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

Pytanie. Rodzaj męski w przypadku wołaczim: "Witaj, turczynku!" ???

Language / Share Perfective and Imperfective Polish verbs [105]

No, Krzysztof! Coraz więcej uczę się tego języka.

Ślicznie dziękuję.

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

Witaj, turecka kobieto!! (małe poprawienie twojego dostępstwa słów, nic więcej)

"Mam wielu [lepiej niż 'duży' ='wielkie', nie 'ilu?'] przyjaciól Z POLSKI, którzy uczą się języka tureckiego."

Tak, jest bardzo praktyczny dzisiaj, bo teraz jest Polska członkiem Unii Europejskiej.
W przyszłości Turkija też??

"Hope springs eternal" as we say in the States.

Language / Share Perfective and Imperfective Polish verbs [105]

Dzięki, Mihału!

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

Turkce orgrenyorum. It's so different from Polish, I'm not able to say which language is more challenging. Well, having grown up with German and English practically bilingual, I guess anything's easy now! - - :):) LOL

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

Old Norse is similar in both structure as well as vocabulary and inflection to Old (even Modern!!!) Icelandic. Little has changed in orthography. I've been told that only the pronounciation is noticably different.

But, as with any dead language, we have no way of knowing for sure. Speech reconstructions however are fascinating, but not that accessible!

Mentioning Dutch, in order to pass modern German Linguistics, I needed to take a class in Middle Dutch. It put me to sleep, not because of the instructor, but because it was all so repetitive of the modern language, I was bored to tears!

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

Good point, Darius! True, I gave a deceptively 'false' example. I omited to mention too that many letters which are TODAY silent, such as the final "e", were NOT so back then.

I should have remembered since I had the rare chance of hearing old voice recordings in the days of the great, late lamented LPs, of Prof. Norman Bessinger of Columbia's English Dept. reading OE and ME texts aloud in the original. Honestly, the ME of Chaucer sounded in pronounciation much like modern Yorkshire speech!

OE 'cwene' is a direct cognate for 'kvinde' and 'kvinna', respectively in Danish and Swedish where it means the generic for 'woman'. 'Queen' on the other hand is 'dronning' (Danish) and 'drottning' (Swedish)

Language / Share Perfective and Imperfective Polish verbs [105]

Dziękuję za pomóc!!! Wiki-site jest wspaniały.

Language / Polish Case System [32]

Michał,

I remember hearing from Polish speakers at various consulary functions: "Prośimy Państwa! Prośimy gości do stołu!"

Presumably, they were speaking correct Polish. Far be it from, at best an advanced intermediate non-native such as myself, to correct a native speaker's Polish.

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

Indeed, all 'silent' letters in English spelling are a direct result of the Normans' influence on the language. Interestingly enough, "Normans" means "Northmen", suggesting that in fact William the Conqueror wasn't French at all, but Norse or North European by birth or descent!

Apropos the former, much of Sir Edmund Spenser's "Faerie Queene" resembles Chaucer's ME, just look at the spelling of "Queene" with an unpronounced final "e". The leap from OE, e.g. Beowulf, Cynewulf, Caedmon's Hymn etc. to late ME is therefore considerable.

Polish though too underwent a similar, if historically less dramatic, transformation, e.g. "Polzsce" > "Polsce" etc.

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

Dariusz, Michał et al.....

The 'magic' year in the development of English, that is, in terms of unstoppable influx of foreign words into native Anglo-Saxon, was of course 1066 AD - the Norman Conquest - when the English language received, so to say, it's greatest injection of French, i.e. Latin, vocabulary.

German and Polish, just to mention two, never experienced this exact same type of "discovery conquest", except of the course for the gradual inroads of English into their languages. Analogous events in the annals of language might be Romanian, completely Latin until the Roman settlement in Slavic-speaking territory or Turkish, essentially of Turkic word stock (as English is still considered a 'Germanic', and not a Romance, tongue!) with a heavy overlay of Arabic from neighboring border invasions, settlements etc.

Language / What's the difference (verbs question)? [14]

This is true. By the way, certain dialects of Polish have different verb conjugations from the standard language, much the same as in German or other languages I'm told!

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

"English makes sense." LOL

Of course it does, Shelley, to you and other English native speakers, but NOT to a native Polish, German, whatever. Yours is rather ethnocentrist thinking, if I follow your logic correctly. The first of the examples you give OSV makes perfect "sense" in many of the world's languages, among them Turkish, Korean and Japanese. SVO is actually in the relative minority among the myriad tongues on this planet, i.e. living languages.

Perhaps too, this very point is the reason English speakers often shy away from studying a foreign language in school: because they've been taught to believe English is the most normal (ha-ha!!) of any language. Other languages therefore must be weird.

Sure hope that's not what you're seriously saying!

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

Dariusz,

One of the cutest vocabulary/dialect words from the 'góral'-speakers' region is "godzinnek" for standard Polish "zegar"! The list is helpful.

Dzięki

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

Hey guys!

Apropos something completely different. I'm still searching for something on line about Polish dialects, especially the so-called 'góral' or Highlander Polish of the Tatry Mts. area.

Any suggested sites?? Thanks.

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

Witaj, grzyźiu!

