POSTRACH PO POLSKU - Words related to Halloween

As far as I’ve read, Poles don’t quite go as crazy about Halloween as Americans, but some people do celebrate it. Poland of course has a native festival of the dead that coincides with that time called Dziady. Check out the linked words for in-depth articles on Culture.pl. 

Because Halloween has always been my favorite holiday, and I love creepy stuff, I’ve compiled this list of words related to horrible and fearsome things. This list is (as always) not exhaustive. 

jesień - autumn

październik – October

ciemno, ciemność, mrok - dark, darkness, obscurity, gloom

cień - shadow

czarnoksięstwo - witchcraft, black magic

czarownica - witch

czaszka – skull

demon - demon

duch - spirit, ghost

dynia – pumpkin

fantom – phantom

groza - horror, terror (also used for literary/film genre: polska groza, Polish horror)

grób - grave
koszmar - nightmare

krzyk – scream

liście - leaves

loch - dungeon

mgła - fog, mist

nawiedzony - haunted

niesamowity - strange, weird, uncanny; incredible
obrzydliwy - abominable, disgusting
ohydny - horrible, hideous, revolting, execrable

ponury żniwiarz - grim reaper

postrach  - fear; bogeyman

potwór, maszkara – monster, creature

przerażający – frightening

strach, lęk, obawa, przestrach - fear
straszny - dreadful, terrible, horrible, spooky, creepy

strzyga – female vampire of folklore (masc. strzygoń)

Szatan - Satan

szkielet - skeleton

tajemniczy - mysterious

trup – corpse

trumna – coffin

wampir, wąpierz, upiór – vampire, malicious living dead

widmo, zjawa - spectre, wraith, ghost, phantom; statek widmo, ghost ship

wiedźma - witch

wiedźmin - warlock, "witcher"

zamek - castle

zło - evil

BONUS: 

One of the best ways to break out of the "intermediate plateau" and really start internalizing vocabulary and grammatical structures is through side-by-side reading. In my experience, it really only took a few months of it until I felt comfortable diving straight in to native texts. 

This October, why not ramp up your Polish study with some dual-language reading? 

One thing I recommend is Ghosts - Parallel Text short stories. This has seven supernatural stories by English writers, simplified and translated into Polish. It is formatted so that the English follows just below the Polish, paragraph-by-paragraph. The stories themselves are sort of a mixed bag, but the translations are clear and generally accurate. You can see my review on the Amazon page (I just had to!). 

If you're a more advanced student and up for the challenge, check out this story by one of Poland's earliest writers of dark and supernatural fiction, Stefan Grabiński. Here you can find his story "Zez" ("Strabismus") in Polish and English. 

Print them out and read along with your pen(cil) of choice, noting expressions and useful words/structures. Grabiński can be challenging because of his literary and antiquated language, but this story is probably one of his more accessible, and also has notes glossing some of his terms for modern readers.

If you enjoy this, you can find more Grabiński stories in Polish at Wikiźródła. Several collections exist in English, and I'd estimate about half of his total literary output has been translated, though you can only find a couple of stories in English for free online due to copyright.