Category Archives: language

by | 7 April 2026 · 12:27 am

Polish Realia: Blood Donations

Zaznacz prawidłową odpowiedź: Prawda/Fałsz
Select the correct answer: True/False

  1. Przed donacją trzeba znać swoją grupę krwi.
    Before the donation, one must know one’s blood group.
  2. Przerwa między oddaniami krwi pełnej nie może być krótsza niż 8 tygodni.
    The interval between whole blood donations may not be shorter than 8 weeks.
  3. Do przeszczepienia wątroby często potrzeba aż 20 jednostek krwi.
    For a liver transplant often require as many as 20 units of blood.
  4. Jeden Biorca często potrzebuje pomocy kilku Dawców.
    One Recipient often needs the help of several Donors.
  5. Dawca może przyjmować witaminy.
    The Donor can take vitamins.
  6. Składniki krwi przechowuje się razem.
    Blood components are stored together.
  7. Noworodkom podaje się krew tylko od dorosłych, którzy są nimi spokrewnieni.
    Newborns are given blood only from adults who are related to them.
  8. Wegetarianie I weganie nie mogą oddawać krwi.
    Vegetarians and vegans may not donate blood.
  9. Przeziębienie jest przeciwwskazaniem do oddania krwi lub jej składników.
    A cold is a contraindication to donating blood or its components.
  10. Po donacji organizm Dawcy produkuje nadwyżki krwi.
    After donation, the Donor’s body produces surplus blood.
  11. Osoba leczona krwią nie może nigdy zostać Dawcą.
    A person treated with blood can never become a Donor.
  12. Zaostrzona alergia jest przeciwwskazaniem czasowym dla Dawców.
    Exacerbated allergy is a temporary contraindication for Donors.
  13. Po donacji organism uzupełnia braki w ciągu 3-4 dni.
    After donation, the body replenishes deficiencies within 3-4 days.

Poprawne odpowiedzi: N T T T T N N N T N N T T
Correct answers: F T T T T F F F T F F T T

Leave a comment

Filed under disease, education, language, Poland

by | 6 April 2026 · 12:53 am

Polish Realia: Brewery Operating Steps

On the occasion of Śmigus-Dyngus:
From the illustrated placemat at Browar Pivovaria, in Radom, Poland.
Najlepsze Piwa z Radomia / Warzone na Miejscu
‘Best beer from Radom / Brewed on Site’

Słód ‘malt’
Mielenie Słodu / śrutownik ‘grinding the malt’ / ‘grinder’
Zacieranie / kadż zaciera + woda ‘rubbing / mash tun + water’
Filtracja / kadż filtracyjna ‘filtration / filtration vat’
Gotowanie / kocioł warzelny + chmiel ‘cooking / boiling kettle + hops’
Schładzanie Brzeczki / wymiennik ciepła ‘cooling the wort / heat exchanger’
Fermentacja / tank fermentacyjny + drożdże ‘fermentation / fermentation tank + yeast’
Leżakowanie / tank leżakowy ‘aging / aging tanks’
Butelka ‘bottle’ or Keg ‘keg’

Leave a comment

Filed under food, language, Poland, religion

by | 4 April 2026 · 6:47 am

Poland’s Underground State

From the Epilogue by Neal Ascherson in Wojtek the Bear: Polish War Hero, by Aileen Orr (Birlinn, 2014), Kindle pp. 170-173:

The couriers who reached London did not only bring despatches from the resistance. They were themselves direct witnesses to the appalling nature of the Nazi occupation. The messenger Jan Karski laid before British and American statesmen the full news of the Jewish genocide. Jan Nowak (Jeziorański) was sent out of burning Warsaw during the 1944 uprising to plead with the Allies for help. In the West, most people knew that the occupation was brutal, especially in its treatment of the Jews. But the governments of the democracies were slow, even reluctant, to believe the sheer scale and intensity of horror which the Polish messengers and the exile government revealed to them.

