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  What it means

  “If it’s beautiful on Adam’s day, winter will soon crack.” A weather proverb: if the feast day of Saint Adam (December 24) is fine and clear, winter will not last long and spring will come early.

  Vocabulary

  • pięknie — beautifully, nicely (here: fine weather)
  • zima — winter
  • prędko — quickly, soon
  • pęknąć — to crack, to break

  Grammar note

  'Na Adama' uses the genitive of 'Adam' after 'na' in a temporal sense (on Adam's day). 'Pęknie' is the third-person singular future perfective of 'pęknąć'.

  Cultural context

  Saint Adam's feast day falls on December 24, coinciding with Christmas Eve. Weather observations tied to saints' days are a staple of Polish folk meteorology.

  Intermediate

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