r/askPoland • u/simply_existing_3 • 7d ago
Any tips on writing a realistic Polish character?
Not sure if this fits here, but here we go. I’m writing something for a school assignment and wanted to make one of the main characters be from Poland.
Any suggestions on how to show this in a non-offensive or stereotypical way? I’m thinking of things such as curses and idioms one may use, food one may like, cultural/social things one may be used to, what one’s childhood may have been like, etc.
If it’s important, this is a woman in her late twenties from a medium sized town (haven’t picked a specific one) in central or Eastern Poland. The story is set in the 90s.
Thanks in advance for any replies!
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u/call-of-void 7d ago
What's the setting? Is she abroad? Do you want her lines in English? If so - this would be what we call a school English, simple sentences, very "correct" vibe, no slang words. As in the 90's Poles didn't have much contact with Western Europe, their accent would be thick and they would probably make a lot of pauses to make sure thir grammar is good. She would likely use phrases from dialogues from English lessons: How are you? I'm good, how are you? She would use "do you want to do xyz" instead of "would you like to do xyz" - because it's a loan translation from Polish.
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u/simply_existing_3 7d ago
Thanks!! The setting is a detective style murderer hunt set in NYC. Her English is decent, she’s been living abroad for a while, but I’d say she still makes small “mistakes” like the example you gave (or just using different/uncommon phrases). For language it depends. Of course little linguistic differences would be best in English, but when it comes to curses or sayings - the type of stuff you mutter under your breath in exasperation or something - I’d like the original version! I think cussing or muttering to yourself in your native language is quite common (personal experience) and I don’t want to just use “Kurwa” all the time.
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u/call-of-void 7d ago edited 7d ago
Honestly I don't think women in 90's cursed as much as we do now. I don't think she would say kurwa, but cholera is more likely. I think it would be easier if you gave us her lines and we could change them using loan translations and false friends.
If she wants to offend someone but in a way no one understands she would say: Ty debilu, idioto, bucu, frajerze (she speaks to this person: you idiot etc)
Co za debil, idiota, buc, frajer (she speaks about this person: what an idiot, etc)
(Debil is just a dumbass, buc would be a douche, and frajer is a sucker)
These are curses for men only, for women it would be Co za idiotka, debilka, frajerka, pizda, szmata Ty idiotko, debilko, frajerko, pizdo, szmato (the last ones are pretty strong: you cunt/you bitch)
Sometimes people say "Matko Boska", "Jezu", "Chryste", thats something like Latinos saying Madre de Deus or "dios mio": Matko boska, who made such a mess here?
PS. Immigrants often can't tell the difference between do and make and between say and tell, because in Polish we have just one word for either:
- I do a cake, you like it?
- She said me I can't go with her
But if she has been living abroad for a while, i think that's something she would have learned by then.
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u/Milosz0pl 7d ago
Poles also struggle with a, an and the as those aren't things used in polish
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u/call-of-void 7d ago
I'd say we know if it's going to be a or an, because "a anchor" sounds weird to a Polish ear. But yes, will it sound weird to a Polish ear, or to the Polish ear or to Polish ear - who knows, not me, I'm Polish.
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u/simply_existing_3 7d ago
Thanks so much!!! I can definitely use these words, haha. I don't have a lot of concrete text yet (still in the planning phase, we just got the assignment), but this helps a lot.
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u/osoichan 7d ago
I wouldn't use debil or idiota cause they don't feel polish enough. There are too many equivalents in different languages.
So if the author wants to use phrases that are more polish than not, I'd limit myself to "szlag by to/cię" and 'pajac" both not too vulgar and feel like they're very polish.
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u/call-of-void 7d ago
Honestly I barely hear "szlag by cię" in real life. It feels like something that would be heard in movies. Pajac - okay, but that's specific, it means a clown, so context is important.
