Language / TYPICAL MISTAKES OF POLISH LEARNERS OF ENGLISH? [23]

A typical mistake or two from non-native speakers of Polish.

Jechałem z samochodem.

z przyjacielami

Znam pięć Polaków.

Dwa kiełbasy proszę.

Proszę jedną żeberkę.

Nie mam samochód.

Food / Butcher Shops in Poznan? [7]

I warned you, beef is not the meat of choice. Ground beef is sometimes available in supermarkets but in butchers shops it's usually big hunks of boneless beef (mostly good for stewing though Polish people don't go into for stew) and/or rostbef (kind of a thick chop more suitable to pot roast than frying).

Beware of ground pork from butchers you don't know as it might be from a boar and lead to indigestion.

Ask around Polish acquaintances and you might find something, but I wouldn't get my hopes up. Time to learn to love pork.

for Poloniuch 3, most butcher shops are either private stand alones or chains like Prosiaczek (or sklep firmowy for a particular meat producer). I usually buy meat at one of three good butcher shops within a three minute walk from my front door (in different directions though).

People don't buy as much meat from the supermarkets (which have gotten a bad reputation for low quality and/or selling meat past its due date).

Language / SAY TELL TALK SPEAK - HARD 4 POLES [22]

First rule might have to do with objects

say = you have to include what the person said, whether as a quote (direct or indirect) "He said he'd be here." or as a pronoun "That's what they said." "What did she say?" the person being told doesn't have to be included but can be (with 'to') "That's what he said to me."

tell = you have to include the person who was told. "Tell me." "Let me tell you." "I told him to get out." "Are you thinking of telling him?" (if the person being told is left out then the contents are obligatorily absent and the meaning is changed 'to inform on'. "I'm telling."

as for speak, talk

speak = a language or a more formal activity (with a 'to' object) (He spoke to the delegates. Her boss spoke to her about her lateness). As a general human activity it's equivalent to walking or breathing. "When the baby begins to speak ...."

talk = general human activity with no object but maybe a topic. "Let's talk (about) politics". Also a way to pass the time "We talked for a while"

Enough to get started.

Language / SAY TELL TALK SPEAK - HARD 4 POLES [22]


The problem with that is that it suggests the two are equivalent when they're not at all.

"Say something to someone" is not common and can sound awkward or stilted. Students need to know to generally stay away from it like nuclear waste.

A simpler rule:

Say something.

Tell someone (something).

Language / SAY TELL TALK SPEAK - HARD 4 POLES [22]


Please note that I wrote "_can_ sound awkward" no "inevitably sounds awkward". Yes there are times when "say something 'to someone'" are okay, but there are times when it's not.

Also note that neither of these violates the 'say something' rule. Adding 'to ....' is more an afterthought and the sentences are fine without them

Say hello. Say thank you.

But unless you're carefull you'll open to the door to:

"He said to me to leave. " or "I'll say it to him" or "I'll say it to you again." which are understandable but awkward or at least not optimal.

Again remembering the rule that say has to include a reference to what was said while tell has to include who was told is a good basic rule. Refinements (like when you can add a 'to someone' phrase come later.

adding this due to the stupid posting policy:


I would just treat that as a separate verb that happens to be written and spelled the same. Or, if the students are up to it, a separate use of the verb unrelated to speech acts.

That is, a secondary meaning of 'tell' and arguably 'say' is (roughly) wiedzieć but this is limited mostly to set expressions.

I can tell. (Wiem i tyle. Znam się na tym)

It's hard to say. (Trudno powiedzieć. Nie wiadomo.)

One of the hardest things about English is the difference between productive meanings that can be freely used to generate new sentences and set expressions that have to be treated separately and learned one by one and which have no wider application.

Even native speakers (I don't exempt myself from this) can get caught up and forget about the latter.

Language / SAY TELL TALK SPEAK - HARD 4 POLES [22]

I think this thread is a good counterpart to the thread about Anglophones learning Polish (and discussions wherein on the difficulties of English for Polish speakers).

