish characters in Windows is to install (if possible) a Polish keyboard layout called ‘Polish (programmer’s)’. This maps Polish letters to ‘right alt + letter’, so to get ł you use ‘RAlt+l’, for ż you use ‘RAlt+z’ and for Ź – ‘RAlt + X’ 😉
Daniel:
I use Open Office for my Polish class assignments. I have the language set to Polish and have found it excellent to use. However, I still have to think hard about the correct grammatical endings to use!
mush:
Hi,
I found this site because I was Googling how to read a date written in Polish. On the back of a photograph taken in Poland, is written 12/IV/38. The year is 1938. Is the date April 12 or December 4? I can’t figure it out because as you said there are different formats of writing European way. You say the month can be written in Roman numeral, does that mean it is April 12? Your help is appreciated. Please email me back if possible.
Anna:
@mush that would be 12 April 1938.
h.w.j. k.:
PolonistYka is the specialty.
Polonistka is the professional.
Regards,
HK
Gwendolynn:
I recently bought a box at an antique store that comes from Poland. I’m trying to understand the information written on it. I’m trying to figure out what “w – wa ul. majowa 1/3 m 28” means and I was wondering if it was a date. Can you help me?
Mitka:
Thank you for that, it was quite helpful 🙂