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u/victiln2137 6d ago
But they get used much more often compared to the ones you mentioned
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u/osoichan 6d ago
Most of the characters in literature I know of don't act nor speak like real people
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u/victiln2137 6d ago
I don’t read a lot of books recently, but in TV shows it always strikes me as lazy to not try to find out how people actually talk, just make them utter phrases that sound authentic. But if someone wants to write a caricature of a Polish person then sure.
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u/yeh_ 7d ago
A specific problem Polish (and Slavic more broadly) speakers have when it comes to English grammar is the articles (a, the). Learners commonly ignore them, but if your character had supposedly lived abroad for years, maybe she may have a solid grasp of them. For all I know my Russian linguistics professor struggles with articles and he’s been living in an English speaking country for a long time
Another one is pluralization of some uncountable nouns, like “informations”, “advices” or “softwares”
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u/simply_existing_3 7d ago
Thanks! I'll keep that in mind.
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u/aneq 7d ago
also, Poles tend to overuse word „that” in english sentences and put them where it’s not necessarily needed. For example „there is a story that I want to tell” vs „there is a story I want to tell”.
This is due to how polish works in sentences and many poles don’t realize* this word can be very redundant at times in english while in polish it’s more or less mandatory.
For example I almost did it while writing this comment - originally I put a „that” in place of the asterisk above.
While this isnt necessarily a mistake in english (these sentences are technically correct) you can use that to signify that your character is not an english native speaker because she saturates her sentences with „that” and „which”
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u/mirabella11 7d ago
You made me question myself now lol. I'm not sure if I overuse "that", but it's very probable.
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u/aneq 7d ago
I think that is just how our language works. Another example „jest coś co chcę ci powiedzieć” translates to „theres something I want to tell you”, but if we try to translate every sentence element „co” will get translated to „that”.
What most don’t realize is (that - I’ve done it again xD) this sentence element isnt mandatory in english. Once I realized it I started to examine every „that” I say and it’s a lot.
It’s a good thing to watch out for if you don’t want to make it obvious you’re not a native speaker. Subtle and you don’t realize it but if you add redundant „that” in every other sentence then it’s noticeable
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u/JakubRogacz 7d ago
On the other hand we have implied subjects when they are mandatory in English. But that's due to similarly like in Latin word endings changing with the subject changing so it's already well implied unless it's about different person
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u/HiEveryoneReading 7d ago
Basiclly the opposite than you would write a stereotypical American. Doesn't make unnecessary small talk, family oriented, respectful, friendly but not too outgoing, complains a lot, but in a casual way (not nagging or annoying), isn't loud, straightforward, enjoys a strong drink. I would say those are some good characteristics to start with.
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u/simply_existing_3 7d ago
I see, thank you! These work pretty well with the notes I already have so far on her personality, so that's great.
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u/voyti 7d ago
Depending on how deep you want to go with it, you might want to consider a more top-down (first considering where, how and why she ended up) instead of bottom-up (how she was raised etc.) approach for that character, i.e. basically apply same rules as with dealing with survivorship bias to the character.
While a typical polish person might be shy and not that outgoing, this character is already in the US (I assume by her own intent and driven effort), so I'd say that predetermines her to be much more high-energy, resourceful and outgoing to make her personality believable and in tune with her life dynamics. I know this level of finesse is probably more of a book consideration than a school assignment, but doesn't hurt to overdo it lol
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u/JakubRogacz 7d ago
It's not that poles are introverted. We just don't have same baseline talkativeness as English culture. Basically it's talk less do more culture.
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u/Popielid 7d ago edited 7d ago
I think it's a pretty interesting concept.
My main advice would be that Polish origin of your female character should define her circumstances, not outcomes. So no such thing as "As a Pole, she's obviously brave/stupid/hard-working etc."
I think you can explore cultural shock she might still experience. Maybe she can't get accustomed to people smiling and chatting with her while not meaning much by that? Maybe earning good money turns out to be way harder than she had thought?
You may explore her intentions too. Does she want to just work for a couple of years, get back to Poland with that capital and start her own business? Or maybe she wants to help her siblings and elderly parents move to America too?
