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Posts by Bondi  

Joined: 11 Sep 2007 / Male ♂
Last Post: 13 Nov 2011
Threads: Total: 4 / In This Archive: 4
Posts: Total: 142 / In This Archive: 93
From: lost in the world
Speaks Polish?: tylko troche

Displayed posts: 97 / page 3 of 4
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Bondi   
20 Mar 2009
Language / Do Polish Movies Help learn the language? [60]

Seksmisja [Sex Mission] is hilarious.

It's not hilarious. It's a classic! We have everything dubbed, but I just had to watch it in original Polish.

Another Polish classic is Nić smiesznego [Nothing Funny]. It is a must see of Eastern-Central-European film-making, just as the Czech Dědictví aneb kurvahošigutntag (The Inheritance or Fuckoffguysgoodday), the Hungarian Sose halunk meg (We Never Die) or the proto-Yugoslavian Crna maèka, beli maèor (Black Cat, White Cat).

Can anybody recommend some Polish movies which I can download and then find English subtitles? I like action and mafia movies but I think childrens movies would also be good for me.

I recommend Job, czyli ostatnia szara komórka. But, to tell the truth, it's not a Polish film. Actually, it's a MONGOL film. :D

It's one of the stupidest films I've seen recently. The language is simple, there are tons of puns, humours through situations and such. Most people don't like its... hm, simplicity, but it is simply hilarious a reserve for a language-learner. Lubisz to, suko!

If you like Mafia movies, Sara or Kiler could be for you. They are more like mafia-movie comedies, but that don't matter, mate! :)
Bondi   
20 Apr 2009
Language / Iterative and semelfactive verbs [37]

This is really not that difficult, guys. The only problem that it's pretty 'untranslatable' to English. :)

The conjugation seems pretty much regular, even when it's irregular for the frequentative ("iterative") aspect. And the semelfactive ("punctive") aspect is only a sub-aspect of the perfective, so you'll learn that verb anyway...

If you think these are exceptionally difficult, just imagine how hard it is to learn the plethora of English tenses + their continuous + their perfect + their aspects. You don't wanna know.

You remind me of a colleague who was learning Turkish and ran across one word with umpteen different uses for English one entry, with the offhanded sigh of the true Brit, "Oh, goshhh, there's that word again!"

I bet that "one entry" for the English was "get" or "have"... =)
Bondi   
26 Apr 2009
Work / Learning Polish in Lublin [6]

sunbreak,

There was a similar topic: https://polishforums.com/archives/2005-2009/work/language-courses-universities-23109/

Last year, I spent a fortnight at K.U.L. I compiled a summary: greenvault.tvn.hu/lublin/

(The links might not work, I haven't checked them ever since.)

I already spent 6 weeks in Krakow at the Jagiellonian University's program but my impression of that program was not good - the teachers were ok but the dorm living situation was intolerable.

I didn't pay attention, I'm quite symbiotic in a sense, but I think the uni dorm would be just the same in Lublin for you - shared rooms, full of noisy youngsters. Just as esek said. :) But you can choose the uni's hotel (for a small additional cost), which is much nicer and is located at the uni's site.
Bondi   
15 Jun 2009
News / The Polish-Hungarian friendship is as well as poisoned [45]

The Polish-Hungarian friendship is as well as poisoned by Hebrews in Warsaw
(in Kuruc.Info 14/Jun/2009)

Among the foreign language transmissions of the national Polish Radio (Polskie Radio), probably the most interesting and the most mysterious in its aim is the transmission in Hebrew language that broadcasts from satellite as well as on the Internet and on the FM wave since July 2007. The Hebrew broadcast has a well-maintained home-page as well. By studying the editors of the broadcast, it emerges that most of the 12 co-workers arrived straight from Israel to the studio in Warsaw.

It is baffling for us that Poland, or more exactly the Polish Jewry that allegedly shrunk to 4 or 5 thousand in their numbers from the 3 million before the WWII (and 99 percent of them do not even understand the Hebrew), why have a need for a radio broadcast in Hebrew. And why have a need for a clearly anti-Hungarian propaganda? We do hope that the Polish government, being friendly to the Hungarian people, and the authorities of Poland do not know about the officially funded Hebrew company's extremely anti-Hungarian pursuits.

The Hebrew section of the national Polish Radio—just as some Jewish journalists of the press in Hungary—are using misinformation and concealment in their process of trying to poison the historically renowned Polish-Hungarian friendship. Because the broadcast, naming themselves "Kol Polin" in Hebrew (i.e. "The Voice of Poland"), can be regarded as the official commitment of Warsaw in both Poland and Hungary.

On 10/Jun/2009, the homepage of the Hebrew broadcast of the Polish Radio published a news commentary—titled "Black Hungary", formulated in more-or-less truncated sentences with no signature of an author—that comments on the results of the European Elections in Hungary in an obscure, agitated manner.

We would like to know what Poland think about this anti-Hungarian incitement!

