What does the following poem say in English? It is currently written
in Polish. If possible, find who the author is, and what piece it is
taken from. (It could actually be part of a song, I'm not sure).

"Ja cie kocham, 
Ja cie lubie,   
Ja cie nie dam  
az po slubie"

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Request for Question Clarification by justaskscott-ga on 19 May 2004 09:58 PDT

I don't know Polish, but I've got a rough idea of what this means,
from searching for these words on Google and especially in online
translators.  Here's the likely text and a rough translation:

"Ja ci? kocham
Ja ci? lubi?
Ja ci? nie dam
a? po ?lubie"

"I love you
I like you
I will not give you
until after marriage"

("Ale nie dam a? po ?lubie" seems basically the same: "But will not
give you until after marriage").

If I understand correctly, it's like many love songs: "I love you, and
I can't give you (or wait) until we're married to be with you."  (It's
probably something a bit more risque than "be" with you.)

Try these resources, and experiment with the special characters on the
first one.  Once you've entered a particular word or phrase on that
page, you can copy it (with the special characters, if used) and paste
it onto the other dictionary pages, or somewhere else to save it.

e-DICT
http://www.dict.pl/plen

Onenet.pl S?owniki Angelski
http://slowniki.onet.pl/index.html?tekst=ale&tr=auto&x=0&y=0

Lingvobit
http://www.poltran.com/

Incidentally, there are indications that "Oj Dana" is a folk tune
(Ludowe), with no identifiable author.  That would explain the
variation in the lyrics.

If this answer is satisfactory, please let me know and I'll post it as
an answer.  (If not ... it's just $2.00, and I had fun.  I almost
posted this as a a comment, but it seemed like it might be enough for
an answer.)

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Clarification of Question by domukin-ga on 19 May 2004 10:50 PDT

Thanks, exactly what I was looking for, I will accept it as an answer.

Hi domukin,

To summarize the material I posted above, here is the likely text and
rough translation for this folk song:

"Ja ci? kocham
Ja ci? lubi?
Ja ci? nie dam
a? po ?lubie"

"I love you
I like you
I will not give you
until after marriage"

I hope that this information is helpful.

- justaskscott


Search strategy:

I searched on Google for variations and combinations of the Polish
words and phrases, sometimes along with apparent English translations.

I searched on Google Directory for the word "polish", in order to find
Polish language translation pages.

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Clarification of Answer by justaskscott-ga on 19 May 2004 22:17 PDT

Just to be complete, the folk song is apparently "Oj Dana", as noted by fp.

Also, I see that fp has gone the extra mile to confirm the
translation, and correct the third line of the Polish text.  (Thanks,
fp!)

Great job, fast too! I really appreciate it. Keep up the good work.

A longer version of the text:

http://www.yagelski.com/sbox/music/ojdana.txt

I shall try to find out a little bit more.

"Oj Dana" is a Polka. A sample should be available on

http://entertainment.msn.com/album/Default.aspx?album=373497

However, for some reason it doesn't work on my computer.

I suppose a GA Researcher will translate the text.

A Polish native speaker confirmed the translation provided by justaskscott-ga. 
However, the third line should be "Ja ci nie dam" (not "Ja ci? nie dam").

http://www.polish-translators.com/zaimki.html

I have found this answer off a polish person on a chat site, it means.

i love you
i like you 
i dont give after service

Instead of I will not give you until after marriage

iano2000 -- What does "I don't give after service" mean?  It doesn't
seem to make sense in English.  If you have more information, I'm sure
we'd be interested.

In the meantime, I'd go with fp's comments -- fp has made many helpful
comments on previous Google Answers questions, so I trust fp here. 
(If you're curious about fp's comments, see:

"Searched all questions for fp-ga" (sorted by date)
Google Answers
http://answers.google.com/answers/search?q=fp-ga&qtype=all&num=10&sort=qestartts%3AD%3AR%3Ad1
)