Language / Plural endings [20]

On the whole, I find the English, superficially at least, far better mannered both on the phone as well as elsewhere, than your run-of-the-mill Yank. English-speaking Canadians come in a close second-:)

Language / Plural endings [20]

Osiol,

It's more similar to German 'Bitte?' vs. 'Was?' The latter isn't grammatically "wrong", it just sounds rude, again cf. 'Sorry?/Pardon me?' vs. 'Huh?'/What?' in English.

I heard in our local Polish booknook, 'Lipiński, słucham!', whenever the owner/manager picked up the phone as clients called in. Figure though, he's just one of those super-polite older Poles.-:)

Language / Plural endings [20]

No, Darius. You're confusing two different issues now. 'Co?' does of course also mean 'What?' in the Anglo-American sense of 'Huh?', rather than 'Pardon me?', 'I didn't catch that!' and so forth, which is more polite. This distinction though has nothing to do with 'czego?' being a more "polite" form!!

For example: Szukam tego nowego romana od Różiewicza. - Proszę? Czego pani szuka? = I'm looking for that new novel of Różiewicz. - Sorry? What are you looking for?

The polite form of 'Co?', which is often colloquial Polish, would be 'Proszę?', sometimes even 'Słucham?', usually on the phone.

Language / Plural endings [20]

The difference between "Czego?" and "Co?" looks transparent enough: The first responds to the genitive (possessive) case,, e.g. 'Czego szukasz?' = What are you looking for? (lit. "Of what you search?"), the second is both nominative (the naming case) or accusative (direct object), except with masculine animate nouns. e.g. 'Co to jest?' - To jest książka. = What's that? - It's a book. or: 'Co pan widzie? - Widzę ten nowy budynek. = What do you see (formal)? - I see that new building..... Not even gonna touch Polish aspectual distinctions here between 'to see' vs. 'to look at' etc. For a whole 'nother post-:)

From here though, it gets even hairier than German, since practically NOTHING in Polish cases seems to correspond with English (or even German)!

Language / My Learning Polish Woes... [64]

'He is so cool :) Isn't he?

Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence there, Juke! --:)

Marek what is your nationality?

I might ask the same. (he-he) Actually, I'm American by birth, German by lineage/extraction and Polish by association.

Language / My Learning Polish Woes... [64]

Rock on, LondonChick!

In the end, as always, sheer persistance'll win out and you'll learn to speak FAAARRR better Polish than most of the average Poles will speak English, I guarantee it!!-:)

Du pratar svenska?? Va' kul, daa!! Jag bodde en hela sommar i Sverige. Kanner du Goteborg, Boraas och detta omraad?

Chat with ya 'gin soon!

Language / nazywam sie vs na imie mi - the difference [11]

Czy pan jest Polakiem? - Tak, jestem. (or: Nie, jestem Niemcem.) = Are you Polish? - Yes, I am (No, I'm German). In English, chances are we'd be as likely to ask "Are you from Poland?", rather than "Are you Polish?", much the same in the response "I'm from Poland."/"I'm from Germany." etc. It's more of a cultural point, I suppose.

Language / My Learning Polish Woes... [64]

Tell me, LondonChick, which did you find harder, Polish or German? I'm a native German-English speaker and first studied Polish at the ripe 'young' age of thirty, having already mastered several European languages like Dutch, Spanish (survival level), Swedish and Danish.

Just curious-:)

News / Polish court systems [11]

"At least the EU has habeus corpus....

......which we in the US are slowly trying to get rid of, thank you Justice Alito et al!!!

News / Polish court systems [11]

In Gemany, at least, there IS a firmly enforced legal retirement age for all public service professions, among them, professional jurors-:)!!

I'd be similarly curious about the Polish court system.

News / Polish court systems [11]

Yep, sounds just like Germany. There, they're called 'Schoeffen', composed mainly of jurists.

News / Polish court systems [11]

My understanding is that Poland, much as with the rest of the EU, follows the system of continental, i.e. Roman/Napoleonic law, compared with the UK, Canada and the US, which follow British Common Law.

To the best of my knowledge, Poland has no juries in the American sense. Don't know if they prefer professional juries as in Germany and certain other countries.

News / Donald Tusk - the worst PM of 3rd RP. [79]

Tusk has negotiated with Jewish groups to provide restitution to Holocaust survivors and their families.

