{"id":691,"date":"2010-02-20T21:49:47","date_gmt":"2010-02-21T01:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/?p=691"},"modified":"2010-02-20T21:49:47","modified_gmt":"2010-02-21T01:49:47","slug":"surviving-the-first-hello","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/surviving-the-first-hello\/","title":{"rendered":"Surviving the First Hello"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000080\"><em>Another totally awesome post by our resident guest blogger &#8211; Adam.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>We will get back to being cool in Poland in my next post. This time, inspired by the adventures of some newbies to Poland, I would like to tackle the issue of being polite.<\/p>\n<p>The rules on how you behave vary from country to country. In Britain, for instance, it is customary to acknowledge the presence of another person, but try not to be invasive. There you would be asked, <em>&#8220;How are you?&#8221;<\/em> and you would reply that everything is fine. Which is their way of saying hello.<\/p>\n<p>This would be unthinkable in Poland.<\/p>\n<p>In Poland you should only ask how someone is (<strong>jak si\u0119 masz?<\/strong>), only if you REALLY care. Not just to say hello. Because you will hear the real answer. And you can hear any sort of answer.<\/p>\n<p>Some people might go into very personal details of their family situation, finance, health, or whatever \u2013 which might make you feel uncomfortable. The most common and the most polite way in Poland is to complain. If anyone ever asks you how you are, here is a list of popular complaints:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> <strong>&#8211;\tto co si\u0119 dzieje w polityce przechodzi ludzkie poj\u0119cie!<\/strong> (politics is going mad!)<\/li>\n<li> <strong>&#8211;\tmam b\u00f3le g\u0142owy<\/strong> (I have headaches)<\/li>\n<li> <strong>&#8211;\tte dziury w drogach, nie da si\u0119 \u017cy\u0107 w tym kraju<\/strong> (look at the potholes, it\u2019s impossible to live in this country)<\/li>\n<li> <strong>&#8211;\tprzez te korki marnuj\u0119 p\u00f3\u0142 dnia!<\/strong> (I\u2019m wasting half a day stuck in traffic!)<\/li>\n<li> <strong>&#8211;\tszef mnie nie lubi<\/strong> (my boss doesn\u2019t like me)<\/li>\n<li> <strong>&#8211;\tjak tu utrzyma\u0107 tr\u00f3jk\u0119 dzieci, kiedy p\u0142ac\u0105 ludziom marne grosze<\/strong> (how does one feed three kids when they pay you peanuts)<\/li>\n<li> <strong>&#8211;\tnic ciekawego nie pokazuj\u0105 w telewizji<\/strong> (there\u2019s nothing good on tv these days)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And on the other hand, the worst social faux-pas is to brag. You should never talk about how great your financial situation is, how wonderful your life is, how much your partner loves you, or your newest promotion \u2013 especially to a person you don\u2019t know very well, like a neighbor. People just will be stunned, or think you\u2019re a bouffon. If there is nothing bad going on in your life, which you could complain about, go for &#8220;<strong>jako tako<\/strong>&#8221; (I\u2019m doing so-so) or &#8220;<strong>okej<\/strong>&#8221; (O.K.).<\/p>\n<p>The correct way to say hello in Poland is to actually say hello. <strong>Dzie\u0144 dobry<\/strong> (good morning), <strong>dobry wiecz\u00f3r<\/strong> (good evening), <strong>cze\u015b\u0107<\/strong> (hi!), <strong>witam<\/strong> (hi!). And remember the golden rule: don\u2019t care \u2013 don\u2019t ask. If you want to be polite to a stranger, make some general observation &#8211; about the weather, surroundings, or recent news.<\/p>\n<p>Another thing an English speaker should keep in mind, is that the Polish language sounds monotonous. The accent almost always falls on the second-to-last syllable. There is little variation in intonation or melody. Therefore, when a Polish person asks a question, expresses sympathy or compassion \u2013 not much of this is reflected in the tone of their voice. A simple question &#8220;<strong>Mo\u017ce jeszcze herbaty?<\/strong>&#8221; (would you like more tea?) might sound rude.<\/p>\n<p>Most of our readers are probably well aware of the custom of addressing grown-ups as <strong>Pan\/Pani<\/strong> (Sir\/Madam) rather than <strong>ty<\/strong> (you). However, if you meet someone who is addressed in a special way due to their position or occupation, it is polite if you do it, too. Here\u2019s an example: if you meet a priest (<strong>ksi\u0105dz<\/strong>), even though you are an atheist (<strong>ateista<\/strong>), it would be polite to address him as &#8220;<strong>ksi\u0105dz<\/strong>&#8221; rather than Pan: &#8220;<strong>Prosz\u0119 ksi\u0119dza&#8230;<\/strong>&#8220;, &#8220;<strong>Co s\u0142ycha\u0107 u ksi\u0119dza?<\/strong>&#8220;, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, <strong>jak si\u0119 macie czytelnicy i czytelniczki Polskiego Bloga?<\/strong> \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another totally awesome post by our resident guest blogger &#8211; Adam. We will get back to being cool in Poland in my next post. This time, inspired by the adventures of some newbies to Poland, I would like to tackle the issue of being polite. The rules on how you behave vary from country to&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/surviving-the-first-hello\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7414,76,2195,7511,3020],"class_list":["post-691","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture","tag-forms-of-address","tag-greetings","tag-hello","tag-personality","tag-politeness"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691","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=691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}