{"id":620,"date":"2009-10-03T07:53:30","date_gmt":"2009-10-03T11:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/?p=620"},"modified":"2009-10-03T07:53:30","modified_gmt":"2009-10-03T11:53:30","slug":"how-to-write-dates-po-polsku-naturally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/how-to-write-dates-po-polsku-naturally\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Write Dates (po polsku, naturally)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was writing a semi-official letter the other day, and even before I managed to get to “Szanowna Pani<\/strong>“, I was already stumped. Not that it\u2019s anything usual, me getting stumped, but it\u2019s been happening with amazing regularity lately.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cproperly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dates in Poland are written in several different ways.<\/p>\n

– <\/span><\/span>rok<\/strong> (year), miesi\u0105c<\/strong> (month), dzie\u0144<\/strong> (day),<\/p>\n

– <\/span><\/span>dzie\u0144<\/strong> (day), miesi\u0105c<\/strong> (month), rok<\/strong> (year),<\/p>\n

– <\/span><\/span>as numerals: 3.10.2009, or 3.10.09,<\/p>\n

– <\/span><\/span>or like this: 3 X 2009<\/p>\n

– <\/span><\/span>sometimes there\u2019s a lone \u201cr<\/strong>\u201d following the year: 2009 r<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

– <\/span><\/span>with the month spelled out, and so on\u2026<\/p>\n

– <\/span><\/span>and if we\u2019re going to spell the month, does it decline, or not?<\/p>\n

You see where I\u2019m going with this, right? Such a simple, everyday thing as the current date left me scrambling for some heavy-duty Polish language help.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cexcept\u201d \u2013 after all this is Polish we\u2019re talking about here, and everybody knows we live for \u201cexcepts\u201d)<\/em>:<\/p>\n

– <\/span><\/span>the date format should be appropriate to the text (official, private, etc),<\/p>\n

– <\/span><\/span>if you choose to write the month as a Roman numeral, it\u2019s a mistake to write the date like this “3.X.2009 r.” There should be no dots before and after the Roman numeral,<\/p>\n

– <\/span><\/span>and, yes the month does decline. So, we need to write \u201c3 pa\u017adziernika 2009 r.<\/strong>\u201d, and not \u201c3 pa\u017adziernik 2009 r.\u201d<\/p>\n

– <\/span><\/span>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\u2019t begin with the month, as my MS Word insists on doing.<\/p>\n

The \u201cr<\/strong>.\u201d is short for \u201crok<\/strong>\u201d (year) and if you feel like it, you can spell out the whole word. But of course, it declines as well. So it\u2019s \u201c3 pa\u017adziernika 2009 roku<\/strong>\u201d and not \u201c3 pa\u017adziernik 2009 rok\u201d. But if you don\u2019t like that \u201cr<\/strong>\u201d, you can skip it altogether and write \u201c3 pa\u017adziernika 2009<\/strong>\u201d or \u201c3.10.09\u201d or \u201c3.10.2009\u201d.<\/p>\n

So, how did I finally write it in my letter?<\/p>\n

2009.10.03 for easy filing of official correspondence that nobody bothers to read anyway.<\/p>\n

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 j\u0119zykowy<\/strong>” and my conversation with a polonistyka<\/strong> professor at a very prestigious Polish university.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s anything usual, me getting stumped, but it\u2019s been happening with amazing regularity lately. Anyway, my MS Word automatically fills in the current date according to the American system: the…<\/p>\n

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