# I locked myself out!



## Encolpius

Context: You forget the key of your apartment in the lock and stay in the corridor you meet the neighbour and say: I locked myself out! 
What would you say in Polish? Thanks.


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## marco_2

I myself would spontaneously say: *Zatrzasnąłem się od zewnątrz, *but maybe other people would use different expressions - there is no fixed one.


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## jasio

I understand that you cannot open your apartment because the keys are inside, right? In such case I would say "zatrzasnąłem klucze w mieszkaniu".


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## Karton Realista

jasio said:


> I understand that you cannot open your apartment because the keys are inside, right? In such case I would say "zatrzasnąłem klucze w mieszkaniu".


I double that. It surely sounds more natural than marco's phrase.


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## MB

marco_2 said:


> I myself would spontaneously say: *Zatrzasnąłem się od zewnątrz, *but maybe other people would use different expressions - there is no fixed one.


  Entirely unidiomatic.



jasio said:


> I understand that you cannot open your apartment because the keys are inside, right? In such case I would say "zatrzasnąłem klucze w mieszkaniu".


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## marco_2

[QUOTE="szymbert, post: 1632 Entirely unidiomatic.

[/QUOTE]

In this case you can't talk about being idiomatic or unidiomatic, because, as I wrote, we don't have fixed expression(s) for this situation. I think it's because it doesn't happen so often - I have never locked myself out in my life, but my neighbour did (in the early 1970s) and he used "my" expression, and nobody had problems with understanding him.


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## Encolpius

[/QUOTE]  In this case you can't talk about being idiomatic or unidiomatic, because, as I wrote, *we don't have fixed expression(s)* for this situation.[/QUOTE]

I must agree with that comment. I am afraid some languages do not have a fixed expression for that verb.


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## Ben Jamin

marco_2 said:


> I myself would spontaneously say: *Zatrzasnąłem się od zewnątrz, *but maybe other people would use different expressions - there is no fixed one.


For me this expression sounds alien, like a calque from another language. I never heard anybody using such expressions, and I suppose that most people would react with lack of comprehension ("Whaaat do you mean?").
First of all you can't use the verb "Zatrzasnąć" about a person, only about a door or a lid with a lock. 
The most natural way of describing the situation for me would be "Zatrzasnąłem drzwi od zewnątrz i nie mogę wejść". 



_Do you want a lift? - Czy dać ci windę?_


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## jaromira

And what about "_zostawiłem klucze w zamku (w środku) i teraz nie mogę wejść_"? I would recommand it to my non-Polish boyfriend who doesn't have a lot vocabulary. "Zatrzasnąć się" is quite extreme to pronounce, especially in a stressful situation


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## Ben Jamin

jaromira said:


> And what about "_zostawiłem klucze w zamku (w środku) i teraz nie mogę wejść_"? I would recommand it to my non-Polish boyfriend who doesn't have a lot vocabulary. "Zatrzasnąć się" is quite extreme to pronounce, especially in a stressful situation


You actually don't have to leave your key in the lock inside to get the door locked by just closing it. It is enough to have a type of lock that automatically locks the door whenever you close it. The key may as well be anywhere out of your reach.


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## marco_2

Ben Jamin said:


> First of all you can't use the verb "Zatrzasnąć" about a person, only about a door or a lid with a lock.



Maybe it's a bit colloquial but, according to PWN Dictionary of Polish Language:

zatrzasnąć się — zatrzaskiwać się
*1. *«zamknąć się gwałtownie, z trzaskiem»
*2. *«o drzwiach, oknach itp.: zamknąć się automatycznie»
*3. «zamknąć się gdzieś, trzasnąwszy drzwiami lub zatrzasnąwszy drzwi»*


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## Ben Jamin

marco_2 said:


> Maybe it's a bit colloquial but, according to PWN Dictionary of Polish Language:
> 
> zatrzasnąć się — zatrzaskiwać się
> *1. *«zamknąć się gwałtownie, z trzaskiem»
> *2. *«o drzwiach, oknach itp.: zamknąć się automatycznie»
> *3. «zamknąć się gdzieś, trzasnąwszy drzwiami lub zatrzasnąwszy drzwi»*


It *is* colloquial, and should be marked as such in the PWN.
I would accept use of this phrase in the case of somebody who has locked oneself inside, but not outside of the flat. In the case of "locking oneself outside" (Zatrzasnąłem się od zewnątrz) the Polish phrase sounds weird to me.


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## tewlwolow

szymbert said:


> Entirely unidiomatic.



I disagree. I would most likely say so. I second Marco's proposal, though the first one that came to my mind would simply be "_zatrzasnąłem się *w środku*_".


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## anthox

A sentence in Clozemaster translates "I've locked myself out of my room" as:

"Zgubiłem klucz od pokoju i nie mogę wejść."

How does this sound to native speakers?


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## MB

Sounds erroneous. You don't necessarily need to lose the key to lock yourself out.


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## Ben Jamin

marco_2 said:


> [QUOTE="szymbert, post: 1632 Entirely unidiomatic.



In this case you can't talk about being idiomatic or unidiomatic, because, as I wrote, we don't have fixed expression(s) for this situation. I think it's because it doesn't happen so often - I have never locked myself out in my life, but my neighbour did (in the early 1970s) and he used "my" expression, and nobody had problems with understanding him.[/QUOTE]
Being unidiomatic doesn't mean "we have one idiomatic expression and it is not this one". Unfortunately the word idiomatic has more than one meaning. The most known is "belonging to a fixed phrase that makes no sense when translated literally to another language". Examples "give somebody a lift" and "zrobić kogoś na szaro". Another meaning of idiomatic, less known, is "belonging to a set of of expressions that sound natural in a language", and unidiomatic "gramatically and lexically correct, but nobody speaks like that". Example "i don't know many other young women that give their body frequently to men" (film Cabaret, Natalia Landauer to Sally Bowles).


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## MB

Thanks, Ben Jamin.

You can please fix the quoting a tad bit, though, since it looks sort of ambiguous at first blush. At least to my eyes -- not remembering that rather old thread, I thought "In this case [...] understanding him." is your opinion.


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## Ben Jamin

MB said:


> Thanks, Ben Jamin.
> 
> You can please fix the quoting a tad bit, though, since it looks sort of ambiguous at first blush. At least to my eyes -- not remembering that rather old thread, I thought "In this case [...] understanding him." is your opinion.


???


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