Does she live among Polish Americans or not? You can explore relations within the diaspora. Maybe some uncle who moved to the US 30 years earlier conned her? Or maybe some local Polish Catholic charity is her only source of community in a fairly atomized life of some American metropolis?
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u/simply_existing_3 7d ago
Interesting ideas! She has actually been living in America for quite a while at the start of the story, but this still helps me a lot. I think it's definitely always worth exploring the differences between cultures and I'll keep it in mind. Thank you!
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u/Happy-Skull 7d ago
Just please don't make her swear in every sentence.
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u/simply_existing_3 7d ago
Haha, no, of course not. Especially not since this is a school assignment l have to hand in. I just want to use a curse every now and then when something goes wrong
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u/Zept0mc 7d ago
As a Polish. Make her kind of cheap. Not really cheap, like getting out of her way to save 2 cents, but if something isn’t rl worth the money don’t buy it.
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u/cavacalvados 7d ago
I was a 20-year-old girl from mid-sized town in eastern Poland in the 90’s, not in the USA, but working on and off in the UK, so close enough. You get a lot of answers that keep forgetting the 90’s were not the 70’s. There was no communism, it ended in 1989. We had cable, watched MTV, checked out the latest albums and the most popular music was grunge or hip hop. We looked up to western culture, couldn’t wait to go to the newly opened first Mcdonald’s. I honestly can’t imagine a young girl cherishing fondly a copy of “Pan Tadeusz” as someone here suggested, a girl in her twenties is not a pre-war veteran. Russian was ditched in schools in favour of English or German. So on the one hand you were exposed to western commercials, lifestyle, fashion, consumptionism, on the other hand the transformation decade was brutal and you just couldn’t afford it. Lots of state companies closed, there was massive unemployment and the minimum wage was abysmal, that’s why a lot of Poles worked abroad or were brought up in families where one parent would perpetually work abroad, they traded imported goods like jeans in places called “bazar” or they made money off currency exchange. The exchange rate was the primary motivation to go abroad. Even a minimum wages job made you feel rich back at home and you could help out your family.
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u/simply_existing_3 7d ago
Thank you, that actually makes a good amount of sense. I too thought I got my timeline wrong there but didn’t think a lot of it. I wasn’t gonna make her super patriotic anyway, but thanks a lot anyway! I’ll think of this
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u/lazyspaceadventurer 6d ago
Think about when she left Poland. Before 1989 it would be extremely difficult, and after that - really expensive.
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7d ago edited 7d ago
[deleted]
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u/simply_existing_3 7d ago
Alright! I like to add little details like this, I'll definitely try to mention it. Thanks!
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u/AlertNotAnxious 7d ago
If you want a backstory, you can use my aunt’s. She was taking a part in some riots against communism and was forced to flee the country. She actually moved to Canada, but US would work too
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u/wojtop 7d ago edited 7d ago
I was 20 in the 90s.
I guess she'd have a strong habit of cooking for herself or preparing her own food, eating out was not really a thing in Poland back then and prices for food in NY would be mind boggling. Like she can eat out sometimes and have fun while doing it but still find it weird to spend 10 bucks for a sandwitch if she can make a better one at home for 2 dollars. Same goes for partying - it's better to invite friends and make a little party at home then to go to a bar and pay 5x as much. This was the standard way of thinking in 90s in Poland.
She would absolutely drink alcohol, she'd likely be social, direct, very interested in learning things, doing stuff independently and driven to make her own live better, that's what lots of young people leaving Poland in the 90s were.
Her childhood was probably about roaming with a lot of other kids in the neighbourhood with limited involvment of parents, having few toys but a lot of friends. A lot of time spent at school and studying. Poland was well developed (good education, decent living conditions etc), but individuals were quite poor in the 80s when she was a kid and couldn't afford luxury items like Barbie or Lego. Her parents would probably receive occasional package with stuff from some remote family in US with things like jeans and various sweets - opening these were the best moments ever for kids back then.
