• Listen

  What it means

  Literally “to lead someone into the raspberries,” this idiom means “to mislead someone,” “to lead someone astray,” or “to get someone into trouble.” It describes deliberately or carelessly steering someone in the wrong direction, causing them confusion, problems, or harm. Poles use it when someone has been tricked, given false information, or put in an awkward situation by another person.

  Vocabulary

  • wpuszczać — to let in, to lead into (imperfective)
  • maliny — raspberries (accusative plural of malina)
  • kogoś — someone (accusative of ktoś)

  Grammar note

  The verb 'wpuszczać' (imperfective) takes a direct object in the accusative ('kogoś'). 'W maliny' is a prepositional phrase using 'w' + accusative to indicate direction into a location. The imperfective aspect emphasises the ongoing or repeated action of misleading. The perfective counterpart 'wpuścić' would imply a completed act.

  Cultural context

  This is an informal, widely used expression. It can describe anything from a friend giving bad directions to a con artist running a scam. The raspberry imagery may refer to the difficulty of navigating a raspberry thicket — easy to get lost and scratched. The English equivalents include 'to lead someone up the garden path' or 'to send someone on a wild goose chase.'

  Intermediate

Noticed a typo, a wrong translation, or anything that doesn't look right? We'd love to fix it — just let us know via the contact page. Thank you!