Incidents of In My Language, That Sounds Like... specifically involving the Polish language.
- "ratować" means "to save; to rescue" in Polish. It shares a root with the Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian word "ratovati", which means "to fight; to wage war".
- In Czech, ano (shortened to no, unlike in English pronounced with a monophtong) means "yes". In Polish, ano tak and no tak are also colloquial forms of "yes" (regular word is simply tak). And no, especially in internet communicators, may be interpreted as colloquial "yes" or English "no".
- The German "Ass" and Polish "As", again, referring to the card and The Ace.
- When Sci-Fi Channel decided to get rid of their nerdy image by renaming themselves Syfy they didn't do a simple text search of foreign dictionaries. It's Polish for acne and also the plural of "syf", which is Polish slang for "syphilis". And that's why the Polish channel was left unchanged.
- Polish, Czech and Slovak: These languages are generally similar enough for Bilingual Dialogue to work, but the differences can lead to amusing misunderstandings.
- For example the Polish word szukać (to look for) sounds a lot like a Czech word meaning to fuck. This has led to the following situation: A little Czech girl got lost somewhere in Poland. When she was finally found, she was apparently "intimidated by the language barrier". Especially after being told everyone's been looking for her.
- In fact, this happens even between modern Czech and classic 19th century Czech literary works.
- "Zachód" in Polish means west, but in Czech and Slovak "záchod" means a toilet. They're both derived from root words meaning to go down.
- Czerstwy chleb in Polish means "old bread" while in many Slavic languages it means "fresh." Further confusing in Polish "czerstwy staruszek" (staruszek means "old man") which means he is in good form rather than bad.
- For example the Polish word szukać (to look for) sounds a lot like a Czech word meaning to fuck. This has led to the following situation: A little Czech girl got lost somewhere in Poland. When she was finally found, she was apparently "intimidated by the language barrier". Especially after being told everyone's been looking for her.
- Another Polish one: tampon means any bit of cotton wadding, particularly in medical or dental use. So the possibilities for mirth are endless when a language textbook openly talks about Ela going to the dentist and putting a tampon in her mouth.
- Czech/Slovak/Polish/German fakt and Russian факт (meaning fact) is pronounced [fäkt] with open central vowel, like fucked in Australian English. The Czech word is often used to ask "is that a fact?" or "really?". Many a foreigner felt offended. In Czech and Polish the answer "Fakt." means something like "It's true."
- In Polish "pet" is a common colloquial term for "cigarette butt". On the other hand, "fart" means "fluke" or "good luck". Amusingly, some companies name themselves with that word.
- Czech car company name, Škoda (in Czech Š denotes sound like English sh or Polish sz), sounds like Polish "szkoda" (damage, or it's a pity, or as in waste of time/money/effort).
- There is a lightbulb company named "Osram" (a portmanteau of "Osmium" and "Wolfram" (tungsten)). In Polish, this literally means "I'll shit (on something)".
- Hyundai's brand new SUV is called the Kona. It's another unfortunate name for a car, because "kona" in Polish means that somebody is dying. So, "Hyundai Kona" to Polish people sounds literally like "Hyundai is dying".
- Finnish language has the words "matka" (journey) and "kotka" (eagle). Kotka is also a city in southern Finland. In Polish, the same words mean "mother" and "female cat", respectively.
- The Polish word for "he had"note is "miał", pronounced like the English onomatopoeia "meow". This is mainly because Polish underwent L-vocalization (like certain dialects of English like Cockney and Estuary), so the cognates in many other Slavic languages are pronounced with an L, like Czech "měl" (~mnyel)
- "ale" means "alcoholic drink" in English, "but" in Polish, Czech and Slovak, and "sale; discount" in Finnish.
- In several languages (Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian, Macedonian, Slovak, Hungarian and Czech), kurva means "whore". It means the same in Polish, where it's spelt kurwa. But in Swedish and Indonesian, kurva means "curve; bend".
- Be very careful if you're telling a Pole how much you love felines; "kat" in Polish means "executioner". The actual translation of "cat" is "kot", which sounds like "cot" (baby's bed) in English.
- "kota" is an inflected form of "cat" in Polish. It means "city" in Indonesian. Similarly, "kata" (inflected form of "executioner") means "word" in Indonesian.
- "Mam" is a dialectal form of "Mom/Mum" in English, and means "I have..." in Polish.
- "ordynarny" is Polish for "coarse, vulgar person", not "ordinary".
- "stół" is Polish for "table", but similar words in Afrikaans ("stoel") and Russian ("стул") mean "chair".
- "saam" means "together" in Afrikaans. "sam" means "alone" in Polish.
