{"id":687,"date":"2010-02-15T00:06:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-15T04:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/?p=687"},"modified":"2010-02-15T00:06:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-15T04:06:00","slug":"sympathy-for-sympatia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/sympathy-for-sympatia\/","title":{"rendered":"Sympathy for &#8220;Sympatia&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Valentine\u2019s Day (<strong>walentynki<\/strong>) came and went and I hope it was a pleasant occasion for you with <strong>czekoladki <\/strong>(chocolates), <strong>kwiatki<\/strong> (flowers) and <strong>romantyczna kolacyjka<\/strong> (romantic dinner).<br \/>\n(Yes, all of the above are diminutive nouns, but that\u2019s how we would say it).<\/p>\n<p>What this Valentine\u2019s Day made me realize was how confusing the word \u201c<strong>sympatia<\/strong>\u201d is for both Poles (when speaking English) and foreigners who are learning Polish.<\/p>\n<p>I was reading a blog by a Polish woman, but written in English, and she mentioned something along the lines of \u201cI am going to spend the day with my sympathy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At first it didn&#8217;t even register. \u201cSympathy\u201d? Somebody died on Valentine\u2019s Day?<\/p>\n<p>And then I remembered my high school days and figured it out what she was talking about. And what she was talking about was her \u201c<strong>sympatia<\/strong>\u201d \u2013 boyfriend.<br \/>\n<strong>Sympatia<\/strong> is a handy all-purpose word, it can mean \u201cboyfriend\u201d or \u201cgirlfriend\u201d, or generally, somebody you have a crush on and are not even at a boyfriend-girlfriend level (yet).<\/p>\n<p>So, what about \u201csympathy\u201d? That\u2019s <strong>wsp\u00f3\u0142czucie<\/strong> in Polish.<\/p>\n<p>Confusing? Just a little.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<strong>Sympatia<\/strong>\u201d (<em>noun<\/em>, pl. <em>sympatie<\/em>) comes from the word \u201c<strong>sympatyczny<\/strong>\u201d (<em>adjective, feminine:<\/em> <strong>sympatyczna<\/strong>).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sympatyczny ch\u0142opak<\/strong> (when talking about a guy), or <strong>sympatyczna dziewczyna<\/strong> (when talking about a girl) is someone who is nice, fun, loveable, pleasant and helpful. In other words, all the qualities we want in our prospective mates, right?<\/p>\n<p>So there you have it, sympathy and <strong>sympatia<\/strong> are definitely two different things. And just because they sound vaguely similar in both languages, it doesn\u2019t mean they can be used interchangeably.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2010\/02\/heart.jpg\" aria-label=\"Heart\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-688\"  alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"292\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2010\/02\/heart.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"300\" height=\"292\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2010\/02\/heart.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image tmp-hide-img\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><p>Valentine\u2019s Day (walentynki) came and went and I hope it was a pleasant occasion for you with czekoladki (chocolates), kwiatki (flowers) and romantyczna kolacyjka (romantic dinner). (Yes, all of the above are diminutive nouns, but that\u2019s how we would say it). What this Valentine\u2019s Day made me realize was how confusing the word \u201csympatia\u201d is&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/sympathy-for-sympatia\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[264,110,7583,7584],"class_list":["post-687","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vocabulary","tag-false-friends","tag-nouns","tag-sympathy","tag-sympatia"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}