Day 24: A Ballpoint Diary from 1920
After a seminar at the university in Lublin, Kamil (A), a history student, asks Professor Nowicka (B) about his great-grandfather's diary.
How to study this lesson 3 steps
- Read the situation under the title. It says who is talking and how they know each other, which decides how politely they speak.
- Read the dialogue line by line with its translation, until every line makes sense. Point at (or tap) a Polish word to see what it means.
- Spend at least 30 minutes listening to native Polish, for example from the Resources page. It doesn't matter if you don't understand it yet.
Dialogue
Audio recordings are on the way. For now, each lesson is the dialogue with its English translation.
Keys: E hide English · ← → previous / next day · point at a word to see its meaning
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A
Pani profesor, mam pamiętnik pradziadka, ochotnika z dwudziestego roku. Czy nada się do licencjatu?
Professor, I've got the diary of my great-grandfather, who volunteered in 1920. Would it do for my BA thesis?
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B
Źródło z pierwszej ręki to skarb. Ale zanim pan cokolwiek zacytuje, proszę mi go pokazać.
A first-hand source is a treasure. But before you quote anything from it, please show it to me.
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A
Proszę, to na pewno pismo pradziadka. Opisuje nawet bitwę pod Radzyminem, dzień po dniu.
Here you are, it's definitely my great-grandfather's handwriting. He even describes the Battle of Radzymin, day by day.
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B
Proszę spojrzeć: całość napisano długopisem, a przed wojną długopisów w Polsce nie było.
Look: the whole thing is written in ballpoint, and there were no ballpoint pens in Poland before the war.
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A
Czyli to fałszywka? Któryś z krewnych wszystko zmyślił?
So it's a fake? One of my relatives made the whole thing up?
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B
Niekoniecznie. Pana pradziadek mógł na starość przepisać rękopis, zanim ten całkiem wyblakł.
Not necessarily. Your great-grandfather may have copied out the manuscript in his old age, before it faded completely.
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A
To zmienia temat mojej pracy. Napiszę o tym, jak weterani po latach przepisują własne wspomnienia.
That changes my thesis topic. I'll write about how veterans rewrite their own memories years later.
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