In German-occupied Poland, some 5.4 million people died in concentration camps or mass executions, 3 million of them Jews. That figure does not include casualties caused directly by war and, in all, Poland lost roughly a fifth of its pre-war population. Its industry and infrastructure were almost completely destroyed, while much of Poland’s cultural heritage was burned or looted. In 1944, the whole central city of Warsaw was blown up on Hitler’s orders and reduced to rubble.

After the 1939 invasion, the Nazis divided their half of Poland into two regions. The first consisted of territory in the west of the country which was simply absorbed into the Reich, the Polish population being driven out and replaced by German settlers. The second region was the ‘General Government’, a kind of colonial protectorate ruled from Kraków by the tyrannical Hans Frank. It was in the General Government that almost all the extermination camps were constructed for the Jewish Holocaust, the industrial murder of Europe’s Jews by gas. (Auschwitz lay just out[side] the General Government, in the Upper Silesian region absorbed by the Reich.)

In the General Government, the SS began a programme of selective genocide, designed to destroy the Polish elite and to prevent any national revival. Academics, creative intellectuals and the priesthood were targeted. A little later, the German authorities started to round up the first of 3.5 million men and women for slave labour in German war industries or agriculture. Villages which resisted were burned down; their men were shot, the women deported and the children either killed or kidnapped for ‘Germanisation’ in German families.

These conditions brought immense popular support for the resistance. But at first the AK concentrated on building up its strength and acquiring weapons, and it was not until 1942 that widespread attacks on the German occupiers began. The price for resistance, even for disobeying regulations, was usually death. In the cities, the Germans carried out random mass round-ups of ‘hostages’ who were lined up against walls and shot, their bodies left lying on the street as a warning against defiance or disobedience. Ghettos were set up in the towns, as a prelude to the Jewish genocide, and the penalty for hiding an escaped Jew was immediate execution for the rescuer and his or her whole family.

In spite of these risks, the underground state survived and proliferated. This was not a new idea. During and after the January rising of 1863, the insurgents had established a ‘parallel nation’ which preserved Polish identity through illegal publishing, education and even clandestine courts. The AK’s arms and explosives were captured from the Germans, and later parachuted in from the West. But the resistance was able to do little to help the Warsaw Ghetto Rising in April 1943, as Jewish fighters decided to die fighting rather than go passively to the gas chambers of Treblinka.

By the end of 1943, AK partisan units were in control of many districts of rural Poland, especially the forests and hills of the old eastern borderlands which now lay behind German lines. But once again, strategic problems emerged. In 1943, the plan of the government-in-exile and the AK command inside Poland had been to harry the Germans as they retreated and then to join the Soviet armies as they drove the Wehrmacht out of Poland. But early in 1944, as Soviet troops advanced across the pre-war Polish frontiers, it became clear that the Russians had no intention of restoring Polish authority in the regions they had seized in 1939.

Worse still, they treated the AK units which welcomed them as potential enemies. The Polish partisans were offered a choice between arrest and conscription into the Red Army. Places liberated by the Home Army were handed over to the People’s Army, the Communist partisans, and to their Committee for National Liberation (PKWN). This body had been set up in Moscow as the nucleus for a future Communist government of Poland.

Leave a comment

Filed under education, Germany, labor, language, migration, military, nationalism, Poland, religion, slavery, USSR, war

by | 2 April 2026 · 12:48 am

Era of Polish Partitions & Rebellions

From the Epilogue by Neal Ascherson in Wojtek the Bear: Polish War Hero, by Aileen Orr (Birlinn, 2014), Kindle pp. 155-157:

But after the Second Partition, Poland’s last king – Stanisław August – and his advisers suddenly launched a dazzling programme of political and social reform, based on the principles of the American Revolution and the European Enlightenment. Poland set up the first ministry of education in Europe, and in 1791 adopted the Constitution of the Third of May, modernising the whole state structure and introducing a limited version of civil rights.

