Monday, December 12, 2011

Angina po polsku

Little Rosie has angina. Angina!?! you say. Don’t worry. It isn’t that serious. She has angina po polsku.

Nauseous girl avatar

I remember the first time I heard the word angina in Poland. One of my students called me to cancel her lesson because she had to pick up her child from kindergarten and take him to the doctor. She said that he probably had angina. My reaction - No leć! Go! Go to the doctor immediately, maybe even the hospital. My student, the mother of the little patient, didn’t seem to be all that concerned. I thought, maybe angina isn’t such a big deal here in Poland.

Of course I was thinking of angina in English – actually I was thinking of angina pectoris, a heart problem while my student’s child was suffering from angina in Polish which is in fact tonsillitis or acute purulent tonsillitis in Rosie’s case. She has all the telltale signs – fever, vomiting and white spots on her tonsils. She’ll be on antibiotics for the week and stay home from pre-school obviously.

Aahh, acute angina…that reminds me of a joke.

Keep yourselves well!

1 comment:

Pieczyk said...

I am a Pole living in Kent. A few years ago someone wanted to impress me and pretended to be a doctor. He thought that I was a little naive girl from Eastern Europe with little knowledge of English. The man was so bad in his attempts to impress me, that he wanted me to believe that (English) angina was in fact a very dangerous disease of a... vagina. I laughed so badly. I also remember first time when someone offered me marmite on toast - I thought they meant marmalade - I couldn't grasp why it tasted so weird. I love languages!