• Listen

  What it means

  Literally “when God wants to punish someone, He takes away their reason.” Means that foolish behaviour is itself a form of divine punishment — those who act stupidly have already been punished by losing their wits.

  Vocabulary

  • ukarać — to punish (perfective)
  • rozum — reason / mind / common sense
  • odbierać — to take away (imperfective)

  Grammar note

  'Jak' here means 'when/if' in a conditional sense. 'Rozum odbiera' — takes away reason, with 'rozum' as the accusative object.

  Cultural context

  A deeply Polish saying blending Catholic fatalism with folk wisdom. Used when someone does something spectacularly foolish.

  Intermediate

Noticed a typo, a wrong translation, or anything that doesn't look right? We'd love to fix it — just let us know via the contact page. Thank you!