Kombinowanie. Survival mechanism or cultural construct?

Do you ever find yourself trying to find a creative solution to a problem? Maybe you try to get around a rule or law in order to benefit yourself? Or possibly you try to get out of doing something you don’t want to do like go to work or school. Perhaps you try to look for the best deal when you’d like to buy something? If you said yes to any of these, you may find the word “kombinować” useful in your everyday life.

The word kombinować is tough to translate into English. If you look it up in the dictionary, you definitely won’t find “combine” but rather a lot of negative verbs: cheat, con, be up to no good, scheme, pull sneaky tricks, deceive. These all seem far too negative to describe such a universal and significant word in Polish. So how can we translate it and what does it mean in the Polish context exactly?

To me, “figure out” in the way of “find a solution to a problem” or “sort out” seems like a better fit and more neutral in meaning. However, that sounds very innocent and kombinować does have a, let’s say, sneakier tone to it in some contexts. It could very well mean that you’re taking illegal means to solve a problem or simply searching for the all-holy loophole in Polish law. This is often evidenced by a little snicker or giggle from the Pole who uttered it, proving it may not be so innocent an act after all.

The cultural aspect behind kombinować is intriguing. Perhaps for Poles it’s more of a survival mechanism, or at least it was, left over from the past political system. They may have needed to get around an irritating and senseless law and so, in turn, may have had to kombinować. Maybe they wanted to purchase something which wasn’t available in stores, like e.g. a washing machine, so they had to “figure something out”. Maybe during PRL there was more corruption and therefore easier to do this in the more illegal sense of the word. Nowadays, a good portion of this act may be connected with paying less taxes or cheating the system in order to earn some money. For example, taking your children out of an orphanage in order to benefit from the 500+ program.

The question is, why is it that this word is so essential in Polish and so unimportant in English that it’s even hard to translate? Do Poles actually kombinować more and we less? It is that we have less red tape? Or perhaps when we face a difficult problem, we are simply resigned to taking the hard way and doing it by the book. I’m not so sure about that. I think that Americans also scheme or try to cheat the system but the difference is they don’t take any pride in it. You see, Americans are patriotic to a fault, meaning you wouldn’t be praised for beating the system. You may do it because you feel cheated, as many Americans do, but it isn’t something to brag about to your friends. I think it’s rather shameful, in fact. And here in Poland it’s just like, well, yeah, of course you tried to get around the system, what other choice do you have? And high five. I think it shows an interesting perspective not only on our feelings toward the government, but our countries themselves. It portrays either our pride or, frankly, the lack there of.

All in all, I’ve taken to using this word quite frequently to describe an act that can’t be so simply described in English. One word for so many things. We have such a rich language and yet this word seems to fill a big gap we have. Funny though that I never felt that way until moving to Poland…