{"id":220,"date":"2008-08-29T11:41:46","date_gmt":"2008-08-29T15:41:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/?p=212"},"modified":"2008-08-29T11:41:46","modified_gmt":"2008-08-29T15:41:46","slug":"actually-eventually","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/actually-eventually\/","title":{"rendered":"Actually & Eventually"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Interesting things can happen when your car breaks down. For one, you have to ride the bus, which in itself is not that interesting, I admit. But staring at people and listening to their conversations is always fun. And sometimes, when you are sandwiched between two individuals talking loudly on their cell phones, you don\u2019t have that much choice and are forced to listen to their conversations, whether you like it or not. Then all you can do is hope that at least they\u2019re going to talk about something interesting. And that is exactly what happened this morning.<\/p>\n

I was sitting next to a lady who was talking to someone (sounded like her significant other) on her mobile phone. In English. And thanks to her now I have something interesting to blog about today. The lady, quite frustrated, was telling the person on the phone that she was \u201cdoing it actually\u201d<\/em> though I\u2019m not sure what she was referring to. This is what followed:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Frustrated lady on the phone: \u201cWhen? What do you mean \u2018when\u2019???\u201d<\/em>
\nPaused to listen, and then:
\n\u201cI told you already when – actually!\u201d<\/em> and to drive the point home, she repeated it several times: \u201cActually. Actually. Now actually.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

And because I was exceptionally slow on the uptake this morning, it hadn\u2019t occurred to me that she was translating verbatim from Polish, until she nearly screamed into her cell phone: \u201cAktualnie!<\/strong>\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then I finally understood.<\/p>\n

You see, even though \u201cactually<\/em>\u201d in English and \u201caktualnie<\/strong><\/em>\u201d in Polish look and sound very similar, they don\u2019t mean the same thing. Yet many people (even some Polish English teachers I\u2019ve met) think they do.<\/p>\n