Do you consider English or Polish tongue twisters (łamacze językowe) harder:

"W Szczeszebrynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzececinie." vs. "Theopholus Thistle, the successful thistle sifter successfully sifting a thread of unsifted thistles through the thick of his thumb.." etc. To koszmar, nieprawda?

Dobrej zabawy! (Have fun!)

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

When Poles speak foreign languages such as German or English, in my experience, they often tend to 'overpronounce' and not to elide or 'swallow' syllables or schwa-sounds, e.g. final "e" in "thE" etc. English speakers do the opposite, lending their speech in other languages a drawling, almost lazy, quality. In addition, most Polish words are accented on the second-to-last syllable, such as "FO - tel", "HO - tel", "KSIĄŻ - ka" etc. compared to English "ho - TEL" or "hel - LO" and so forth.

Poles sometimes sound as though they're chirping like birds when they speak English.

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

Mufasa,

I frankly don't think that Polish grammar is any more 'complicated' than other grammar systems with which I'm familiar. It's merely that Polish, much like German for that matter,

requires more of an arsenal of applied usage than does English, basically. More is needed in say, Polish, to form basic thoughts and put them into language, than does English which is confusing too, yet by virtue of its erratic orthography and seeming sameness of articulate construction "the" "a" "an", with no longer varied inflections corresponding to case usage. Foreigners, i.e. Poles in this instance, are often looking for more grammar and rules than currently exist in English. English speakers on the other hand are often baffled by so much grammar in Polish.

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

Seanus,

For that matter German is an evolving language too, since its spelling is still in the process of being 'reformed' ( hopelessly complicated is a better word, UGGGGH!) For my money, Polish is sooooo much more phonetic than English, French even German which has plenty of silent dipthongs e.g. "ie" in "wIE", "dIE" as well as "Rhein" where the "h" written, is silent.

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

English is orthographically and phonetically the hardest and probably least 'logical' language to learn, if I compare it to Polish or German, even French and Russian. Although I haven't seriously learned an Asian or non-Western language (save a lame attempt to teach myself Korean, aided by a former English student!), I'd have to say that English, particularly American, has about the most haphazard spelling vs. pronunciation correlation of any language I'm presently aware of.

Lewis Carroll I believe tried to prove same by providing an alternative spelling of 'fish' substituting different letters in our language to achieve the identical articulation.

Language / czym... in the transport context [24]

Cheers again, Michał!

......add, one of the most frustrating: the city one loves to hate (more the latter than the former...... no other city makes such demands upon the visitor that it be loved.) Personally, I prefer London.

No, do siego roku!!

Language / czym... in the transport context [24]

Thanks for chiming in here, Michał!

Clearly, i miswrote "Interesuję się..." .Can't imagine what I must ahve been thinking. I may not be native, but such a basic booboo I would not make, orthographic or otherwise.

Wszystkim życzę Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku oraz wszystkiego najlepszego w 2008r.

Language / czym... in the transport context [24]

Mufasa,
I wrote, "Please be so good as to kindly tell me what you are interested in."

Language / Ciebie <-> tobie [22]

Dziękuję za twoje szybkie poprawienia!

Language / czym... in the transport context [24]

'Czym' is instrumental in Polish, i.e. 'with whom/what'/'by whom/with' e.g.

"Dzień dobry, Panu! Czym mogę służyć dzisiaj?" = Good morning, sir! How may I help you today? (....lit. "With what may I serve?")

'Interesującę się książkami nauki językowej. - No, niech Pan(i) uprzejmie mi powiedzi, czym Pan(i) interesujące się.

Language / Ciebie <-> tobie [22]

Zapraszamy CIEBIE do kawy u nas.

Myslę o TOBIE!

Widzę CIEBIE od mojego okna.

'Ciebie' is accusative/genitiv, 'tobie' locative or dative.

Polonia / Polonia in scandinavian countries [23]

...as I was just saying. - -:)!

Moreover, Finns can understand Estonians, though not always, vice-versa, .........Hungarians??? NO WAY!
The classic linguistic comparison between Finnish and Hungarian is: in Hungarian many 'h'-words ('hal' = fish) become 'k'-words in Finnish ('kal'), or Finnish 'kaasi' -hand is 'kez' in Hungarian.

Polonia / Polonia in scandinavian countries [23]

Many Finns whom I've met, look almost Baltic with their broad faces, high cheekbones, light eyes and fair hair. Finns actually share much more in common with their Estonian neighbors than with any other Scandinavians, and the former aren't even Baltic (except perhaps by association!), but Uralic, as are the Hungarians, Mordvins and several others.

Polonia / Polonia in scandinavian countries [23]

Everyone understands??

Perhaps the exterior of the idea, but hardly ever the irony, flavor, humor or true sense.
I tested your idea once in Copenhagen. Someone commented "I gave him a piece of my mind!", to which I replied "Hope it wasn't the smallest piece!"

Nobody even cracked a smile!
So much for your theory.

Language / Sharing polish stuff [9]

Hi,

I 'm familiar with the title you mentioned, except I thought it was more then 301! --:)
Will have to check at home, you're probably right though.

It's a great resource, if it's the same edition I'm thinking of, especially its treatment of idiomatic verb usages all derived from a single verb, e.g. "pisać" "NApisać", "POpisać" etc.... Awesome! Plus it has exercises in the back to practice all the different verb aspects and prefixes.

Then again, it all depends on how serious you want to get!!
Powodzenia,