Life / How many people really know English in Poland? [53]

I'd say that in bigger cities most people below 30 speak at least some basic English. Don't expect anyone older to understand you, though. If you go to Poland you should learn at least some basic Polish. Learn the rules for pronouncing words, some basic grammar and vocabulary at least. A phrase book could be useful too.

Language / Accent marks in Polish language [22]

I can't remember where, but I read somewhere that the ę-pronunciation at the end of word is something only really learnt in school, and that children of Polish speakers abroad who haven't learnt Polish in school pronounce it only as "e". I guess pronouncing ę at the end of word is some kind of extra "accurate" reading pronunciation that isn't really natural in normal everyday speech.

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

I've never heard anyone claim that 'u' and 'ó' are pronounced differently before. Can anyone else confirm this?

As for "rz" and "ż", if there is a difference it must be very subtle indeed, because to me they really sound exactly the same. Although, I imagine as a Pole you have an extra sensitive ear when it comes to discerning differences between the different ś/sz, c/cz etc sounds, since it's very important in Polish. I guess that if you don't really learn this as a child you will never be able to understand spoken Polish nearly as well as a native speaker, even if you live there for 20 years.

Language / Accent marks in Polish language [22]


I think I would need some of those "take a breath"-words in order to avoid saying "uhhh" all the time when I have to think, but I'd prefer something slightly more sophisticated than "kurwa". What good words exist in Polish that don't really mean anything, that can be thrown in everywhere when you don't really know what to say? ;) I've found that in Poland, if you're quiet for 1 second, someone will always try to fill in the blanks for you.

Language / Polish and Russian - learning by a beginner [30]

This thread just made me think of something funny I heard on TV the other day. Some people were speaking to each other in Polish, and suddenly someone said "понимаю" (="(I) understand" in Russian) or so I thought anyway. Well, I was quite confounded there for a second, until my Polish gf enlightened me that she in fact said "Pani Maju". ;)

Language / Polish and Russian - learning by a beginner [30]

As for the Scandinavian languages you could say that Swedish and Norwegian are more similar in sound, whereas Norwegian and Danish are more similar in writing. As a Swede I can easily understand most of what Norwegian people say (unless they have some weird dialect), but Danish is much harder, because it sounds much fussier, as if they're talking with somehing in their mouths. Usually when a Swede speaks to a Norwegian he/she speaks in Swedish and the Norwegian answers in Norwegian, and there's no problem. When it comes to Swedes talking to Danes, people usually start speaking their own languages just to swap to English after one or two sentences. ;)

Although, I have a feeling Norwegians understand Swedes better than Swedes understand Norwegian. People in southern Sweden understand Danish rather well due to the closeness to Denmark. As for writing, it's quite easy to read both Danish and Norwegian for a Swede, although there are of course are many differences and false friends.

Language / How does Polish sound to you? How to make Polish sound more pleasurable? [100]


They speak Swedish in lake Mälaren? ;)

As for Swedish being melodic, it's mostly just in central Sweden. I'm from western Sweden near Göteborg, and I don't have anything like that melodious intonation some people more to the north have. In fact it even sounds rather unnatural to me, as if they're singing rather than talking.

Skånska is a different story altogether. They make diphthongs of just about every vowel sound whereas "standard Swedish" scarcely has any diphthongs at all.

Language / Polish grammar exercises from hell [130]

Could anyone please tell me what the differences are in terms of semantics and/or style between these two sentences:

Nigdy nie znaleziono ich ciał
Ich ciała nigdy nie zostały znalezione

Also I don't quite get why "ciał" is in the genitive in the first sentence.

Thanks

Language / Polish grammar exercises from hell [130]

The first sentence construction feels a bit weird to me. The bodies were never found, and yet "bodies" is the object of the sentence. I wonder if it's possible to somehow translate it literally to English and still having "the bodies" to be the object of the sentence rather than subject, I mean in order for me to really understand the construction (it doesn't have to be idiomatic or anything). I suppose not.