If that's anything-:)

News / Main Polish newspapers in English popular in Poland [13]

True, yet at least some type of yardstick is needed to insure an overarching standard, otherwise, why study/teach anything?--)

Similar:

What is the main newspaper in Poznan?


I don't know if this is the main one but it is "one". You can view the paper edition also. :)
gp.pl - Poznan Newspaper

correct;) if we consider local main newspaper it is Głos Wielkopolski.

News / Main Polish newspapers in English popular in Poland [13]

I might recommend "Spotlight" to those Poles and others interested in improving their English. The good thing about this journal (published in Germany, I believe) is that ONLY NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS are allowed to write for it!! -:)-:) This in comparison with many namless magazines with similar goals in mind, but not using university-educated Brits, Canadians or Americans.

The advantage here is, of course, mistakes in English made by e.g. German native-speaker contributors, won't become reinforced in the learner's brain, like some computer virus that'll never come out.

I highly recommend it, as did many of my former German-speaking students, especially of advanced English.

Language / Dokonany/Niedokonany - Perfective/Imperfective [46]

Indeed, Dariusz, but I'm pretty sure that it's their native language, i.e. they have inherent license to do with their mother tongue as they wish. The same though, does NOT apply to foreigners. A foreign tongue is much like a guest pass: It should be treated with care by the user and may be required back at any time....no reason necessary!-:)

Language / Dokonany/Niedokonany - Perfective/Imperfective [46]

"when they open their mouths...."

Ditto, ditto and ditto plus!!!-:) It continues to amaze me how certain nationalities, and not unintelligent members of said species, particularly from Poland, Spain and France, can live for umpteen years in an Anglo-Saxon country and still sound as if they just got off the boat.

Somehow, I credit us Anglo-Saxon speakers, even from moderately educated backgrounds, with making more of a concerted effort at speaking a foreign language than many a foreigner makes at speaking ours. Prhaps this is because fewer expect us, especially Americans, to speak a foreign language and also too, because we were never said to 'need it', compared with most other nationalities, where English is considered soooo important, that not only is every Tom, Dick and Harry required to learn/study it, but worst of all, practically any Tom, Dick and Harry is allowed to teach it, atrocious grammar, pronounciation what have you!!!!!

Language / Dokonany/Niedokonany - Perfective/Imperfective [46]

mieszkać = to live, i.e. dwell in a house, apartment etc. IMPERFECTIVE

zamieszkać = to live/dwell officially at a specific address PERFECTIVE

pomieszkać = to live/dwell somewhere a while, not permanently! PERFECTIVE

Normally, certain prefixes 'perfectivize' the root verb, by itself, an imperfective verb denoting a continuous action!

Does this make sense?

Aspects function similarly, yet not identically, to English tenses. They appear more complicated to English speakers because sometimes the two forms, perfective and imperfective, don't seem to have much in common, e.g. 'brać' vs. 'wziąć', both translated as 'to take' etc....

Czarne Oczy,

Be careful here! 'nauczyć się' means 'to learn', not 'to teach'-:)

Language / Polish Language Pronunciation - Example Words and Phrases [178]

......or Gosiu, depending on just how familiar one wishes to get-:)-:)!!

Language / Polish v Russian - similarity [17]

While I agree with most of what's been said thus far, my own reasons for learning Polish before studying the little Russian I did, was that the former was my 'bridge' language into the other Slavic languages! I was so eager to acquire the language of my newest clients back when the East was opening its borders, that I wanted to get one language down before beginning another.

I found too that my fluency in Polish helped learning Russian, i.e. my teacher didn't need to start from scratch, explaining aspects, perfective vs. imperfective, palatalized consonants, basic vocabulary etc. I could already read Russian (the alphabet was/is the very least of my problems!) and figure out a few basic roots.

German I mentioned because even for my intermediate students, the transition from English prepositions to separable and inseparable prefixes is often a little much for most to handle-:)

Language / Polish Language Pronunciation - Example Words and Phrases [178]

1) Mauugawzhatta (Here the 'r' is NEVER trilled as itis normally)

2) Mauugawshya (The 's'/'sh' sound is tricky in Polish. It's NOT the 'sh' of English 'shut'; it's almost half way between an 's' and a 'sh'! Make sense??)

