In the slang of young people there are vocabulary words that are making a dizzying career and have their 5 minutes. From the media, funny and sometimes silly „pearls of wisdom” permeate colloquial language, which we eagerly quote and people we talk to immediately understand the meaning. Here are a few expressions, words that probably all Poles know and use:

1. Masakra, porażka, słabo, obciach.

Very likeable words. They are simply comments on a situation. The good news is we use them in the nominative case, they don’t have endings (!).

You were at the Cinema. Your friend asks:

– How was the movie? You: – Masakra! (horrible, dreadful) or – Porażka. (bad)

Your boss didn’t let you take a vacation. Your colleague remarks: – No to słabo (too bad).

You see someone in socks and sandals (a popular pairing in Poland) and you say:

– Ale obciach! (embarassment)

2. Super, ekstra, hiper, mega and even giga.

These are mega-popular prefixes, they go well with adjectives, adverbs and nouns. Everything can be hiper and mega:

       Ale mega piękny rower! Hiper szybko się na nim jeździ. Jesteś ekstra jak na nim siedzisz.

3. And now something for Internet users, which is almost all of us.

Who among us is not na fejsie? How many of us twittujeregularly?

When we enjoy something, we give lajki or we lajkujemy. If we have a mean character, we hejtujemy as much as we want.

4. And here are a few more gems that we owe to politicians.

When we want to emphasise that what we are saying is true, we can repeat after an important politician: „Jest oczywistą oczywistością…”.

Agreeing to something, but a bit without confidence, we quote the expresident: „Jestem za, a nawet przeciw”.

„Sorry! Taki mamy klimat.”-  this is what a deputy prime minister said when the winter attack paralysed Polish railways. We can repeat the same thing when someone complains about the multitude of duties or when our computer has just broken down.

Aleksandra Gołdyn