Kazał na siebie czekać dłuższy czas.

The CM English translation is given as ‘He kept me waiting for a long time.’ Would a better translation be something along the lines of ‘He told himself to wait for a longer time’ … I know it doesn’t sound very natural in English but it would probably be closer to the Polish original??? Thanks

The English translation sounds good, “kazać na siebie czekać" is just a fixed Polish expression that means “to keep someone waiting” / “to leave someone hanging”.

In a literal sense, “kazać” means “to order sb to do sth”. So if you were to translate this sentence literally, it would be something like “he ordered [me/us] to wait for himself for a longer time”, or more loosely “he made [me/us] wait for him for a significant amount of time”.

In this fixed expression, “kazać” is understood metaphorically, so the person didn’t have to literally tell/order someone to wait for him—they probably just came late without telling anyone.

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Thanks. This is the first time that I’d encountered that expression. I took the meaning too literally.