Episode 65: Extra Length Valentine's Day Special!

Kocha, lubi, szanuje, nie chce, nie dba, żartuje, w myśli, w mowie, w sercu, na ślubnym kobiercu 

English Phonemes: “KOH-hah LOO-bee [sz]ah-NOO-yeh nyeh htseh nyeh dbah [ż]ahr-TOO-yeh v MIHSH-lee v MOH-vyeh v SEHR-tsooh nah SHLOOB-nihm koh-BYEHR-tsooh”

Literal Translation: Loves, likes, respects, not want, not care for, is joking, in mind, in speech, in heart, on wedding rug

Elegant Translation: (S)He loves, (s)he likes, (s)he respects, (s)he doesn’t want, (s)he doesn’t take care of, (s)he is joking, in thoughts, in speech, in the heart, on the wedding runner.

English Equivalent: (s)he loves me, (s)he loves me not

In this extra length Valentine’s Day Special episode, we go over the incredibly long phrase that Poles have instead of the English “(s)he loves me, (s)he loves me not” flower petal picking ritual.

I personally love this one even more because it is gender agnostic. Sometimes in gendered languages, you have to change words based on the gender of the person speaking, or the gender of the person being spoken to, or the gender of the person being spoken about. Funnily enough, the English equivalent uses gendered pronouns. But here, the third person tense is used, but the gender is irrelevant. You can be any gender and talking about any gender and it all applies in this case. No extra variants to learn and specially apply. All inclusive phrase. Ain’t that great?

You can use flowers, like the English tradition, but we Poles use the leaves of an Acacia tree. I’m not sure why.   

Here’s a link to a wikipedia article in Polish that describes more about this tradition: https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kocha,_nie_kocha... You can run any part through a translator to get the gist, which I recommend because if you pick the English version of this page, it won’t describe all the Polish variants.

Kocha = he/she/it loves

Lubi = he/she/it likes 

Szanuje = he/she/it respects, takes care of

Nie Chce = he/she/it does not want

Nie Dba = he/she/it does not care for/take care of

Żartuje = he/she/it is joking, playing around

W Myśli = in mind, thoughts

W Mowie = in speech, talking

W Sercu = in heart

Na Ślubnym Kobiercu = on wedding runner [preposition, then object form adj and noun]

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