Language / Polish grammar exercises from hell [130]

Thanks mafketis. That was a very good explanation. I guess I should just try to think of it as an impersonal passive form to make sense of it and just try to remember that the object takes the genitive.

Language / Polish grammar exercises from hell [130]

Ah, ok, thanks.

Language / Polish grammar exercises from hell [130]

Aren't you mixing things up now? I know some present day Polish nouns have forms derived from the old dual number such as "ręce" and "rękoma", but I fail to see any connection to dwoje, troje, czworo drzwi/skrzypiec etc.

When looking up the word "przybywać" I ran into the following examples:

(rosnąć) increase:

przybyło nowych książek - we have more new books
przybyło mu lat - he is getting older
przybył mi jeden kilogram - I gained one kilogram
przybyło wody - water level has risen

These sentences really don't make any sense to me. Subjectless sentences again, but this time different? "Przybył" seems to agree with kilogram, but in the case with "wody" they use przybyło? I'm really confused now, so if anyone could shed some light on this I'd appreciate it.

Language / mój - moja [28]

Muscular? You mean masculine. ;)

Male gender nouns always require male gender adjectives regardless of ending, so it must be "mój kolega" and not "moja kolega".

Language / mój - moja [28]

As I understood it kolega/koleżanka z pracy = colleague and that just kolega/koleżanka is usually just friend, although not as close friend as przyjaciel/przyjaciółka. Is this wrong?

Language / mój - moja [28]

Would it be too much of an oversimplification to say that nouns are generally declined according to their endings rather than their gender?

I mean we have for example dłoną (dłoń = female) but słoniem (słoń = male) in the singular instrumental.

Language / mój - moja [28]

My mistake. I meant declining nouns according to the gender regardless of ending.

Language / mój - moja [28]

I'm glad there are so few words that have irregular gender in Polish. Does anyone have any figures on this? To me it seems that only around 1% of all nouns are of unpredictable gender.

satelita, zapowiedź, odpowiedź, wypowiedź, spowiedź, wilgoć, kolej, sól, gałąź, podróż, jesień, dobroć, wesz, krew, twarz, pościel, myśl, gęś, łódź, dłoń, pomoc, noc, Cerkiew, więź, mysz, nić, odzież, sprzedaż, wyprzedaż.

Those are the one's I have encountered so far that I have recorded in my vocabulary program. It might be that I've missed to mark some of the nouns in my list as female, but I'm not really sure.

Thats 29/3638 words. It's something like 0.8%, although I'm sure I must have forgotten to mark some words correctly.

Well, by unpredictable I mean a noun whose gender is unpredictable according to any of the following rules:

Male: All words ending in a consonant and words ending in "-a" that represent for example male occupations and similar, or male persons of some kind

Neuter: Words ending in "-o", "-e" and "-ę" and Latin-cognates ending in "-um", e.g. muzeum

Female: Words ending in "-a" which don't represent male occupations etc, and words ending in "-ość"

If somebody can think of some more irregular nouns, especially common ones, that I've missed, feel free to let me know. ;)

Travel / Travel: Wrocław-Berlin-Wrocław [10]

vip-europa.pl

Although, it was the return trip today that was this fast, and there was scarcely any traffic. Also sometimes they take some detours to pick up/leave someone, so it might take significantly longer.

Language / mój - moja [28]

cinek

Thanks. After some consideration I would say that the -ść-rule is correct. Basically all nouns that end in -ść which don't describe any person who is by definition a male (e.g. teść) are female, the only exception I've found so far is the one you provided, liść.

As for the other ones, they vary too much to be useful as rules. Most words ending in -szcz in my list are male: gąszcz, chrząszcz, dreszcz, barszcz, deszcz. There are also many male words ending in -dź: gwóźdź, niedźwiedź, łabędź, śledź.

Well, it's a good rule anyway to confirm the gender of all nouns ending in -ń, -ć, -dź, -ść, -ź and -cz when looking them up in a dictionary.

