#hot kubek takes

[middlefall]

Okay so someone’s probably pointed that out before but Gorący’s name is a type of Polish instant soup in a mug (his name meaning literally: hot mug) so not only his existence implies some incarnation of Carl Heinrich Knorr or whoever tf in the world of Elysium but also.

You know how he’s a cook right? I’m thinking he just took boxes of these things from his country with him and started making them for people. And people were like oh my god this is great. Are you a chef? And he was just saying Goracy kubek in response bc that’s what he made for them. And everyone assumed it’s his name, and it stuck.

[codinthepickleofhatred]

Student life tip if you have no time to eat outside of uni: buy pierogi and 2 x Gorący Kubek barszcz (or a bigger Winiary) in biedronka, take it with u to uni, get a bowl (or use a glass food container) and put the Gorący Kubek in it, use hot water from the water dispenser if there is no electric kettle around, put the pierogi in it. Put it in a microwave if the water wasn't hot enough to warm the pierogi. Watch people around you look at your meal with longing while they eat their Żabka salads.

a cup of boiling hot barszcz... and two wonderful krokiety to go with it... life is so beautiful folks

[languagemadness]

Polish Cases Explained

requested by anon

There are seven cases of noun and adjective declension in Polish: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Instrumental, Locative, and Vocative. All of them are used, obviously, all of them are important. You decline "normal" words, as well as names and proper nouns.

In this post, I’ll cover when to use each case. For more examples and a list of endings for each case (so how to turn a word into its proper case form), I recommend you check out this website.

Nominative

basic, dictionary form

subject of a sentence

Zosia ogląda film. - Zosia is watching a movie.

"Zosia" is in the nominative because she is the subject of the sentence.

used in "to jest…" types of sentences

To jest moja żona. - This is my wife.

"moja żona" is in the nominative as it is the "to jest…" type of sentence.

To są małe dziewczynki. - These are small girls.

Notice than "małe" is an adjective and it is also in the nominative.

used with lone adjectives

Jestem zielony. - I’m green.

"zielony" is in the nominative because it’s a lone adjective.

Ten kubek jest za duży. - This mug is too big.

Genitive

used to indicate possession (like the English ’s)

Samochód Marty. - Marta’s car.

"Marty" is in the genitive, "samochód" is in the nominative.

To jest dom moich rodziców. - This is my parents’ house.

"moich rodziców" is in the genitive as it indicates who owns the house, "dom" is in the nominative because it is the "to jest…" type of sentence.

Zielone chomiki Pauliny. - Paulina’s green hamsters.

"Pauliny" is in the genitive because Paulina is the owner of the hamsters.

used with units and amounts

puszka zupy - a can of soup

"zupy" is in the genitive as if it was the "owner" of the can.

worek ziemniaków - a sack of potatoes

talerz pierogów - a plate of pierogi

used with prepositions: dla, do, od

Mam prezent dla Karoliny. - I have a present for Karolina.

"Karoliny" is in the genitive because it is for (=dla) her.

Wysyłasz list do Chin? - Are you sending a letter to China?

"Chin" is in the genitive (to=do).

Dostaliśmy pieniądze od babci. - We got money from grandma.

"babci" is in the genitive (from=od).

Naucz się jeździć dla swojego dobra. - Learn to drive for your own good.

used as the direct object in negative sentences

A direct object is not the performer of the action but the "other person" (or an item) in the sentence. "A cat drinks milk" — "cat" is the performer, therefore the subject; "milk" is the "other person", so the object.

Kot nie pije mleka. - The cat doesn’t drink milk.

"mleka" is in the genitive.

Nie mam jeszcze samochodu. - I don’t have a car yet.

Nie poznałam twojego taty. - I haven’t met your dad.

Notice that this case is used only in negative sentences. So:

"Kot nie pije mleka." (mleka-genitive) BUT "Kot pije mleko." (mleko-accusative)

Mam już samochód. - not genitive because the sentence is affirmative

Poznałam już twojego tatę. - not genitive because the sentence is affirmative

We’ll get to this later as well.

Dative

indicates the indirect object

The indirect object is for whom you perform an action. "Give it to my mother" — the mother is the receiver of the action, therefore she is in the dative case.

Znajdę ci dziewczynę. - I’ll find you a girlfriend.

"ci" is in the dative because you perform the action for the person you’re talking to. The person you’re talking to is the receiver.

Dam mojej siostrze jedzenie. - I’ll give food to my sister.

"mojej siostrze" is in the dative.

Kupimy sobie nowe spodnie. - We’ll buy new pants (for ourselves).

after verbs like "dziękować" (to thank), "pomóc" (to help), "wierzyć" (to believe), "ufać" (to trust), etc.

