It's true. I won't be going bald anytime soon! I can stop pulling my hair out in frustration. My prayers have been answered. Yippee!
What is the reason for my joy and glee you ask?
I now have what I have longed for for many years... a complete Polish / English dictionary. It's not an ordinary Polish / English dictionary, it's a COMPLETE one. What do I mean by that? I mean I can look up a Polish word in any of it's glorious conjugations or cases and find out what it means. This is terrific because in the past I'd have had to know the root of a word to find it's meaning and with 7 cases in the Polish language, believe me, that was often a challenging task. Here's an example of what I mean...
mieć = to have
Present Tense-Actual
ja mam = I have
ty masz = you have (singular)
on/ona/ono ma = he/she/it has
my mamy = we have
wy mamy = you have (plural)
oni /one mają = they have
Present Tense-Frequentative
miewam
miewasy
miewa
miewamy
miewacie
miewają
Past Tense-Actual
ja miałem/miałam
ty miałeś/miałaś
on/ona/ono miał/miała/miało
my mieliśmy/miałyśmy
wy mieliście/miałyście
oni/one mieli/miały
Past Tense-Frequentative
miewałem/miewałam
miewałeś/miewałaś
miewał/miewała/miewało
miewaliśmy/miewałyśmy
miewalicie/miewałycie
miewali/miewały
Future Tense-Actual
ja będę miał/miała
ty będziesz miał/miała
on/ona/ono będzie miał/miała/miało
my będziemy mieli/miały
wy będziecie mieli/miały
oni/one będą mieli/miały
Future Tense-Frequentative
miewał/miewała
miewał/miewała
miewał/miewała/miewało
miewali/miewały
miewali/miewały
miewali/miewały
Conditional-Actual
ja miałbzm/miałabym
ty miałbyś/miałabyś
on/ona/ono miałby/miałaby/miałoby
my mielibyśmy/miałybyśmy
wy mielibyście/miałybyście
oni/one mieliby/miałyby
Conditional-Frequentative
etc. etc. etc.
Imperative... Particples... on and on...
All those words in bold print... they are versions of "mieć" which means "to have". But if I come across any of them when I'm reading I won't be able to find them in a standard dictionary. Just like in an English dictionary you won't find "parties" as a separate word. You have to know that it is a version of the root word "party" and then you'll find the meaning of it in the dictionary. Same is true here. But if you don't know the language, like I don't know Polish, when you see "będziecie" you don't think, gee, I wonder what "mieć" means. You look up "będziecie" (not realizing it's paired with "wy" and "mieli") and you come up with nothing. Now I can look up "będziecie", be referred to "być" and learn that it's a version of "mieć" which it tells me means "to have". Yay! :-D
I know this is not unique to the Polish language, having to know the root of a word to look up the meaning. But yee-gads that makes it tough to translate a Polish document for research!!!
If you are researching ancestors with Polish roots you're bound to come across this same problem. And now you too have the means to solve your problem. You can find it for free on the University of Pittsburgh web site...
Online Dictionary, Polish>English, English>Polish
Hat tip to guest blogger Barb, writing for Anna's Polish Blog.
