News / What you think about the Polish President, Kaczynski? [53]

Thread attached on merging:
Polish Opinion of President Kaczynski

Curious as to the general public opinion regarding Mr. Kaczyński's statements with respect to homosexuality in Poland and the Lisbon Treaty!

Responses in both Polish or English greatly welcomed.

Thank you in advance!!

Language / (part 2) Polish Language Pronunciation - Sample Words and Phrases [311]

Urszula.

I heard some people once from Zakopane and their '£' sounded deceptively like a Russian 'dark l', f. ex. in 'golodniy' (Polish 'głodny').

Warsovians and Krakovians seem to pronounce it in more of the standard way we foreigners learn it!

Language / misleading differences between Polish and English languages [92]

Apropos this topic thread, 'noga' means 'leg' in Polish, but 'Noga' (capital N) is a Hebrew female first name, of biblical origin, named after an Old Testament king, or something.

How's that for an odd coincedence?!

Language / Sit down - mogę usiąć? [6]

Wiem, wiem Krzysztof! Pośpieszałem się dopisać zdanie a zrobiłem błąd.

Znowu ślicznie dziękuję za poprawienie.
Wesołych Świąt Wielkanoc!!

Language / Sit down - mogę usiąć? [6]

Dzięki wszystkim za pomóc!!

Language / misleading differences between Polish and English languages [92]

'No' in Polish is actually almost identical to 'Na' in German, even 'Naa' in Danish: Na, wie geht's?, Naa, hvordan gaar det? = No, co słychać? = So/Well, so what's up?

Language / misleading differences between Polish and English languages [92]

In English 'No' means 'Nie', in Polish 'No' means 'Well?', 'So, uh..' e.g. 'No, co słychać?' = So, what's up?

Language / The only polish word a foreigner won't ever say correctly :P [113]

Many of my fellow learners of Polish shed 'tears' over writing/pronouncing 'łzy' correctly. - - :):)!!! LOL

Some of these Polish consonant clusters rival the palatalized groupings of equally simple, everyday words in Russian, e.g. 'dver' (drzwi).

Language / Context of 'Mów dalej' [13]

....or perhaps even "Proszę dalej!" = Please go on!, without even using "Mów.." in the phrase.

Language / Share Perfective and Imperfective Polish verbs [105]

Jones,
True enough. I think it valuable as well to mention in addition to those other languages you named, that all too often the double-standard of 'practicing' vs. 'speaking' a language rears its head. Frequently, in certain countries, e.g. Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands etc., the inhabitants will rarely give a non-native, even if fluent in their language, as much as a chance to speak, yet will instantly switch to English. When this happened to yours truly, I responded "Oh, fine! So, you'd like to practice your English as well?", I was met with a smug, cold irritation: "Practice?! I think I speak English quite well, thank you very much!"

My answer: "Yes, and you seem to be a majority of one." The person was speechless.

Language / Share Perfective and Imperfective Polish verbs [105]

Useless?? Why is Polish a useless language when dealing with Poland, especially since we've already established in this very forum that Poland has become an even more significant country/economy thanks to the euro currency?

What other language are we going to use when dealing with Poland? For that matter, what other language other than German is used when doing serious business with Germany, Russian with Russia, English with North America etc....?

Remember: The most important language in the world is the language the customer speaks!

Language / Share Perfective and Imperfective Polish verbs [105]

Surely Russians would quite logically have an easier time learning Polish than Americans, Brits or French, for example.

English is of course linguistically closer to German than Polish, however, precisely because English is sooooo much more omnipresent in daily life than Polish,Russian or almost any other tongue I can think of, it tends to seem as though it were a sort of "everymans' " language, to be fractured and mutilated at will.

Noone seems to mind when, say Germans or whoever, butcher the English language. Yet, if we English native speakers make audible mistakes in pronunciation or grammar, many Germans almost immediately try switching to English (after all, language switching is practically the same as code switching!), whereupon the Germans' English is usually not all that much better than the Yank's German. The difference is merely in the cache

and status associated with speaking English, nowadays, more often US-English.

Language / Share Perfective and Imperfective Polish verbs [105]

Michał, this is one the alleged reasons for the fallacious argument used by speakers of supposedly 'difficult' languages which seems to run along the lines that because English is 'so much easier', in this case than German, all German speakers know excellent English since the latter is not as 'hard' as German, thereby making the need for knowing German superfluous.

What b_ _ _ _ _ _t, people! Just because someone spends years and years in school learning something, does this necessarily equate with competence??
I studied math (as compulsory here in the States as English abroad) from 9 until 14, and am today still poor at it. Would I ever say that a person needn't bother to learn math because everybody of my generation had to learn it in school?? If someone can do something much better that I can, by all means then, be my guest!

I'll admit too, German, like Polish, has its challenges, as I've said by now countless times in this forum.

