• Listen

  What it means

  Whatever the weather on Saint Protus’s day (11 September) — fair or foul — Saint Jerome’s day (30 September) will bring either rain or none at all. A humorous proverb that says nothing useful: it covers every possibility and predicts nothing.

  Vocabulary

  • pogoda — good weather, fair weather
  • słota — wet, rainy weather, sleet
  • ni ma — there isn't (dialectal/archaic form of 'nie ma')

  Grammar note

  'Ni ma' is a dialectal or archaic negation equivalent to 'nie ma'. The proverb's structure is deliberately tautological — 'albo… albo' (either… or) covers all cases.

  Cultural context

  This is a self-aware, ironic proverb that parodies the genre of saint's-day weather forecasts. It acknowledges that such predictions are often meaningless by making one that is guaranteed to be true.

  Advanced

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!