Two simple pairs of words and natives have some agreement (and clear disagreements) about when to use each member.


Well speak and talk overlap more than say and tell, I was thinking of linguistics (and studies of language acquisition) where it seems to me that 'begin to speak' is a lot more common, corresponding with a general principle that when both are possible 'speak' sounds more formal.

Life / Kashubia, Kashebe and Kashubians. . . [23]

I spent a few days around Kościerzyna some years ago. All I heard anyone speak was Polish (local variety but obviously Polish). A book store had exactly one book in Kaszubian which looked like Polish with some simple modifications.

A friend who'd lived in the area said that a lot of the time people (in Polish) used a weird past tense ( IIRC byłem pojechany instead of pojechałem for example).

Also an article on ethnic separatism I read a couple of years ago mentioned the Kashubians as an unsuccessful example. Although some locals tried to create a separate ethnic identity the Kashubians mostly rejected it, preferring to be Polish. Moravians in the Czech republic are another example of a group that declined to become a separate ethnic group.

Language / POLISH OR RUSSIAN -- MORE MODERN? [20]


I'm a linguist and this just isn't true.

Modern and archaic are not concepts used at all in any modern linguistics I know of for a very good reason - there's no correspondence between degree of morphological complexity and anything else.

The specific differences between Polish and Russian could well have something to do with political history.

Basically, Polish has been a mono-ethnic language for a long period of time while Russian is polyethnic.
This means that Poland has largely been restricted for conducting the internal business of a single ethnic group and has been free to create and/or maintain quirky features that outsiders find .... strange.

Russian, on the other hand, has a long history as a lingua franca between different ethnic groups (a process that did not stop with the collapse of the USSR - Latvians, Georgians and Kazakhs are still more likely to communicate with each other in Russian than any other language). This often means that quirky local features are lost in the interest of easier mutual comprehension.

A couple of differences between Polish and Russian might be related to this.

- Russian has less free word order (compared with Polish that is)

- Russian requires the use of subject personal pronouns even when the form of the verb makes the subject clear ( ja govoriu po russkij not *govoriu po russkij )

These two features seem only to have strengthened in recent history and are the kinds of changes that are typical in languages that are used across ethnic boundaries.

Some of the other differences (lack of the copula in the present tense, a number of 'verbless' setence types)_might_ be due to this is as well, but I don't know the historical record well enough.

Life / 90-DAY VISA-FREE STAYS IN POLAND? [19]

Everybody should absolutely pay attention to what gtd is writing. He's very accurate from what I can tell about the new rules.

Yeah, sometimes you can get around the rules, but if you do get caught then no bitching and moaning allowed, man up and do things right next time.

When asking a Polish border guard for a stamp, just blame it on the local office you have to deal with: "I have to renew my permit and they won't like it if there's no stamp" always worked for me with no problems.

Language / POLISH OR RUSSIAN -- MORE MODERN? [20]


Of course it can. It can also sound subjectively beautiful (many Polish speakers have told me they like the sound of Russian).

Also, as a general rule any Slavic language sounds a little crude and/or silly to speakers of other Slavic languages (just one of the many reasons crow's insane dream of a pan-Slavic state will never happen).

News / WHARTON AND COELHO IN POLAND? [10]

I think Wharton was very big in Poland the 80's through a lot of the 90's, I don't think he's so big now though.

Coelho is still big AFAIK, though I'm not sure if his constituency is the university crowd. From a live call-in show a few years ago it seemed like more a new-agey than a student crowd.

Life / Polish Police - my bad experience. [33]


Wow, it sounds like you have some really dishonest friends. How do you deal with that?

Life / Polish Police - my bad experience. [33]

Perhaps the police should have just arrested them and looked for an interpreter at their leisure?

Travel / An experience on the train in Warsaw [30]


You don't? You've never heard of a shakedown before?