It was far too late. The Constitution enraged Catherine II, the Russian empress; she saw it as a deliberate provocation which would bring the democratic principles of the French Revolution up to her own borders. The armies tramped forward again, and the Third Partition of 1795 finally wiped what was left of Poland off the map. The eastern regions, later including Warsaw, went to Russia. The Prussian kings took what remained of western Poland, while the Habsburg Empire held southern Poland and the province of Galicia, including the city of Kraków.

There followed 123 years in which Poland did not officially exist. The three partitioning powers agreed that the very name should never be used again. Especially in the Russian area, there was a sustained effort to abolish Polish identity by suppressing the language, discriminating against the Catholic faith and criminalising those who tried to celebrate Poland’s rich culture or tell the truth about its history.

This policy was an almost total failure. Polish national identity retreated into a continuous national conspiracy against the foreign occupants, which preserved culture and tradition and often erupted into armed insurrections. The first of these took place in 1795, as the Third Partition closed over the country. Led by Tadeusz Kościuszko, a Wallace-like popular hero, peasant armies won early victories until they were overwhelmed by Russian numbers. A few years later, in 1812, Napoleon promised to restore Polish independence as he invaded Russia. Tens of thousands of Poles joined his armies, fighting not only in Russia but in Austria, Italy, Spain and even in Haiti. They shed their blood in vain, but the memory of Napoleonic reforms to Poland’s legal and administrative system was preserved, and revived when Poland regained its independence a century later.

In 1830, another insurrection – the November Uprising – broke out in Warsaw and rapidly spread. It took the Russians a year of hard fighting to defeat the rebels. Fierce repression followed, and almost the whole intellectual elite of Poland, most of whom had fought in or helped to organise the rising, went into exile in western Europe. The Great Emigration in effect made Paris the political capital of Poland for the next 80 years. And for the rest of the century Poland’s literary and musical culture – now reaching its dazzling zenith in the work of the poets Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki and Cyprian Kamil Norwid, and the composer Frédéric Chopin – was almost entirely created in France.

There were other, lesser, insurrections and a network of Polish patriotic conspiracies spread over Europe. But the next full-scale rebellion – the January Uprising – did not take place until 1863. Once again, the Poles fought in their streets and in their forests, and held out for over a year. Once again, the collapse of the rising was followed by hangings and police terror, and by the familiar sight of columns of chained men and women being marched away across the snow to Siberian captivity.

But the disaster of the January Uprising led to a change of mood in Poland. There was a feeling that the time for ‘romantic’, sacrificial rebellions was over. Instead, Poland should concentrate on patient, ‘positivist’ campaigns to build up the nation’s economic strength and modernise its social structures. In the Prussian partition, which after 1871 became part of a united German Empire, Polish farmers fought a long and successful struggle by legal and peaceful means to defend their land against Bismarck’s policy of German colonisation.

Leave a comment

Filed under language, France, religion, war, democracy, migration, Russia, nationalism, Germany, Poland, Austria

by | 28 March 2026 · 10:48 pm

Polish Easter Foods

My latest compilation from Culture.pl includes an article by Mai Jones listing 10 Traditional Dishes of Polish Easter. “White sausage, rye soup, cakes with poppy seed or cottage cheese… The numerous traditional Easter delicacies in Poland are surprising, sophisticated and inspired by spring.”

Here is an abbreviated list of the dishes.

Biała kiełbasa: “This white sausage is made of unsmoked minced pork, with the addition of beef and veal, covered in a thin layer of pork casings and seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic and marjoram.”

Żurek or żur: “a soup made of homemade or store-bought sourdough from rye flour. It’s garnished with boiled white sausage and boiled egg halves.”

Eggs: “Whether served boiled, stuffed, fried or with mayo, there’s no getting away from them. The decorative devilled egg is a hard-boiled egg, halved and filled with a mixture of the yolks, mayonnaise, mustard, onion and horseradish cream.”