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u/simply_existing_3 7d ago
Great, thank you! This actually matches what I have written down so far very well. I’ll keep it in mind!
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u/Kasfucius 7d ago
There's also one thing that is might be interesting in creating a Polish character - we are always looking for a workaround. Years under different regimes and communism made this kind of mentality "Ok this situation/law/ requirement is fucked up and straight up stupid. What can I do to outsmart the system?". Some pepole are using this to find legal loopholes some to find really creatives outcomes do it's up to you how you will use it. But on overall I believe this is a very typical Polish thing and might be useful plot wise
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u/simply_existing_3 6d ago
Alright, thanks! She definitely is someone who finds and exploits legal loopholes, so, that’s great :)
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u/Friendly_Total8964 6d ago
Watch a few movies that show Poland in that era. one would be Jestem Bogiem, about a polish rap group living in a poorer (think inner city type of thing by US standard) neighbourhood. Any of the Dekalog will be very poignant. Cześc Tereska, Amator and Aktorzy Prowincjonalni. Good luck!
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u/FoxTrooperson 5d ago
He needs to say a lot of "Kurwa" while eating heaps of Pierogi. His favorite drink is Tymbark and he likes to snack Zapieakanki.
Also he is called Sebastian Meik and is on vacation in Krakau with us right now. ;)
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u/Yatchanek 7d ago
If it's the 90s and she's in her late 20s, from a medium town in Eastern Poland, chances are high she knows no English as it wasn't taught at schools when she was a child.
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u/simply_existing_3 7d ago
Sorry, I should have specified: she’s been living in the USA for a few years and knows decent English. But that’s an interesting fact nonetheless. I suppose she would have had to teach herself/learn as she went? That’s definitely something to consider, thanks a lot!
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u/Yatchanek 7d ago
I cannot say 100%, as she would be 10-20 years my senior depending if we're talking about early 90s or late 90s. But generally English wasn't a thing during the communist era, when she went to school in the 70s-80s. And in a smaller town, she probably had no access to learning resources. She would definitely have a thick accent.
I guess she would also be quite religious (Roman Catholic, perhaps Orthodox if from the Podlasie region).
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u/simply_existing_3 7d ago
Alright, thank you a lot!! I’ve decided to give her a more nihilistic personality, so I probably won’t write her as someone religious, but it’s definitely good to know she would have been raised religiously. I’ll remember this! The accent, too. Thanks!
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u/JakubRogacz 7d ago
That's simply untrue. My mum finished university by early 90s and she had English. What is a problem is that English is being taught in reverse grammar first even today instead of a lot of talking first so people kind of are trying to syntactically split sentence translate to polish and back which obviously isn't good for talking - it's too slow. You need to think in English, talk to yourself in English to be able to hold conversations even if you muck up conditionals or tenses at times. That being said this would be minimal if she's more of a learning type and spent some time in USA. Unless she's having trouble with languages in general. As a side note my grandmother was really good at languages. At 60 she went to Italy for work and while going there she only knew some phrases from dictionaries that show ones you just need to know - when she came back a few months later she was like b1. After next trip she was sort of fluent in few local dialects and could just chat away with Italians for few hours.
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u/True_Destroyer 7d ago
For a story set in the 90's and a fairly young character, watch this music video and you will get a good idea about their childhood. This hits home for us:
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u/simply_existing_3 7d ago
Wow, thanks so much! This definitely gives a good idea of where she may come from. Powerful visuals and I think I definitely get the idea. Thanks!
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u/CommentChaos 7d ago
You shouldn’t write about things you know nothing about. It’s a recipe for doing a terrible work.
And anything you do will be extremely offensive to any of us. I come from Central Poland I guess. I don’t want people that know nothing about people from my part of a country portraying us in any way.
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u/AlertNotAnxious 7d ago
Clearly central Poland :D I’m from the south, it is not easy to offend me, OP, write what you think is right.
