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  What it means

  “When the housewife does laundry and bakes bread at the same time, she nearly goes mad.” Doing too many demanding tasks at once is exhausting and maddening. A humorous acknowledgement of the heavy domestic workload.

  Vocabulary

  • gospodyni — housewife, hostess
  • prać — to do laundry, to wash
  • piec — to bake
  • ledwie — barely, hardly
  • wściec się — to go mad, to fly into a rage

  Grammar note

  'Ledwie nie' means 'almost, nearly' — literally 'barely not'. 'Się ledwie nie wściecze' = 'nearly goes mad'.

  Cultural context

  Both laundry and bread-baking were all-day affairs in traditional households, making their combination particularly gruelling.

  Intermediate

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