Śledź: Herring “is served gutted and filleted, in pieces that have been marinated in vinegar and oil, with or without vegetable. It’s typically smothered with chopped, raw onion.”

Chrzan: “produces pungent vapours and makes the eyes water, but white or red horseradish relish pairs well with the variety of cold cuts. The fiery relish draws out more of the meat flavour. The red type is called ćwikła and its colour is due to the addition of beetroot.”

Mazurek: “The flat shortbread can be made of different kinds of dough and toppings – for example, marmalade, chocolate glazing, dried fruit or nuts.”

Sernik: “a rich creamy baked cheesecake that differs from its American counterpart in cheese. You could try to replace the exclusively Polish cheese called twaróg with country, cottage, quark, curd or ricotta cheese, but it won’t do the trick. Twaróg is more dense, sweeter, and less wet than those cheeses and less smooth than ricotta…. The Eastern Orthodox Church has a twaróg-based equivalent – the truncated, pyramid-shaped paskha.”

Babka: “The tall, airy Easter babka is a no-knead yeast cake baked in a Bundt pan. It can be laced with rum syrup and drizzled with icing, but custom dictates that it has no filling.”

Makowiec: ” a poppy seed roll spun like a strudel. With poppy seeds as the main ingredient, it uses the same type of dough as the babka.”

Easter lamb: “Made entirely of sugar and shaped like a lamb, this is the traditional centrepiece of the Polish Easter table and Easter basket. It often has a miniature red flag with a cross.”

Leave a comment

Filed under food, language, Poland, religion

by | 28 March 2026 · 12:27 am

Polish Realia: On the Farm

Vocabulary from Muzeum Wsi Radomskiej ‘Village Museum of Radom’

dom wiejski ‘farmhouse, country house’
dom ludowy ‘people’s house’ (community center?)
dworek ‘manor house’
chlew ‘pigsty’
kurnik ‘henhouse’
obora ‘cattle barn’
stajnia ‘stable (for horses)’
stodoła ‘barn’
strzecha ‘thatch (roof)’
sławojka ‘outhouse privy’ (named after 1928 PM Felicjan Sławojka Składowski)

ciągnik rolniczy ‘farm tractor’ (cf. ciągnąć ‘pull’, pociąg ‘locomotive’)
brona ‘harrow’ (and ‘portcullis’!)
grabie ‘rake’
kosa ‘sickle’
kosiarka konna ‘horse-drawn mower’
pług konny ‘horse-drawn plow’
sierp ‘scythe’ (cf. Sierpień ‘August’)
widły ‘pitchfork’ (cf. widelec ‘food fork’)
zgrabiarka konna do siana ‘horse-drawn hay rake’
żniwiarka konna ‘horse-drawn harvester’

pszczoła ‘bee’
pszczelarstwo ‘beekeeping in apiaries’
pszczelarka ‘beekeeper’ (pszczelarze ‘beekeepers’)
bartnistwo ‘beekeeping in wild beehives’
bartnistka ‘beekeeper’
pasieka ‘apiary’
ul ‘beehive’
ule rozbieralne ‘movable beehives’

wiatrak koźlak ‘post windmill’ (which swivels on a post)
łopata wiatraka ‘windmill blade’
wał wiatraka ‘windmill shaft’ (blade axle)
wiatr ‘wind’
młyn wodny ‘watermill’
koło wodne ‘waterwheel’
koryto ‘trough, chute’
żuraw studzienny ‘crane well, shadoof’ (cf. żuraw ptak ‘crane bird’)

Leave a comment

Filed under food, labor, language, Poland

by | 21 March 2026 · 10:12 am

Polish Realia: Forest Layers

Warstwe Lasu i Ich Mieszkańcy Forest Layers and Their Inhabitants

Las to ekosystem, którym szata roślinna powiązana jest ze światem zwierżąt i nieżywionymy tworami przyrody. We wszystkich biocenozach leśnich rośliny konkurują między sobą o światło. Rezultatem tego jest warstwowa budowa lasu. Prowadzi ona do odpowiedniego wykorzystania przestrzeni lasu przez rośliny, tworzać sprzyjające warunki do życia dla różnych zwierżat.
A forest is an ecosystem through which the vegetation is connected to the world of animals and not nourished by the creations of nature. In all forest biocenoses [= life assemblages], plants compete with each other for light. The result is a layered forest structure. It leads to the proper use of the forest space by plants, creating favorable living conditions for various animals.