Language / mój - moja [28]

The -ść = female rule is kind of watertight. The only non-personal male exception I've encountered is "liść" as cinek mentioned.

Language / Polish grammar exercises from hell [130]

Genitive after a verb and no subject? :S

Every time I think Polish can't get any more complicated, I discover something like this. ;)

Also, I think it's beyond my comprehension how "jeden kilogram" could possibly be the subject in the sentence above if it's supposed to mean something like "increase".

One kilogram was increased to him. :S :S

I'm starting to believe that some things about Polish grammar are best left ununderstood. One of these days I will develop cerebral haemorrhage from all this. ;)

Thanks for trying, though.

Language / Polish grammar exercises from hell [130]

Thanks, I appreciate it Ziemowit.

I remember reading that joke, and that it was funny, but I can't remember where it was, and I was not able to find it using the search.

It's interesting to note that in the four examples I found the three sentences where the nouns are in object form would have subject forms in English and contrariwise, the one sentence which would have the noun as an object in English (iii) has it in the subject form here. Sometimes I wonder if English and Polish are even related at all. ;)


Slightly. ;)

The least logical one for me is: (i) przybyło nowych książek

"increased of new books"? Hmm...

Language / Polish grammar exercises from hell [130]

Good point. Nonetheless, why make an object of something that should according to all logic and intuition be a subject? ;)

Now that I think of it, in Swedish it would be possible, and even preferable, to say "Det anlände några nya böcker igår" which would be translated roughly to "It arrived some new books yesterday", so maybe this kind of construction isn't as alien as I may think? Hmm... Maybe I should think more in Swedish and less in English when I learn Polish. ;)

Language / Polish grammar exercises from hell [130]

Sometimes I scare myself with my poor memory. I guess I'm stuffing my head too full with Polish words. ;)

Thanks though. I used the site's search engine with the query "niedź", but apparently it doesn't work all that well, because I got 0 hits.

I was wondering if anyone could tell me how to say "21000th" in Polish. I know that 20000th is dwudziestotysięczny, but I couldn't find this one.

Language / What's the difference between 'swoje' & 'moje'? [35]

"Swój" refers back to a previously mentioned person (always the subject of the sentence). It's quite important to use it right in situations like the one below:

1) Michał dał Wojtkowi swoją książkę (Michał's book)
2) Michał dał Wojtkowi jego książkę (Wojtek's book)

At least that's how I've understood things. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Language / What's the difference between 'swoje' & 'moje'? [35]

Is it even gramatically correct to use "jego" in the sentence "dał mi jego telefon"? Wouldn't people in general automatically assume that another person than the subject is referred to, or that the person in question doesn't speak Polish very well?

In Swedish we have a reflexive pronoun that works just like "swój", although it's only used in the third person. To use the equivalent of "jego" in the example above in Swedish, though, would be considered totally incorrect, and make a person sound rather unintelligent.

Language / What's the difference between 'swoje' & 'moje'? [35]

Not "sig", but "sin (common gender) /sitt (neuter gender) /sina (plural)".

Tack. ;)

Language / Polish grammar exercises from hell [130]

Thanks, but what do you mean if it's "liczebnik porządkowy"? Isn't "tysięczny" always a such?

21000 = dwadzieścia jeden tysięcy (cardinal number/liczebnik główny)
21000th = dwudziestu pierwszo tysięczny (ordinal number/liczebnik porządkowy)

In what situation would your first example (dwudziesto jedno tysięczny) be used?

Language / Meaning of letters in online polish dictionary? [11]

I always wondered about that too.

If you just need all the conjugations listed for this particular word but in a more logical fashion, you can find them here:

polish.slavic.pitt.edu/~swan/beta

Language / Meaning of letters in online polish dictionary? [11]

catsoldier

This page has conjugations of lots of verbs including być. They, however, don't show up automatically. First you have to click "View tables" (in the case of "byc" it should be entry number 8.) Then a text like "Imperfective: być" will come up, and when you click on it, you get to see the table.