Polish sibilants - a pluperfect nightmare-:)

Language / Polish verbs are conjugated with a separate ending for all six persons: I, you, he, she, it, we, you [29]

Adding something 'original' of Marek's very own: WOOOOOOOOOOWWWW!!! AWESOMEE, DUDE! I've been scanning the depth of pages from the above listed web sites/links and man!!! Forget the fractured English of Grzegorz' translation in spots. the sheer wealth of info. about language, considering its accuracy though, is tremendous! Right on there, somebody in Pole-Cyberland-:)

Work / Polish Language Courses at Polish Universities [14]

I believe Jagiełłoń University in Kraków has one in connection with PFL (Polish as a Foreign Language), but I'm not sure-:)

Language / Polish v Russian - similarity [17]

Granted all that you say! There is no denying here the role of culture in language development as well as usage. One might in fact add, the two are intertwined, linked at birth, so to speak.

Roman Jakobson has written extensively on this and other related topics. I've yet though to see a truly 'Polish' word in common parlance for 'literatura', even 'historia'! I'm sure they exist, but in what register or social context, are they employed? In German, 'Historie' sounds odd, snobbish, too Frenchified or Anglicized. The Germans use their own 'Geschichte' and have now for many centuries! However, 'Literatur' is the ONLY known word in either everyday or educated German speech. 'Schrifttum', a really Teutonic sounding bugger, comes across like some distateful relic of Faschist times, Hitler, language purification and so on.

Language / Polish v Russian - similarity [17]

What I meant was simply that, as Poland became Christianized before most of the rest of Slavdom, Latin especially became an important influence on the development of the language, part and parcel with the growth of the Catholic Church in Poland. 'Restauracja', 'literatura', 'inauguracja', 'historia' etc. are ample proof of this indelible strain of the Italianate in Polish, compared with Russian. The latter surely has lots of Latin-based words, yet often side by side with one of "pure Slavic" origin, such as their word for 'literature', derived from 'slow-', which currently escapes me-:) LOL

Language / Polish v Russian - similarity [17]

Sascha! (Forgive my Germanized Western spelling 'Sasha' LOL),

This whole use of 'za' vs. 'po' e.g. 'ZAmieszkać' (to live, dwell somewhere)/'POmieszkać' (to inhabit a place, but only for a while) in Polish, drives students of the language, such as myself, to desparation!

I console myself though, having also studied Russian, that at least I never had to learn German as a foreign language! I've been told by my students that it's the most challenging language they've ever studied, even advanced learners, who've attempted more case-heavy tongues, such as Icelandic or Hungarian-:)-:)!!

Language / Polish v Russian - similarity [17]

In this sense, Polish is virtually a 'typical' Slavic language for most of the reasons Sascha and the rest have mentioned. Polish differs phonologically from Russian, especially the South and East Slavic languages, showing a greater affinity in this way with Czech, but curiously NOT with Ukrainian! The latter has word stock all but identical with Polish, its pronounciation however is much closer to Russian. Polish stands separate from the rest of its family in the survival of those nasals 'ą' and 'ę', all but abandoned by the other extant members of the Slavic group! In addition, its palatalized and dental consonants are nowhere nearly as clear as in, say, Russian.

Moreover, in much base vocabulary, Polish is understandably more Westernized, drawing heavily from French, German, Italian, i.e. Latin, even Yiddish-:)

Another thing. Polish aspect is more productive than Russian, owing in large part to those foreign root verbs which take prefixes, notably 'za', f.ex. 'ZAinteresować', etc.

Language / "nothing special" [13]

Hold that thought and frame that enthusiasm, 'cuz pal, yer shyerrr a gonna need it!!!!

BRING IT ON, DUDERINO!!!

Language / How to say that you dont speak polish in polish? [23]

Czy Pan(i)/Państwo mówi(ą) po angielsku? Nie mówię po polsku!

This would cover most bases in formal situations only, of course-:)

Language / "nothing special" [13]

'Witam!' ((s.) Witaj! (pl.) Witajcie in the informal) also means 'hello'. Sometimes Poles will use the super informal 'Hej'! meaning 'Hey!' or 'Hi!', resp. 'Yo!' as used here in the States in the inner cities, often by African-Americans.

Poor Edward!

Say mate, how did it go at work? Did this Polish chap ever speak to you again?
Just curious-:)