Do You Know The Difference Between Paczki And Paczek?

Tomorrow is Fat Tuesday and before you head down to your favorite pastry shop to pick up some paczki, you should really know the difference between paczki and paczek.

First off, let's learn how to pronounce both of those words.

• Paczki - POONCH-kee
• Paczek - POON-check

What's the difference other than the pronunciation?  Well, one of those words is the singular name of that yummy cream filled, fried donut and the other is its plural form.

Your average person will undoubtedly refer to one of those donuts as a paczki (POONCH-kee), but they are wrong.  A single donut is actually known as a paczek (POON-check).

So, when you are at the store and you want to buy a dozen paczki, you say "can I have a dozen paczki?"  You don't say "paczkis" because that isn't a word and you would only say paczek if you were buying one.

And then when you are enjoying a paczek, you should never refer to it as a paczki because that means you have more than one.  Unless of course, you are double fisting paczki because they are so darn good, it's a waste not to have one in each hand.

Now that you are armed with the correct pronunciations and know the correct pluralization of the word, you can impress all of your friends by correcting them.  Or annoy them for correcting them, it just kind of depends on how you do it and how well they take criticism.