Bits of Polish

Maybe saying that there are as many date-writing conventions as countries in the world is a bold exaggeration, but it’s not that far from the truth. The Polish way of writing dates isn’t very different from how it’s done in the English-speaking world, but you might want to pay attention to some important details – that is, if you really want to be fully correct. Not that all native speakers are, of course…

First of all, looking at Polish dates, you might have noticed the lonely r. that often appears after the year: 13.12.1987 r. It’s an abbreviation of the word rok, meaning year. If you’re reading this aloud, though, you have to put this word in the Genitive case: roku. And yeah, there’s a full stop after the r. Don’t omit it.

Is this r. compulsory? No, but it’s very common, and many people put it there out of habit.

Secondly, brush up on your Roman numerals, as they are often used to write the month. For example, the previous example can be written as 13 XII 1987 r. Again, this is mostly a matter of habit – I got used to it in school, for example – not something you have to do. This convention is very useful, though, since it obviates any ambiguity that can emerge if both the day and the month are written with Arabic numerals.

Thirdly, remember the punctuation – this is where many people make mistakes. You probably noticed the difference in the examples above. If you write everything with Arabic numerals, you put full stops after the day and the month. You don’t put them there if you’re using a Roman numeral (apart from the full stop after the r. of course).

Finally, if you’re familiar with the Polish months and their declination, you can write out the month. Why do I mention declination? Because you have to put the month in the Genitive case. As for the punctuation, you don’t use full stops here either. For example:

10 stycznia 1999 r.
10 I 1999 r.
10.1.1999 r.

1 października 2004 r.
1 X 2004 r.
1.10.2004 r.

When it comes to exploring the wonderful world of Polish cases, you have to find your way around two broad areas: how to decline the words – which boils down to memorizing the appropriate tables – and, more importantly, when to use which case. This is not always straightforward; for example, even if you know from other languages that the genitive expresses possesion, and that the accusative marks the direct object, you’ll still find Polish abounding with surprises. Certain verbs and prepositions take certain cases for no apparent reason (unless you have a PhD in the history of slavic languages, but then you’re not reading this – hopefully), so you’ll just have to suck it up.

That’s why I’ve decided to embark on this little quest to describe the use of cases. We’ll start today by looking at the genitive.

Units of measure

kawałek chleba
a piece of bread
butelka wody
a bottle of water
pół roku
half a year

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To jest książka.

This is a book. Nominative case, so that you can see the basic form of the noun.

Mam książkę.

I have a book. Accusative case.