Dziękuję ci, że zaopiekowałeś się moim psem. - Thank you for looking after my dog.

"ci" is in the dative because you’re thanking (to) someone.

You can also skip the "ci" part and say "Dziękuję, że zaopiekowałeś się moim psem." — the meaning is just the same.

Możecie pomóc mojej babci? - Can you help my grandma?

Wierzę twojemu bratu, kiedy mówi, że mnie kocha. - I believe your brother when he says he loves me.

Ufam twoim instynktom. - I trust your instincts.

"twoim instynktom" is in the dative because it’s like you’re giving your trust to them. They are the receiver of the action (the action is "to trust").

expressions like "Jest mi ciepło"

It’s just how you express things like "I’m cold", "I’m hot", "I’m sad", etc.

Jest mi ciepło. - I’m warm.

Nie jest wam smutno? - Aren’t you sad?

There is a difference between "jestem smutna" and "jest mi smutno". "Jest mi smutno" indicates there’s a reason behind your sadness, "jestem smutna" is just a plain statement. Both sentences are grammatically correct, though.

Śniło jej się, że jest psem. - She dreamed she was a dog.

"jej" is in the dative because there is no clear subject of the action (grammatically because logically it was her who dreamed).

when something happens to someone or is taken away from someone

Umarła mi ciocia. - My aunt died (from me).

"mi" is in the dative.

There is no difference between "moja ciocia umarła" and "umarła mi ciocia" — you can use both structures interchangeably.

Zabraliście mi całą nadzieję. - You took all my hope away (from me).

Accusative

indicates the direct object in affirmative sentences

Again, the direct object is not the performer of the action but the "other person" (or an item) in the sentence.

Lubię pić herbatę. - I like drinking tea.

"herbatę" is in the accusative because is it what you drink.

Kot pije mleko. - The cat drinks milk.

"mleko" is in the accusative even though the form of the word doesn’t seem to have changed from its nominative (dictionary) version. Some words just do that.

Notice that we’ve already covered the same situation in the genitive case. But remember that genitive case is for negative sentences, accusative is for affirmative sentences.

Pijemy wodę. - We’re drinking water.

"wodę" is in the accusative because the sentence is affirmative and the water is the direct object.

Nie pijemy wody. - We’re not drinking water.

"wody" is in the genitive because the sentence is negative and the water is the direct object.

used with prepositions to indicate motion or change

Połóż kopertę na stół. - Put the envelope on the table.

"stół" is in the accusative because of the preposition (na) and because the sentence is about a motion (the envelope will be moved onto the table) and a change (its position will change).

Jedziemy na pocztę. - We’re going to the post office.

Instrumental

indicates the tool or the way of doing something

Pojadę do domu autobusem. - I’ll go home by bus.

"autobusem" is in the instrumental since it’s a way of going home, it’s the tool you’ll use to go home.

Jeździsz do szkoły rowerem? - Do you go to school by bike?

Kroję cebulę nożem. - I cut the onion with a knife.

"nożem" is in the instrumental since it’s the tool you use to cut the onion.

used with "z", "za", "między", "przed", "nad", "pod"

Adam jest z Basią. - Adam is with Basia.

"Basią" is in the instrumental because of the preposition (z).

Nie stój za mamą! - Don’t stand behind mom!

"mamą" is in the instrumental because of the preposition (za).

Pies siedzi między kotami. - The dog is sitting between the cats.

Zrobię to przed tobą! - I’ll do it before you!

to express certain time

wiosną - in the spring

nocą - at night

"w nocy" is also correct.

rankiem - in the morning

"rano" is also correct.

with verbs like "być" (to be), "zostać" (to become), "interesować się" (to be interested in)

Chcę być szczęśliwym człowiekiem. - I want to be a happy person.

"szczęśliwym człowiekiem" is in the instrumental because of the verb "to be". Remember that you decline both adjectives and nouns.

Moja córka chce zostać astronautą. - My daughter wants to become an astronaut.

Nasze dzieci nie interesują się modą. - Our children aren’t interested in fashion.

There’s a little exception, though. Remember the nominative case? You use the nominative case with lone adjectives and in "to jest…" types of sentences — so even though verbs like "to be" require you to use the instrumental case, lone adjectives and "to jest…" sentences are always in the nominative.

To jest kot. - This is a cat.

NOT "to jest kotem"

Even though there is "to be" in that sentence, it is the "to jest…" type, therefore you use the nominative case.

Piotr jest przystojny. - Piotr is handsome.