Korony Drzew Tree Crowns

Najwyższą warstwę lasu stanowią drzewa. Ich korony zamieszkują niektóre zwierżeta np. [= na przykład (e.g.)] owady, wiewiórki, kuny, i liczne gatunki ptaków.
The highest layer of the forest is made up of trees. Their crowns are inhabited by some animals, e.g., insects, squirrels, martens, and numerous species of birds.

Pictured and named: buk pospolity ‘common beech’, świerk pospolity ‘Norway spruce’, sosna zwyczajna ‘Scotch pine’; zawisak borowiec ‘hawk moth’, brudnica mniszka ‘nun moth’; wiewiórka ‘squirrel’; dzięcioł duży ‘great spotted woodpecker’, puchacz ‘eagle owl’, wilga ‘oriole’

Podszyt Undergrowth

Poniżej do wysokości około 5 m jest podszyt. Warstwa, którą tworzą niskie drzewa i krzewa dobrze znoszące zacienienie tj. [= to jest (i.e.)] głóg, tarnina, dereń, czeremka, kalina, kruszyna, jałowiec, leszczyna. W podszyciu żerują m. in. [między innymi (among others)]: sarna, dzik, jeleń, zając, lis.
Below to a height of about 5 m is the undergrowth. A layer formed by low trees and shrubs that tolerate shade well, i.e. hawthorn, blackthorn, dogwood, cherry, viburnum, buckthorn, juniper, hazel. In the undergrowth feed, among others: roe deer, wild boar, deer, hare, fox.

Pictured and named: kalina koralowa ‘coral virburnum’; kruszyna pospolita ‘common buckthorn’, leszczyna pospolita ‘common hazel’; modraszek ‘blue butterfly’; paż królowe ‘queen’s swallowtail’; orzesznica ‘dormouse’; sikora bogatka ‘great tit’; sikora modra ‘blue tit’

Runo Leśne Forest Floor

Runo to warstwa do której dociera mało światła i jest wilgotno. Porastają ją drobne krzewinki – borówki, jagody, liczne zioła, trawy, mchy, porosty, paprocie, oraz grzyby. W tym piętrze lasu schronienie znajdują liczne owady, pająki, ropuchy, żaby, jaszczurki, węże, jeże, i myszy leśne.
The floor is a layer that receives little light and is damp. It is overgrown with small shrubs – blueberries, berries, numerous herbs, grasses, mosses, lichens, ferns, and mushrooms. This floor of the forest is shelter to numerous insects, spiders, toads, frogs, lizards, snakes, hedgehogs, and forest mice.

Pictured and named: borowik szlachetny ‘boletus mushroom’, muchomor czerwony ‘red toadstool’; konwalia majowa ‘mayflower’, pióropusznik strusi ‘ostrich fern’; jeż europejski ‘western hedgehog’, ropucha szara ‘common toad’, padalec zwychajna ‘common slowworm’

Ściółka Mulch

Ściółka to warstwa, która leźy bezpośrednio na glebie. Tworzą ją opadłe liście, szyszki, owoce, nasiona oraz martwe szczątki roślin i zwierząt. Występują tu drobne organizmy, odźywiające się szczątkami organicznymi tj. bakterie, grzyby, glony, pajęczaki, wije.
Mulch is a layer that lies directly on top of the soil. It consists of fallen leaves, cones, fruits, seeds and dead remains of plants and animals. There are small organisms that feed on organic remains, such as bacteria, fungi, algae, arachnids, and myriapods.

