Imagine a situation when you walk in a flower shop and you want to buy a bouquet for someone. You want to choose flowers yourself, but you don’t know any of the names, so all you can do is to point out at vases and say “proszę to”, “proszę tamto”.
In order to avoid such a situation, I prepared a list of the Polish names of the most common flowers! Besides, you must admit that it is a very pleasant topic to study, isn’t it?
Here they are:
- roses róże (singular: róża)
- tulips tulipany (singular: tulipan)
- lilies lilie (singular: lilia)
- peonies piwonie (singular: piwonia)
- viola tricolor bratki (singular: bratek)
- forget-me-nots niezapominajki (singular: niezapominajka)
- lily-of-the-valley konwalie (singular: konwalia)
- daisy stokrotki (singular: stokrotka)
- sunflowers słoneczniki (singular: słonecznik)
- dianthus goździki (singular: goździk)
- hyacinths hiacynty (singular: hiacynt)
- violas fiołki (singular: fiołek)
- magnolias magnolie (singular: magnolia)
- orchids orchidee (singular: orchidea)
- chrysanthemums chryzantemy (singular: chryzantema)
- lilac bzy (singular : bez)
I really adore the fact that both in English and Polish forget-me-nots have the meaning of remembrance (nie zapominaj – don’t forget). It seems so sweet that all our ancestors came to the conclusion that those small blue flowers were invented to ensure that people won’t forget the offerer.
I would also like to point out that in Polish every kind of flowers can be used in both singular and plural, depending on the amount of flower heads.
Enjoy your floral study!
