• Listen

  What it means

  What the shell soaks up in youth — another truncated form, ending just before the consequence, implying the full meaning is understood.

  English equivalent

  As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.

  Vocabulary

  • skorupka — little shell, eggshell
  • nasiąknąć — to soak up, to become saturated
  • za młodu — in youth

  Grammar note

  'Nasiąknie' is third-person singular future perfective of 'nasiąknąć'.

  Cultural context

  Mid-sentence truncation used rhetorically; the speaker expects the listener to complete it.

  Intermediate

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