Polish course for restaurants and hotels – kitchen, floor, reception

For the kitchen, the floor, the bar and reception

The course is for foreigners working in restaurants, bars, cafés, canteens, hotels and guesthouses. It is one of our Polish at work courses.

• cooks, kitchen assistants and dishwashing staff,
• waiters, baristas and bartenders,
• receptionists and guest service staff,
• room attendants and housekeeping staff.

Workplace situations we practise

In hospitality people speak quickly and under time pressure, yet you have to talk to guests politely – so we practise both registers: short messages in the kitchen and polite forms on the restaurant floor.

The course programme in modules

The first two modules are shared by everyone, and after that you can put the emphasis on the kitchen, the restaurant floor or the hotel – depending on your position.

1. The venue and your position. Kitchen, restaurant floor, dishwashing area, bar, reception; introducing yourself, schedule, hours, the briefing before opening.
2. Politeness towards a guest. The “pan/pani” form in questions (Czy pan już wybrał?), offering and recommending, apologising, the conditional (Czy mógłby pan…?).
3. The kitchen. Products, activities (kroić, smażyć, dusić, piec), measures and portions, messages at the pass, reading a recipe.
4. Hygiene and allergens. Allergens in dishes, temperature and storage, use-by dates, answering a guest's question about ingredients.
5. The hotel. Booking by phone and email, check-in and check-out, information for guests, cleaning and reporting faults in rooms.
6. Complaints and difficult situations. A dissatisfied guest, a mistake in an order, a delay, passing the matter on to the shift manager.

We have collected the words for the modules in the restaurant and hotel glossary.

The mistakes guests hear most often

The most common mistakes concern the gender of the names of dishes and drinks and questions to the guest that are too direct – the latter sound rude even though they are grammatically correct.

Starting level

You start the course at level A1 and work up to B1 – we will choose the starting module in the trial lesson.

• You are starting from zero – first numbers, hours, names of products and the simplest phrases for a guest. You can also build the foundation in the from-scratch course.
• You understand orders but talking to a guest stresses you – we start with module 2 and practise dialogues on the restaurant floor.
• You speak freely – we work on complaints, the phone at reception and emails to guests.

Show us your menu

You can start with the test or straight away with a trial lesson in which you tell us where you work.

1. Take the placement test or book a trial lesson with a level assessment.
2. If you can, show the teacher your venue's menu – we will use it to practise orders.
3. Choose one-to-one lessons or a group of up to 5 people.