Polish Translation vs. English Translation

(1) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (2) Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (3) And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. (4) God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. (5) God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning-the first day.

1) Na początku Bóg stworzył niebo i ziemię. (2) Teraz Ziemia zaś była bezładem i pustkowiem: ciemność była nad powierzchnią bezmiaru wód, a Duch Boży unosił się nad wodami. (3) Wtedy Bóg powiedział: "Niechaj się stanie światłość", i stała się światłość. (4) Widział Bóg, że światłość jest dobra, i on oddzielił światło od ciemności. (5) I nazwał Bóg światłość dniem, a ciemność nazwał nocą. " I tak upłynął wieczór i poranek, dzień pierwszy.

Some difficulties in translating from English to Polish is that there are no articles such as "the", "a", or "an". Instead of "let there be light", the more proper Polish translation says "let there happen light", to signify that it was created, and not just brought in. The major difference is that Polish verbs show the gender of the person who is performing the action. "Called", as in named, is "nazwał" in Polish. To say he named, you can simply say "nazwał"; however, if a female is performing the action, the word would be "nazwała." Thus, this automatically gives a masculine gender to God in the Polish translation.

Another interesting difference is that even though Polish doesn't have gender specific articles for nouns like in Spanish, such as la or el, the translation for "that" in Polish does correspond to gender ("ten" and "tamta").