Work / Non Polish nationals living in Poland - What do you do for a living? [23]


I'm not sure how someone could function in those areas without a knowledge of Polish.

Work / Non Polish nationals living in Poland - What do you do for a living? [23]


Depends on what you mean by 'tour guide'. To me though it implies either telling groups of tourists about local sights (in which case I'd be skeptical of a guide that didn't know the local language) or implies a sort of go to person for a specific group (again the questions are liable to require local knowledge).

Kitchen help and/or bussing don't require the local language but I would assume that it would be cheaper to hire locals (if they're willing) and if not to import temp workers from across the eastern border.

UK, Ireland / Here comes the Anti-Immigration marches.... [114]

There is a real problem with immigration even if you think/hope that ultimately it's a good thing (within limits as within the EU).

Namely, many short term immigrants are willing to live at bare sustenance levels. This works well in terms of remittances to the homeland (or saving a nest egg for a better future back home) but it forces locals to also live at bare sustenance levels in their own country or prices them out of the job market. Once enough employers go for cheaper-at-all-costs labor essentially all are forced to (look up tragedy of the commons).

Basically the UK has followed the US lead of mass immigration to cow the local population into not making uncomfortable demands (like a living wage) and to create an economy based entirely on credit and consumption (effectively eliminating savings and production). How's that been working out lately? Is this really a model to follow anymore?

UK, Ireland / Here comes the Anti-Immigration marches.... [114]


I appreciate your concern (I'm concerned too about the potential for scapegoating and violence).

Nonetheless, do you think current immigration policy in the UK is well-formed?

Do you think there isn't enough immigration to the UK? (If not, how many hundreds of millions of people do you think Great Britain could support?)

Do you think the UK government is really acting in the best interests of either the citizenry _or_ immigrants?

Do you think current immigrant groups are assimilating at reasonable rates?
Or alternately do you think a society made up of dozens of different ethnic groups with no common language or cultural assumptions about the role of the citizen and government can function?

What do you think should be done (and how?)

UK, Ireland / Here comes the Anti-Immigration marches.... [114]


Well it's not my government (though my government also has a similar attitude toward immigration - as much as possible regardless of what the citizenry wants or needs)


No, recession is not the fault of immigrants. But any intelligent discussion of immigration has to realize that there are downsides to mass immigration regardless of economic climate.

I believe controlled immigration can be a good thing overall but uncontrolled immigration is a poor idea in a small densely populated country with no labor shortages. Add a lack of assimilation pressure and you've got a recipe for disaster.

And, in assessing future policy, the behavior of current/past immigrants is absolutely fair game.

But if your primary concern is that nobody criticize immigrants for any reason, then a productive conversation is unlikely to take place.

UK, Ireland / Here comes the Anti-Immigration marches.... [114]


Well, to be fair there certainly is no shortage of racist, chavish English folk. And I have sympathy for early Pakistani immigrants who were exposed to awful racism and were horrified at the dysfunctional lifestyles of many lower class English (with good reason).

Unfortunately the overall reaction (with many welcome exceptions) was to withdraw into tradition and extreme religious conservativism and to reject basic aspects of traditional British ideas of civil society (a reaction that has also become dysfunctional).

On the one hand, the melting pot model of immigration is dead (due to the nature of modern travel and media). On the other hand, no one has established a good working model to take its place. Multi-culturalism is a disaster as it decreases the level of societal trust (a necessary ingredient of a successful first world country).


Well, Poland has a couple of great blessings.
1. An esoteric language (I wonder if Irish people are starting to wish they'd kept Gaelic around as a discouragement to casual immigration). Everybody at least thinks they speak English (or can quickly learn enough to get by) that's one reason there's so much immigration to the UK from countries with no historic ties.

2. A poor (to non-existent) social safety net. Basically, a comprehensive social safety net and large scale immigration are incompatible. Even if Poland were obliged to extend benefits to foreigners, it's such a joke that no sane person would engage in benefit immigration. The immigrants that do come to Poland realize they need to be able to support themselves (and mostly do).