NOT "Piotr jest przystojnym"

Even though there is "to be" in that sentence, it’s a lone adjective, so you use the nominative case.

Locative

used with prepositions like "w" or "o"

Jestem teraz w banku. - I’m at a bank now.

"banku" is in the locative because of the preposition (w).

Cały czas myślała o mnie. - She thought about me all the time.

"mnie" is in the locative because of the preposition (o).

This one seems easy, right? Well, Polish wouldn’t exactly be Polish if there wasn’t a catch to everything, so: the preposition "w" takes the locative to indicate a state or a position, but if you want to imply a change or a motion, "w" turns into "do" and the locative case turns into the genitive one.

Jestem w sklepie. - I’m in the shop.

Idę do sklepu. - I’m going to the shop.

The first sentence is about your position — you are in the shop, you’re not moving, your location isn’t changing. So you use "w" (in) and "sklepie" is in its locative case.

The second sentence tells us that you’re in motion, changing your position, so the preposition you’ll want to use is "do" (to) and "sklepu" is in its genitive case.

Vocative

used to address someone directly in official situations or to be affectionate or rude

In colloquial language, this case isn’t used too often in terms of names. For example, when calling for a friend, you won’t scream "Agato!" (vocative) but "Agata!" (nominative), even though it is that situation when you address someone directly — so technically it should be vocative. Remember though that it’s just in colloquial language — if you’re writing a letter to someone, you’ll always use the vocative case.

Drogi Stefanie! - Dear Stefan!

the entire thing, "drogi stefanie", is in the vocative since it’s an adjective and a noun and not a colloquial way of addressing someone

If you want to be affectionate with someone, you’ll use this case as well, even though you talk with that person using colloquial language.

Kocham się, Zosiu. - I love you, Zosia.

If you want to address someone in a rude manner, this case is your friend as well.

Ty debilu! - You idiot!

important things to remember

decline adjectives, nouns, and pronouns

decline "normal" words, names, and proper names

don’t get freaked out if you don’t know which case to use — native speakers don’t get it right every time either.

pronouns

As you might have noticed, you can also decline pronouns. I made a chart with how to decline personal pronouns in each case:

When making this post, I helped myself with wikibooks, proepolish, wiktionary, and learn-polish. I recommend you check out these websites as well and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask me! 🎀

[gemsbokk]

im sorry but i feel like like this should be addressed:

nowhere, as far as i know, it is said that these countries specifically are coded to be these real life countries. I'll admit, I'm a white slav, so maybe i just don't see it all, but i feel like this whole discussion is really unfair.

yeah, you can feel like it comes across as racist. no one can take that away or try to convince you you're not feeling a certain way, and i imagine getting a ton of anon asks is doing more harm than good.

it is suggested that kim is supposed to be inspired by japanese culture not fully, because japan does not exist in elysium; and even that is by surname only. his name can feel like a cho chang situation but i feel like, from what i've read, kim might just as well be supposed to be a revacholian name (kim points out that he is native to revachol, so it wouldn't be weird, and "kim" used to be very often a male given name, coming from scandinavian "joakim" or "joachim", or just very popular in ussr back in the day; which estonia used to belong to). my point is: it is more than probable that this is just super unfortunate accident. fantasy worldbuilding has worked like that ever since i can remember with taking inspiration from different cultures and countries and lifestyles. the cultures there are vaguely resembling ones we know from real life. similarly, the character "gorący kubek" just means "hot mug" in polish, which is a nod to am instant soup thing we have here. zawisza is read wrong. it's not supposed to be realistic.

you've mentioned other cultures are probably just as uneasy with it as you are, so, to provide perspective (i know some people say slavic people are just white no matter what, but please bear with me here): every single person i know and have seen, both online and irl, is having a blast. yeah, slavic culture is insanely broad and if you tell a polish person they're just russian with extra step they're going to get mad. but fantasy world takes inspiration, and i wouldn't exactly call that coding the way we usually mean it.

i have no idea where the whole "china/india" part came from. again, maybe i've missed something because in no way i am an expert, but i really wish people didn't come and just say things in your askbox that.. kind of don't make sense?

second, i do feel like the accent part was used very weirdly. it takes very little to learn that the actor just had a belgian accent (i searched it up because i had similar thoughts at the very beginning when i couldn't put my finger on what accent it is exactly). i know when you're constantly tokenized it gets easy to be wary, i can't blame you fot it, but accusing an indie game of racism is because of your own, again, unfair.

which brings me to the next thing; it's an *indie* game. an indie, estonian game. it just won't ever have as crazy assets and abilities to hire poc actors and holding them to the same minimum as large, american/western studios who do have the abilities to provide that (and are often let off with much more than indie productions, but that is a whole another thing) is highly unrealistic.

