Thread: Hello!

Hello everybody!

I've been following this forum for a few weeks, and although it seems pretty dead at the moment I still felt the need to register. Forgive me for not posting in Polish but I don't know enough written Polish yet to even attempt it!

I live in the south of England, and we have a large Polish community here. I work in a large supermarket, and in our company we have many Polish members of staff, and I have a lot of regular Polish customers.

My reason for joining the forum is that I would like to learn more Polish to make my regular customers feel more welcome, and also to make friends with my Polish colleagues. Recently I have started using a little bit of Polish in conversation and it always seems to be appreciated, but I would like to learn more, so I can effectively serve customers without using any English, and improve my useful vocabulary.

If anyone is willing to help me out, I would like to post requests for Polish phrases frequently used in customer service, and I welcome any suggestions for useful phrases you guys think I should be able to use!

Thanks in advance!
Jez

Greetings!

Just post English phrases You find useful and I will try to find their Polish equivalents... It should not be a problem.

Pozdrawiam

thanks for the reply! I'm sorry I don't check the forum more often but activity seems to be pretty low.

Some phrases I might find useful on checkouts are, for one, how to politely request the amount to be paid. I have learnt Polish numbers 1-100 but simply stating the amount seems rude. However, the last time I tried, my customer was very happy to see an Englishman make the effort.

Also, I would appreciate Polish equivalents of the following:

"Please, enter your PIN" (for card payments)

"Have a nice day" (or equivalent, we are owned by WalMart so some Americanisms are going to rub off on us!)

And also, any casual parting comments I should know. "do widzenia" seems a little too formal and our bosses encourage more informal relations with our customers. Most of my regular Polish customers are my age or younger anyway, so they probably wouldn't mind me being more relaxed.


My approach so far to learning Polish has been to not worry so much about getting my grammar and syntax 100% correct, I think people hold themselves back by trying to be too precise. I treat it as trying to learn English for the first time, as a child... you get things wrong, and people appreciate the effort and correct you if necessary, and you learn what works and what does't, and remember A little effort, I hope, will go a long way, and I hope to learn by trial and error rather than worrying too much what others think of me.

If anyone would like to give up their time to help me further, I can be reached by email: jez357@hotmail.com

Thanks in advance for any help!

"Please, enter your PIN" (for card payments) - Proszę wpisać kod PIN

"Have a nice day" - Miłego dnia!

We'd actualy normally just say the numbers when sking for the amount of money to be paid. You can add "proszę" at the end of the sentence, and that's about it

as for "do widzenia", well, I do think it's the best solution. We don't really use any other parting phrases in stores. I suppose you could say "cześć!" or "na razie!" if you insist on making it less formal, but I'd find it rather weird. You could probably get away with it, given the fact you're a foreigner, and people would appreciate the effort either way, but it still sounds awkward, especialy if you'd use it towards an ederly person.

I think it's very nice of you to do that. I remember I couldn't hep but smile every time people tried to speak Polish to me when I was living in the UK, made me fee just a little more welcome