UK, Ireland / Here comes the Anti-Immigration marches.... [114]


I apologize for misunderstanding. Perhaps you could elaborate on what it is that you are saying?

Language / Books for Polish speakers learning English [9]


This is the normal situation and probably inescapable in situations of mass language learning. Whether mass language learning is a good idea or not is another question.

Language / Polish-speaking children and their slang [9]


Can't say I've ever heard that one.

On the other hand, if the child is calling to them, the vocative might well be used

mamusiu! tatusiu!

or, more simply (but less emotionally)

mamo! tato!

Language / WHO AND WHEN COINED THE TERM DUPEK? [13]

I first heard it in 1992 (I want to say late summer, early autumn) in a line for a phone (I was second in line when the guy and the phone kept talking and talking. When the guy ahead of me finally got to the phone, he apologized for not calling earlier but some 'dupek' had been hogging the line. I had never heard the expression before but it was pretty clear what was meant.

Since then I've been told by a few people that the implications of dupek are less nastiness and arrogance (defining features of an asshole) than general stupidity (of the kind that inconveniences others).

Generally in translating American 'asshole' into Polish, I think cham or palant would be better.

Language / WHO AND WHEN COINED THE TERM DUPEK? [13]

Voice over translations (and subtitles too I imagine) were very ... prissy until sometime in the 1990's.

I remember reading letters to the editor in the early 90's complaining about crude expressions like 'strzelić w łeb' appearing in voice over translations (there was no thought about whether this was an appropriate translation of the original, just that it was crude and should be made more ladylike).

Translations also maintained rigorous use of the vocative although this isn't used that much in everyday Polish (and I knew a translator who got into trouble for not using the vocative, the fact that his usage was clolser to everyday usage didn't matter).

Food / Polish bismarcks or doughnuts, known as "pączki." [7]

The picture doesn't look like pączkies at all and pączkies aren't funnel cakes.

Pączkies (in Polish singular pączek, plural pączki) are jelly doughnuts (usually rose hip jam inside) with a sugar glaze decorated with candied orange peel.

You can see a typical pączki here:

img504.imageshack.us/img504/7145/p1090535wt3.jpg

Food / Polish bismarcks or doughnuts, known as "pączki." [7]

Well what you made doesn't look too far from faworki (a kind of Polish cruller).

kucharz.pl/images/faworki.jpg

The consistency might be something like gniazdka (my personal favorite Polish doughnut) made from choux pastry but usually glazed instead of powdered.

mojeprzepisy.pl/pliki/przepisy/przepisy/gniazdka.jpg

Language / What do you find difficult about learning Polish? [98]


Handy spelling tip. AFAIK only one word begins with ó, namely ów, an old fashioned word meaning 'this' (masc sing)).

That narrows it down to ugór and ugur. Hearing the word in isolation wouldn't help, but if you know any other case form it should be obvious; if the u sound ever changes to o you know it's ó (always related to o, either morphologically or etymologically).

Hearing the word for the first time I'd probably guess ugór (just because I think that -ur is less common in Polish than -ór)

Language / What do you find difficult about learning Polish? [98]


Ouch! you got me with ósmy but ówczesny is transparently ów + czesny (roughly : this-time-adj)

and checking with my dictionary I find exactly six entries beginning with ó.

ósmy and ósemka (clearly related since most reified numbers are formed from ordinals)

ów, ówczesny, ówcześnie and ówdzie (the last three transparently are compounds beginning with ów)

So I'll refine my statement: Only two roots begin with ó, ósmy and ów.

Language / Poles! How do you cope with English phonetics versus English spelling? [37]

Both English and Maltese have official status in Malta. And the Maltese negotiated EU recognition of Maltese upon ascension to the EU.

It might be accurate to say that in Malta English is the language of money and Maltese is the language of home and heart.