Friday, August 19, 2011

Birthday wishes in Polish

It is always nice to receive wishes or greetings in our native language, especially from people who do not speak it. My sister-in-law surprised me this year sending to me birthday wishes in Polish. How sweet is that!! I had the biggest smile on my face seeing the message from her, and knowing that she took an effort to search for the wishes in my native language. Thank you Gina :))


Here is a little Polish class / Lekcja języka polskiego

You can write birthday wishes as simple as following:
"Serdeczne życzenia z okazji urodzin!"
or
"Wszystkiego najlepszego z okazji urodzin!"
or
"Sto lat!" 

Let's break it down:
serdeczne - "from one's heart"
wszystkiego najlepszego - all the best
życzenia  - wishes
z okazji - on the occasion of
urodzin - birthday
sto - hundred
lat - years

*Please note that the basic form for "birthday" is "urodziny", but in the sentence above, it changes to "urodzin". For example: "my birthday" - "moje urodziny", but "on the occasion of your birthday" - "z okazji Twoich urodzin".

*Wishing someone "Sto lat" is very popular in Poland, so is the song "Sto lat" - Polish version of "Happy Birthday". It means that we are wishing a long life to a person, who has birthday (sto lat means 100 years). :o)

*What are we wishing? Here are the most common wishes:
spełnienia marzeń - dreams to come true,
zdrowia - health,
szczęścia - happiness,
pomyślności - the best of luck,
radości - joy,
sukcesów - success.
And one more useful word: dużo - a lot! :)

Example:
Wszystkiego najlepszego z okazji urodzin!
Spełnienia marzeń,
dużo zdrowia, szczęścia
i pomyślności.
Sto lat!
You can break it into a simple sentence or say it all :)
Good luck!




3 comments:

  1. Thank you. This is very well explained and very useful.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm glad that I could help. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you. This is very helpful, Alison

    ReplyDelete