Image: Wikimedia Commons license 🙏 (photographer unknown)
Born in Poznań in 1950, Anna Jantar rose to fame in the 1970s.
One of her many iconic songs is “Moje jedyne marzenie” (“My only dream”) from 1979. It’s a wildly romantic piece that would have fitted seamlessly in the Grease soundtrack, which was released one year earlier 🕺🏻
So what’s she dreaming about in the song? It’s all about hoping to be with the person you love – here are the first four lines:
| Przetańczyć z tobą chcę całą noc | I want to dance with you all night long |
| I nie opuszczę cię już na krok | And I won’t leave your side for even a moment [literally “for even a step”] |
| Czekałam jak we śnie abyś ty objął mnie | I’ve been waiting like in a dream for you to hold me |
| Więc teraz już wszystko wiesz | So now you know everything |
Note that in line three, there’s another word for dream in Polish: “we śnie” is “in a dream”, and the basic (nominative) form is “sen”.
The difference between “marzenie” and “sen”
The difference between the two is that “sen” is the kind of dream you have while you’re asleep. “Marzenia” are dreams you aspire to in life.
So if you wish you were a professional dancer, that’s your “marzenie”. If you wake up tomorrow and have dreamt that you performed in Grease, that’s a “sen” (or “sny” if you have more than one dream).
But it’s good to know that sen has a wider meaning: it doesn’t *just* mean the kind of dreams we have at night, but also “sleep, slumber”.
So what about Ciesław Niemen’s famous song Sen o Warszawie – is he singing about a literal dream he had about Warsaw? Hmmm, it’s more about his vivid memories of Warsaw, so it seems to be closer to daydreaming. If you know better or just think differently, please add a comment as I’d love to hear your view!
Early death :(
Tragically, Anna Jantar’s career was cut short when she died in a plane accident in 1980, aged just 29. Returning from New York, the plane crashed just outside of Warsaw and killed all 77 passengers and 10 aircraft staff.
Here’s a short article about Anna Jantar and the plane crash if you’re up for some more Polish practice.
Sing Polish 
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