Hi,

I know this is not related to the game The Witcher, but I think I will find someone who have read the books here.

In the first book of the Witcher, one character insults Geralt, saying:

" Słyszysz, co mówię, pokrzywniku?"

The english version of the book reads:

"Do you hear me, you bastard?"

But what does "pokrzywniku" really mean? When I use goggle translate, "pokrzywniku" and "bastard" don't match at all.

You'd probably get wider coverage with better chance of an answer if you posted this in the general forum.

Ok, I'm gonna try that.

I'm native polish speaker but I have no idea what "pokrzywnik" means. Have you typed this correctly? Which book this is?

The OP got an answer here.

Thanks! Good to know.

I've made some reserach by myself about the word "pokrzywniku"

The basic form, nominative case, is "pokrzywnik", which means "tortoiseshell". This is the current meaning.

An old meaning of this word is "bastard", as suggested by wsn (I don't know how quoting works, the next sentence is not from hickory): The old meaning is reffered in this polish-german word-book.

https://books.google.fr/books?id=D1JKAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA586&lpg=PA586&dq=pokrzywnik+bastard&source=bl&ots=Ns8sT4eKAX&sig=4Rskh5FAD4n_GoREgJZ73MHk5JM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjArerwt-HXAhWBYlAKHZsIDHkQ6AEINTAC#v=onepage&q=pokrzywnik%20bastard&f=false

I'm talking about the first book of the witcher series: "The last wish".

Actually I'm French, so I read the book in french a first time, and I thought the translation sucked. So I read the book in English, and it is much better.
But I wanted to know which version is closer to the original polish version.

In english: the translation of "pokrzywniku" in "bastard" is good because it is its old meaning.
In french, the character says: "espèce de paon-de-nuit", which means :"you peacock moth"!
I still cant explain that.

Don't use code for quotes, just use quotation marks like so:

"Pokrzywnik it's old term for bastard not used now, probably nobody use this word. Nowadays bastard in Polish is "bękart". So your predictions was good."

You could possibly use code to highlight it in either bold or italic, but the quote code is reserved for quoting other posters.