Polish Audio Request

A few points on the text:

In 6, there should be "wział" instead of "wziąl", which is the past masculine form of the perfective verb "wziąść" ( = to have taken, the imperfective is "brać" = to be taking).

In 10, I believe it should be "kurczaka" instead of "kurzaka". Probably a typo.

In 14, it should say "Jaka (była Pani Kowalska)" instead of "Jak". "Jak" means how, while "jaka" means "what...(is/was she)...like". The masculine form is "Jaki".

Hope that helps and good luck with the exam! Feel free to let me know if you need any more help :)

I made a mistake while correcting a mistake... In 6, it should be "wziął" (not "wziąl" nor "wział").
Sorry!

I know this recording probably will serve little purpose now. I wanted to get the request out of my request queue. But... I couldn't make myself record something that carried what I thought to be errors, so I decided to make improvements. Therefore, my recording is not of the original text, but of my improved version of it, which I'll post in installments. I mark the places of correction with asterisks (... in case I was thinking of "a better alternative", rather than necessary correction, I sometimes enclose sections of text between plus signs.

1. Kim oni są?
Oni są rodziną.

2. Co oni ***zrobili?
Oni pojechali samochodem.

[This is the first instance of verb aspects (perfective/imperfective) disagreeing between the question and the answer. I comment more on that later...]

3. Kto był w samochodzie?
Pan Kowalski, pani Kowalska, dziadek, babcia i dziecko.

[Unless there's some exceptional reason to do otherwise, "dziadek", "babcia", "dziecko", and "pani" should be written in all-lowercase here. Note that while "Pan" and "Pani" would be use capital "P" in the beginning _when used as forms of personal address pointed directly at someone_ (for example, in a letter), the capitalized initial _would not_ be used elsewhere, i.e. it wouldn't feature in a narrative.]

4. Co się stało z samochodem?
*** Samochód się zepsuł.

[Please note the correct form of "zepsuł" and the fact that we strongly avoid leaving hanging "się" at the end of a sentence -- this is a moveable particle.]

5. Co pan Kowalski zrobił, kiedy samochód *się zepsuł?
Pan Kowalski +zaczął naprawiać+ samochód. Kiedy on reperował samochód, +mężczyzna+, który szedł do domu, zobaczył palto pana Kowalskiego.

["Pan Kowalski reprerował..." is not a natural answer to "Co zrobił...?". "Zrobił" has the perfective aspect, so this question is about what happened rather than what was happening. "Reperował", on the other hand, describes an action that had been started at an indefinite point in the past and was continuing (possibly: intermittenly) in time: it doesn't say anything about the cause or effect of that action. Such aspect is well in place in the sentence that follows, because it informs about an ongoing action that was only a "background" to something else which started happening. It's also worth noting that "reperować" is slightly old-fashioned -- "naprawiać" is more standard. (...)

(...) "Człowiek" is not "a man" -- this is a sex-neutral term. When we relate about a event like this, surely we must know if it was a man or a woman, right? :). One more thing, "mężczyna idący do domu" would have fitted more neatly there, but I don't know if you'd learned about these kinds of participles ("idący" -- "walking"), so I'll leave it like it is -- it's absolutely fine.]

6. Co zrobił *mężczyzna?
*Mężczyna wziął portfel pana Kowalskiego!

7. Gdzie była rodzina potem?
Oni byli przed restauracją.

8. Co oni zrobili?
*Zaczęli czytać menu... byli głodni!

[Firstly, like before, we have a mismatch of the aspects -- a question in perfective would normally be answered in the perfective as well. Secondly, I know it's just a grammar drill, so there's no place for much expectation about the style, but repeating "oni" in the beginning of a sentence really grates on one's ear: a rule of thumb -- in Polish, whenever there's no apparent need to use a pronoun in the main clause (either for clarity about the subject or for special emphasis), we leave it out!]

9. Co się **działo w restauracji?
*Państwo Kowalscy rozmawiali z kelnerem. ***To* była fajna restauracja i kelner proponował dobre jedzenie.

["Działo" corresponds better with the imperfective "rozmawiali".
Should there be a need to make the subject implicit, it's recommendable to use a pronoun (like "oni") no more frequently than any other available reference to that subject...
About the "To" -- two possible ways to formulate this sentence:
1. To była fajna restauracja... -- This was a nice restaurant... ("to be" links nouns and/or pronouns here to show belonging to a class of things)
or
2. Restauracja była fajna... -- The restaurant was nice... ("to be" is used here to join a noun with an adjective which characterizes it;
Your original usage seems to be the second variant with word order inversion; notice however, that this is variant less fitting the context of the situation: compare the English translations of the variants above.]

10. Co [*--x--*] zamówili w restauracji?
+Każdy członek rodziny państwa Kowalskich znalazł na liście dań coś dla siebie+. Pan Kowalski zamówił kurczaka z ziemniakami i serem. Pani Kowalska zamówiła zupę pomidorową i sałatę. Babcia i dziadek zamówili ***befsztyk i warzywa. +Synek państwa Kowalskich chciał tylko frytki+, ale pani Kowalska powiedziała, że ***musi zjeść trochę mięsa.

[1. I've taken the liberty to change the first sentence entirely. Of course, the original was grammatically correct, but -- a) it featured another repetition of "oni", b) I think it didn't correspond to a satisfactory degree with the question! I know it was meant as an introduction, but the question was rather specific, so I thought that the opening sentence must already relate to the subject.
2. beef stake is befsztyk (... it came to us from Germany, I guess).

(...)

(...)