i couldn't help but notice that you just. don't seem to enjoy the reading part. which is a shame because that's what the game is famous for, and it really sucks that something that is not your cup of tea got shoved into your hands, and no one is having fun with that. all the things i listed might sound apologetic, and yes, i won't pretend: right now, the game is my favourite thing in the world. however, i still think it's just not okay to accuse people of racism based on one hour into the game (or a bit more? from what i've seen you mentioned playing for a short time).

but maybe it's just not for you? the format, the storytelling, the worldbuilding? no game is able to be for everyone and that's perfectly fine. no one should jump at you for not liking the game, but it's also kind of unnecessary to fill the tags with hate towards a game you haven't played a lot plus people from the fandom that are mean to you but ultimately have no place in the fandom tag i think.

it's fine not to like it. disco is an extremely uncomfortable game. it's okay to just leave it alone, and you should not be judged because of that.

to be fair, it's not one place that's asian coded, there is seol (mix of japan/korea) and samara (china/india). and most of the cultures are treated this way, like all slavic countries are put into one, america coded place is also hispanic and so on. basically, there are no 1:1 parralels, it's all a bit of a hodge-podge of cultures. the elysium world is supposed to be more condensed than ours, so don't know if i would be offended if there was a character from a made up country that had first name russian and last name czech for example. it's a bit of a nitpick considering that this made up world doesn't want to be too specific and separate nations the same way we do irl, because would that still be a made up world? or should it then make up hundreds of new names that don't exist in our world to not offend us?

I'm exhausted. it's the writer's responsibility to not make their character seem like a caricature, and they failed. end of question. i don't care what the world's lore is because it doesn't affect real life lore, bruh. china/india is so much worse tooo 😭😭 both countries are so ethnically diverse it would be weird to generalize even one but putting them together is comical!!!! this worldbuilding system sounds very.... insensitive and i have a feeling asian cultures aren't the only ones getting stepped on by it. super not making this any better.

[gumiguta]

Café vocabulary in Polish

Based on @malteseboy‘s POST.

You should also check out THIS post out by @polskieserce who create a great café vocabulary list! 

Nouns:

biscuit - ciastko n

cupcake - babeczka f

pie - ciasto n

cake - tort m

milk - mleko n (singularia tantum)

food - jedzenie (singularia tantum)

coffee - kawa f

black coffee - czarna kawa f

latte - latte f

café - kawiarnia f

cup of coffee - kubek m / filiżanka f kawy

teaspoon - łyżeczka f 

table - stolik m

small plate - talerzyk m

cup - kubek m

teacup - filiżanka f

saucer - spodek m / spodeczek m

cup of tea - kubek m / filiżanka f herbaty 

tea - herbata f

black tea - czarna herbata f

green tea - zielona herbata f

white tea - biała herbata f

fruit tea - herbata owocowa f

herbal tea - ziołowa herbata f

mint - mięta f (singularia tantum)

drinks - napoje (pl.)

sugar - cukier (singularia tantum)

Popular pies/cakes in Polish café:

brownie - brownie n

apple pie - szarlotka f

meringue cake - tort bezowy m / beza f

carrot cake - ciasto marchewkowe n

cheesecake - sernik m 

yeast cake - ciasto drożdżowe n

tart - tarta f

tiramisu - tiramisu n

honey cake - miodownik m

Phrases:

Outside or inside? - Na zewnątrz czy w środku?

What can I get for you? - Co podać?

I’d like to have... - Poproszę... + acc.

to take away - na wynos

How much is it? - Ile to kosztuje?

Check, please - Poproszę rachunek

with milk - z mlekiem

with ice - z lodem

with sugar - z cukrem

without milk - bez mleka

without ice - bez lodu

without sugar - bez cukru

Adjectives (masculine):

fresh - świeży 

sweet - słodki 

hot - gorący 

cold - zimny

good - dobry

tasty - smaczny, pyszny

strong - mocny

weak, light - słaby

large - duży

medium - średni

small - mały

Verbs:

to have a coffee - pić kawę (impf.) / napić się kawy (pf.)

to eat - jeść (impf.) / zjeść (pf.)

to go have a coffee - iść (impf.) / pójść (pf.) na kawę 

to sit - siadać (impf.) siedzieć (impf.) / siąść (pf.) / usiąść (pf.)

to drink - pić (impf.) / wypić (pf.)

to buy - kupować (impf.) / kupić (pf.)

to order - zamawiać (impf.) / zamówić (pf.)

to pay for... - płacić (impf.) / zapłacić (pf.) za...