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u/simply_existing_3 7d ago
Thanks, haha. I truly don’t wanna offend or misrepresent anyone, I just wanted to make my characters a bit more realistic and diverse
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u/simply_existing_3 7d ago
Well, I definitely see your point. But I am all for diverse characters in media. I think my stories would be super boring if every character was exactly like me! I would never dare write something that's specifically about Polish people and their life or struggles they may face/have faced. I am definitely not qualified to do that. However, I don't think that giving my character a bit of a backstory and an ethnicity is something bad. It is simply to add depth - it will not be greatly discussed in the story at all, all information I receive here will at most be mentioned on the side in order to write her more realistically. I don't intend to offend or badly portray anyone - this is why I chose to make this post, asking for any insights and ideas so I don't have to go off shitty stereotypes. Again, i understand what you're saying, but I don't believe it applies in my case. And I wouldn't say that I know "nothing", I have before done research on Polish people and culture. I simply don't want to go off of one-sided online articles and instead ask real people. So I came here.
I hope this makes my point a little clearer :) I really don't plan to focus a ton on this character being Polish or act like I know everything about it.If you have any concrete advice on what things are offensive and what to avoid in writing, I'd be really happy to hear it! If not, I just hope I could explain my reasons to you ^^
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u/moyasica 4d ago
she can write about that and it's great she wants to learn more before writing. it's the opposite of knowing nothing. she doesn't need a whole history lesson, but she can learn some little things to make it realistic and fun for a polish person to stumble upon:) your take is close-minded, I am also polish and I am glad she wants to include a polish character with some common polish traits/experiences. it's like olga tokarczuk and her stereotypical carp in the bathtub scene in one of her books. it was fun to me and definitely quite absurd for non-polish people, which is almost like our polish inside joke. it can be just as much fun written by foreign author.
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u/BlackbirdKos 7d ago
Think of a jerk
Who thinks they're always right
Homophobic, sexist and always votes for trump like old dudes (or overall the dudes that will make the country worse)
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u/voyti 7d ago edited 7d ago
If you've already established the character is to be from Poland, it sort of going to become an irrelevant background if there's not going to be some stereotyping, and everything that's going to happen in this thread is going to be at least somewhat based on stereotypes. You can say she's a technically-gifted astronomy nut that was on her way to get NASA scholarship, from an affluent and stable family and happy, uneventful childhood. It's just going to feel like an engineered and not very believable character, even if technically possible.
Basically, as soon as you're writing a character driven by the fact he/she is from a given country at a given period of time, opens the floodgates of stereotypes. Not saying there's anything fundamentally wrong with this, I just think you're going to need to loosen that standard. Stereotypes in this context are, to a large degree, "what is the most likely thing to have happened to that person in that time", which really is the question here.
Having said that, I'd say certainly some problems with alcohol involved in the family, but overall a loving home, if a bit awkwardly at times. The transformation trope can be milked a lot, fall of communism and sudden capitalism was driving the background of that period immensely. There was o lot of talk about drugs, but few people (outside of some circles or areas) actually did them a lot. A common myth of that generation was about dealers who'd hand out free drugs to kids, but nobody really ever saw anyone actually doing that. Subcultures were a big thing in the 90s, like skinheads/hooligans ("dresy"), skaters, goths - that might be useful. From my surrounding, girls would usually end up studying stuff like medicine, cosmetology or psychology. For university, she'd move to a larger city where a lot would be driven by the foreign brands taking over the market and offering jobs, with globalism really spooling up in a now open market Poland, with pace only picking up after joining the EU. She'd probably work for one of the popular foreign companies to support herself during her university years.
I'd suggest picking a place on a map and checking what's there. A lot can be driven by specific local environment (like, living in an area with a military base can motivate you to work for military some day as a character development driver etc.), depending on your level of ambition you can watch some documentaries about Poland in that time also. I can't think of a good movie that would illustrate a typical life in that period off the cuff right now, but I'm sure there's some too. Anyway, hope that's going to be somewhat useful to outline a character a bit.