Pictured and named: mrówka rudnica ‘red ant’, żuki leśne ‘dung beetle’, ślimak winniczek ‘vine snail’, skulica i krocionóg ‘types of millipedes’

images here

Leave a comment

Filed under education, language, Poland, science

by | 20 March 2026 · 11:08 pm

Polish Realia: Beneficial Insects

Owady Pozyteczne Beneficial Insects

Ciekawostka Trivia
Mrówki rudnice nazywane są sanitariuszami lasu. Zjadają bowiem owady będące szkodnikami lasu, ograniczając tym samym ich liczebność. Ponadto pełnia rolę czyściceli, usuwając chore osobniki i martwe szczątki zwierząt.
Red ants are called the sanitary workers of the forest. Because they eat other insects that are forest pests, thereby limiting their numbers. In addition, they fill a role as scavengers, removing diseased individuals and dead animal remains. 

Sanitariusze / Sanitary workers: Mrówka rudnica / red ants; żuk leśny / dung beetles

Drapieżcy / Predators: Przekrasek mróweczka / ant beetles; Biedronka siedmiokropka / lady bugs; Biegacz skórzasty / carabus beetles

Pasożytnicze / Parasites: Gąsienicznik czarny / ichneumon wasps; Bzyg prążkowany / marmalade hoverfly

Zapylacze / Pollinators: Pszczoła miodna / honey bees; Trzmiel ziemny / bumble bees

Próchnojady / Wood-eaters: Dyląż garbarz / root borers; Jelonek rogacz /stag beetles

image here

Leave a comment

Filed under education, language, Poland, science

by | 19 March 2026 · 11:26 pm

Polish Realia: Dead Trees in the Woods

Martwe Drewno w Lesie Dead Wood in the Forest

Martwe drewno jest naturalnym i niezbędnym wskładnikiem ekosystemów leśnych. Pozostające w lesie, obumierające i martwe drzewa a także ich fragmenty nie bezwartościowy materiał zaśmiecający las. Jest to nadzwyczaj istotny dla prawidłowego funkcjonowania ekosystemu leśnego zespół mikrośrodowisk życia i miejsc schronienia się lub gniazdowania ogromnej liczby gatunków organizmów żywych (zwierząt, roślin, grzybów).
Dead wood is a natural and essential component of forest ecosystems. Dying and dead trees remaining in the forest, as well as their fragments, are not worthless material littering the forest. It is an extremely important for the proper functioning of the forest ecosystem, a set of microenvironments of life and places of shelter or nesting of a huge number of species of living organisms (animals, plants, fungi).

Martwe drewno może mieć różną postać. Od obumarłych konarów na żywych drzewach poprzez obumierające drzewa, do martwych, leżących na ziemi lub stojących drzew różnej wielkości, leżących na ziemi drobnych gałęzi, wykrotów i złomów. Stopień zaawansowania rozkładu drewna również może być bardzo zróżnicowany. Od drewna jeszcze w pełni świeżego do silnie zbutwiałego przyjmującego postać murszu, przerośniętego grzybnią i korzeniami roślin oraz porośniętego poduchami mchów.
Dead wood can take many forms. From dead branches on living trees, through dying trees, to dead, fallen or standing trees of various sizes, small branches and debris lying on the ground. The degree of advancement of wood decomposition can also vary greatly. From wood still fully fresh to heavily rotten in the form of mulch, overgrown with mycelium and plant roots and overlaid with moss cushions.

