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  What it means

  “You can’t twist a whip out of sand.” You cannot make something out of nothing. If the raw material is wrong or absent, no skill will produce the desired result.

  English equivalent

  You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

  Vocabulary

  • piasek — sand
  • bicz — whip
  • ukręcić — to twist, to braid

  Grammar note

  'Z piasku' is the genitive of 'piasek' after 'z'. 'Nie ukręcisz' is the negated second-person future perfective.

  Intermediate

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