3. "Dziecko"... It is a fine word, but the problem with it is the same as in the sentence about the man stealing a wallet -- the storyteller would naturally be expected to know the sex of the character, so it's very awkward and odd-looking to use evasive terms like "człowiek" or "dziecko". In the present sentence, "dziecko" is additionally impermissible through the fact that it suddenly becomes genderized in the last clause -- that's highly awkward.
4. In Polish, the tense of the subordinate sentence simulates reported speech being used "there and then" -- it assumes the formula of the reporter being there and relating the things as they happen. In practice, the subordinate clause of reported speech comes mostly in the present tense. And again, the pronoun "on" was omissible here -- theoretically, without it, the subject of the clause could be Mrs. Kowalska, but context makes it more than sufficiently clear that it's the boy.]

11. Co kelner dał panu Kowalskiemu?
*Kelner* dał panu Kowalskiemu rachunek. Ale pan Kowalski nie mógł zapłacić!

12. Dlaczego pan Kowalski nie mógł zapłacić?
***Bo* nie miał portfela i nie miał pieniędzy! Kelner był bardzo zdenerwowany. Pan Kowalski był zaskoczony, +gdyż+ nie wiedział, że nie ***ma* portfela.

[1. I tried to evade the "on" in the beginning, but... indeed, the sentence would have looked a little "sudden" on starting immediately with "Nie miał portfela..." -- such a beginning would be okay, but it's better to put something in the beginning, right? :) Why not "Bo..." -- "Because..."? :) True, formally, that's not a very elegant sentence -- a complete sentence should run: "Mr. Kowalski couldn't pay the bill, because...", but in regular usage people would often start right from the subordinate clause, wouldn't they? :)
2. I changed the "bo" which appears later on in the sentence for "gdyż" strictly for stylistic reasons, only to avoid repetition.
3. Once again: subordinate clause in reported speech -- we use the tenses as if we were contemporary to the event reported.]

13. Co rodzina państwa Kowalskich była zmuszona zrobić, gdy okazało się, że pan Kowalski nie może zapłacić rachunku?
Państwo Kowalscy musieli odpracować należność w kuchni! Musieli zmywać naczynia!

[1. The original question is comprehensible, but I think it's pretty bad-looking stylistically -- just as its translation into English would be – look: "What the family had to do because Mr. Kowalski could not pay the bill?". I'm not sure -- is it right in English? It seems to me that "because" is out of place in an interrogative sentence like this. I know my "reformed" sentence may look a bit intimidating, but it's not quite so complicated as it appears at the first look, and it's a fairly regular way to convey the idea properly.
2. Okay, I admit I did add two fancy words in the first sentence of the answer, but I think they are well-worth getting to know anyway.
odpracować -- to work off (a debt)
należność -- money due; bill; debt]

14. Jak zachowywała się pani Kowalska?
Pani Kowalska była zła i kłóciła się z [*--x--*] mężem. Powiedziała, że ***mogłaby zabić pana Kowalskiego!

[1. "Jak była pani Kowalska?" is inadmissible in Polish, sorry. There's simply no connecting "być" with an adverb in normal sentences with a subject. A more acceptable sentence would have been "Jaka była pani Kowalska?"; this one is grammatically correct, but we only ask this way about some enduring characteristics of a person. Unfortunately (... or not :)) Polish often likes precision, or at least specificity, what regards the actions and the verbs. After a moment of thinking I decided to suggest the verb "zachowywać się": to behave, to act, to carry oneself, etc. It looks quite natural in the context.

(...)

(...)

2. In the answer, "z jej mężem" is wrong. If we're talking about things or people pertaining to the subject of a sentence then we use a form of "swój/swoja/swoje" (declinated as required, of course). The exception is the first person subject -- please compare: "Jan kłóci się ze swoim szefem.", "Kowalscy rozmawiają ze swoimi sąsiadami.", "Polemizujesz ze swoim idolem!", BUT "Gram w szachy z moim najtrudniejszym przeciwnikiem." Having said all that, please notice that I have decided to delete the possessive pronoun before "mężem" altogether. That's natural for Polish -- we assume that "brat", "siostra", "przyjaciel", "nauczyciel", etc., would naturally come to be understood as "the brother", "the sister", "the teacher", etc. Unless otherwise stated. That seems reasonable, doesn't it? :) "Pani Kowalska kłóciła się z jej mężem." seems to indicate quite decisively that she was quarreling with somebody else's husband.

(...)

(...)

3. Hypothetical, unreal threats like that of the irate Mrs. Kowalska are expressed with the verb in conjunctive.]

15. Jak czuł się Dziadek?
Dziadek był bardzo zdenerwowany, bo jego syn nie mógł zapłacić.
Dziadek +nie cierpi+ pracować w kuchni.

[Everything was pretty neat in this point, with the exception of "nienawidzi". Actually, this verb is acceptable in the context, but remains highly substandard usage. The preferred expression is "nie cierpieć <robić czegoś>"]

16. Czym skończyła się ta historia?
Koniec był taki, że rodzina państwa Kowalskich pracowała całą noc w kuchni i w restauracji.

["W końcu" in Polish means a) "eventually", "finally" or b) "in the end", "at the end of the day", "when you look at it"
Ex.
a)
--"Nie mógł wybrać krawata. W końcu zdecydował się na ten w paski."
--"Nie mogła spać. Gdy w końcu zasnęła, było już po północy."
b)
--"Nie możesz tego zrobić! Jesteś w końcu uczciwym człowiekiem!"
--"W końcu nie ważne, czy się wygrywa czy się przegrywa. Liczy się sama przyjemność z gry!"
"At the end" corresponds to "na końcu". But... "Where were they at the end?" -- ? Okay, it's acceptable, I guess. Still, I thought it might be better to ask something like "How did the story end?".]