Language / Share Perfective and Imperfective Polish verbs [105]

malen/mahlen (identical pronunciation: the first meaning 'to paint', the second 'to grind'

Lachen lachen (the first plural form with a long a, meaning 'puddles', the second with a short a, meaning 'to laugh'

......the list goes on and on, true enough, Michał

Language / Share Perfective and Imperfective Polish verbs [105]

Michał, such verbs are often even trickier for foreigners, since they seem so much alike (...but, of course, aren't!!), whereas the other ones mentioned are easier to detect as different forms of the same idea, therefore are easier to distinguish, e.g. the paired verbs 'brać' vs. 'wziąć' for English single verb 'to take'.

Language / Share Perfective and Imperfective Polish verbs [105]

Cześć, Krzysztof!

Dzięki. Tak, 'umierać' jest innym czasownikem za parę 'umrzeć'/'umierać'. Zapomniałem!! - - :)

Language / Share Perfective and Imperfective Polish verbs [105]

mine too (drip....drip...... LOL!!): brać/wziąć = perf./impf. 'to take'
potrafić/móc = perf./impf. 'to be able to, can
pójść/chodzić = perf./impf. 'to go'/'come'
umrzeć/zamierzeć = perf./impf. 'to die'
etc.
What's worse, those buggers tend to be fairly common verbs!!!!

Powodzenia,

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

Dzięki!

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

Witaj, Wyśpiańsko!

Wiem. Poprawny jest 'powinniam', nie prawda?

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

Whoops, guys! Clean forgot "powinnem" has no infinitive form (bezokolicznik!!).

Muchos apologies - - -:):)

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

'Musieć' = to have to (must)
'Powinnic' = ought to (should)
móc = to be able to (can)

.....are common modal verbs in Polish. "Auxilliaries" as in English "DO you speak Polish?" etc. don't exist in most languages other than English, in addition, Poles find English-language tag questions rather strange sounding. In English: "Do you like books?" -Yes, I DO. vs. Polish "Czy lubisz książki?" = Tak, lubię. (lit "...Yes, I like.)

Will have to get back to you later about the other verb questions.

Polonia / Polish-German Language Exchnage! [10]

Falkster,

"Mir fehlen die Woerter." is also correct, it simply means something different; "I'm lacking the words." rather than "I'm lacking the expression".

In German, "Woerter" and "Worte" have different meanings as plural forms of the same singular, "das Wort".

Many non-natives I've run into aren't aware of that! - - :)

Language / Share Perfective and Imperfective Polish verbs [105]

Krzysztof,

In English, the verb "work" can also have as the supine tense "wrought" for "worked". Many think that "wrought" is the perfect form of "wreak", as in "to wreak havoc" = to cause destruction. The former though is highly antiquated and almost elevated usage, hardly advisable for foreigners.

This may be a misnomer. Will have to check Wiki. on that one!

Polonia / Polish-German Language Exchnage! [10]

Halloechen (typically 'Piefkenese'!!), Baska!

Problem though with "Mir fehlen die Woerter!" is that it's not idiomatic, even if grammatical, German.

My problem very briefly in Polish is that I often translate from the German. I can translate fluently from Polish into German. Vice versa though I wouldn't even attempt, certainly not for serious pay. - - :):) LOL

My e-mail is panlech31@yahoo should you wish to continue this thread.
Posłaj mi e-mail po polsku oraz po niemiecku. Czy masz czas, umiem poprawić twoje błędy, tak jak ty możesz poprawić moje błędy po polsku. Dobra idee?

Language / Common mistakes made by foreigners in Polish [90]

Osiol,

Here's what worked for me P- CH - AIRRR - VAH, accent on the first syllable, of course!

Language / Share Perfective and Imperfective Polish verbs [105]

Cześć, Krzysztof!

Dziękuję, 'dokonane' przeciwko 'niedokonanymi' czasownikami jest trudną sprawą we wszsystkich językach słowiańskich. Czasowniki ruchu są nieletnie a potrzebuje się codziennie ćwicić.

Language / Share Perfective and Imperfective Polish verbs [105]

Michałe!

For what it's worth, I rather enjoy Krzysztof and Iwonka (past tense, in this case)'s detailed linguistic explanations.

Language / Common mistakes made by foreigners in Polish [90]

Matyjasz!

When former President Carter visited Poland to meet with that-time Party Secretary Gierek, Carter's interpreter came out with: "I lust after the Polish people!" instead of "I yearn to (tęsknię) visit with the Polish people...."! Carter's people back home in the State Dept. thought it hilarious.

Secretary Gierek and company were decidedly NOT amused by the gaff, believing it to have been done on purpose! Guess we'll never know. LOL - - :):)

Language / What language do you like better, Polish or English? [71]

Wreszczie zrozumiem. Dziękuję!!