Te różnorodne mikrośrodowiska są miejscem życia nadzwyczaj szerokiego spektrum organizmów. Grzyby rozpoczynają i cały czas uczestniczą w procesie rozkładu drewna aż do jego całkowitego rozpadu. Owady i inne bezkręgowce z wielu grup systematicznych żywią się martwym drewnem w różnych stadiach jego rozkładu lub zjadają zasiedlające je inne organizme. Natomiast zwierzęta wykorzystują martwe próchniejące drewno jako miejsce gniazdowania, schronienia, bądz zimowania.
These diverse microenvironments are home to an extremely wide range of organisms. Fungi begin and participate in the process of decomposition of wood until it completely decomposes. Insects and other invertebrates from many systematic groups feed on dead wood at various stages of its decomposition or eat other organisms that inhabit it. On the other hand, animals use dead rotting wood as a place to nest, shelter, or winter.

Martwe drzewa tak naprawdę nie są martwe, bowien żyją życiem ogromnej liczby zasiedlających je organizmów.
Dead trees are not truly dead, because they live the lives of a huge number of organisms that inhabit them.

Ciekawostka! Trivia!
Kloda świerkowa kłada się przecętnie przez 60-80 lat, rozkład starych pni dębowych trwa często nawet 100 lat. Proces rozkładu przebiega szybciej w miejscach wilgotnych i na drewnie leżącym na gruncie niż w miejscach suchych i na drzewie obumarłym jeszcze stojącym.
A spruce log lies for 60-80 years, the decomposition of old oak trunks often lasts up to 100 years. The decomposition process takes place faster in damp places and on wood lying on the ground than in dry places and on dead wood still standing.

Martwe i obumierające drzewa wykorzystywane są przez szereg gatunków ptaków – dziuplaków. Dzięcioły w takich właśnie drzewach wykuwają dziuple a inne dziuplaki zasiedlają je i wykorzystują jako miejsce gniazdowania i schronienia.
Dead and dying trees are used by a number of species of birds – hole-nesters. Woodpeckers carve hollows in such trees, and other hole-nesters inhabit them and use them as nesting and sheltering places.

image here

Animals pictured:
Rębacz pstry ‘ribbed pine borer, spotted sawfly’ Rhagium inquisitor
Gmachówka drzewotoczna ‘carpenter ant’ Campolotus ligniperda
Dyląż garbąrz ‘longhorn beetle’ Prionus sp.
Kruszczyca złotawka ‘golden buckthorn’ Cetonia aurata
Jelonek rogacz ‘stag beetle’ Lucanus cervus
Paśnik palączasty ‘bowhead beetle’ Plagionotus arcuatus

Ryjówka aksamitna ‘common shrew’ Sorex araneus
Jeż europejski ‘western hedgehog’ Erinaceus europaeus

Dzięciol duży ‘great spotted woodpecker’ Dendrocopos major
Dzięciol zielony ‘green woodpecker’ Picus viridis

Leave a comment

Filed under education, language, Poland, science

by | 19 March 2026 · 1:07 am

Polish Realia: Mushrooms

Jaki to Grzyb? What Mushroom Is This?

Goryczak żółciowy ‘yellow bitter, bile bitterness’ (edible), Tylopilus felleus

Pieprznik jadalny (kurka) ‘Chanterelle’ (edible), Cantharellus cibarius

Lisówka pomarańczowa ‘orange fox’ (inedible), Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca

Muchomor sromotnikowa ‘green fly agaric toadstool’ (poisonous), Amanita phalloides

Mleczaj rydz ‘milk thistle’ (edible), Lactarius deliciosus

Borowik szatański ‘red bolete’ (poisonous), Rubroboletus satanas

Koźlarz czerwony ‘red lectern’ (edible), Leccinum aurantiacum 

Krowiak podwinięty (olszówka) ‘curled cowhide’ (poisonous), Paxillus involutus

Borowik szlachetny ‘Boletus edulis’ (edible), Boletus edulis

Muchomor czerwony ‘red fly agaric toadstool’ (poisonous), Amanita muscaria

Podgrzybek brunatny ‘brown bay bolete’ (edible), Imleria badia

Maślak zwyczajny ‘common butternut squash’ (edible), Suillus luteus

images here

Leave a comment

Filed under education, food, language, Poland