Below please find the English translation:

Black Hungary
(a news commentary of the Hebrew section of the Polish Radio)

In Germany, the browns used to fight the reds. Nazis dressed in brown, Communists dressed in red. And, as you know it, the browns won. The Hungarian equivalents of the German Nazis dressed in black at the same time, and these days they are returning triumphantly. Hungary and Austria were the central part of a once unified empire. But these two countries have one more common characteristic. The two peoples were enthusiastic friends of the Nazis, but they have not admitted their shameful past, contrary to Germans. Instead, Austrians and Hungarians tell the world they were victims of the Nazi occupation.

In Hungary, the neo-Nazi party will become the second largest one in the Parliament. Hungary have the biggest population of Jews in Central-Europe. But the No. 1. targets of the Hungarian neo-Nazis are not Jews but Gypsies. Probably because the population of the latter are much more bigger and they are more obvious to the eye. Hungarian neo-Nazis are not like the Western-European right-wing parties. For instance, Greert Wilders fights against the immigration of Muslims into Holland but he is not at all anti-Semitic and he has no territorial demands against the neighbouring countries. Because these were the two important components of the Nazi movement in Germany, and the little countries copying them and similar to them, namely Slovakia, Hungary and Croatia.

The Hungarian neo-Nazis are demanding the territorial autonomy of the Hungarian minority in Rumania and Slovakia. They want to remove the Gypsies who, according to general opinion, are not foreigners immigrated in recent times. And they do not only talk. They also kill Gypsies. Gypsies are migrants with no country. But their territorial demands against Rumania and Slovakia can risk the political stability of the whole region. Problem is that the far-right has no idea for a solution to the economic crisis. Far-right can only deepen it.

Bondi   
17 Jun 2009
News / The Polish-Hungarian friendship is as well as poisoned [45]

No one gives a crap, not even Hungarians (asked a few friends) no one even knows about it so who the frack are you, you're sure as hell not Hungarian.

Na, persze... No, właśnie... I was hoping to find someone to confirm or not to confirm the article on that site, anyway.

Which "neo-Nazi" party is that ?

It's surely an exaggeration to call any of the major parties neo-nazi

There's no such thing as a neo-Nazi party in Hungary. Hungarian politics are in the extreme the other way round. It's the same extreme that gives life to biased news articles of this kind.

prejudice against gypsies is pretty wide-spread and accepted

I would call it post-judice or hard experience. Take Italy for an example.
Bondi   
19 Jun 2009
History / Gdansk and it's history with Poland [116]

They did not "kick them out". That was not the style of the barbaric Communism. Most of them had fled before the "liberating army of the friendly Soviet Union" arrived, but thousands of people stayed at home. The Soviets tortured and massacred them, while ransacking and destroying most of the city.
Bondi   
27 Jun 2009
News / The Polish-Hungarian friendship is as well as poisoned [45]

Someone has deleted my post above for no reason -- but was silly enough to leave the replies of Crow and Babinich... They are quoting me, but my post that they are referring to has disappeared. At least you'd do your job properly.

@Crow:
I would even agree except that we can't say that Scythians (and Sarmatians) were Slavic. Scythians were from Asia, some of them fled to Europe but most of them were vassals of the Hun Empire.

And the Serbian "empire" (kingdom) fell under Ottoman rule ("were eaten by the Ottomans", to use your wording) and could not recover until the late 18th century.

I do not believe the penalty for "not being polite" by breaking an alliance, an alliance with the devil, should be the systematic liquidation of the citizenry.

To put it plainly: so we should have let the angelic Soviets come in freely to rape and slaughter our land and the rest of Europe.

Well enough.

Dear joepilsudski,

You should have quoted the whole story, as this was just a reply of hers on a mailing list.

The foreign-language journalists "failed" to translate the whole story for some strange reason. The same very strange reason that they were so eager in their English euphemism when they had to translate the ominous foul-mouthed speech of Gyurcsány back in 2006. Now, they are vulgar in their translations world-wide when it comes to someone who they do not like.

As it was the originator himself who signed his defecating email as "One of Our Kind in Your Kind = a Proud Hungarian Jew" ("Egy Magukfajta Magunkfajta = Buszke MAGYAR ZSIDO"). In a witted form, she just re-used his own wording in her reply!

And the unbiased translation of her reply is:

I would be very pleased if those ones who call themselves "proud Hungarian jews" played with their own cut willies in their spare time instead of abusing me.

Your kind got into the habit of breaking a wind to get our kind to stand to the attention and adjust to you. Would you please understand: this is OVER!!!! We have raised our heads and will not any longer tolerate the terror from your kind. We will take back our homeland!

Note 1: willy - originally in Hungarian: farkinca ("little tail", ogonek)
Note 2: to break a wind - originally in Hungarian: szellenteni
Bondi   
28 Jun 2009
News / The Polish-Hungarian friendship is as well as poisoned [45]

joepilsudski:
My pleasure. After Perez told the world that they're "buying up Poland, Hungary and Manhattan", there should not be anything wrong with saying we won't let them...

even Celts were branch of Scyhians/Sarmatians. So, what`s wrong if Scythians originaly came from Asia? (etc.)

It's ok, and it's even scientifically confirmed in a part. For instance, genetically the Japanese are closely related to Hungarians, which also confirms an Asian origin of the ancient European population.

But it's a joke when people reverse these findings. For instance, there are looneys in Hungary who try to set up an all-inclusive proto-Magyar theory (in linguistics, in history, in geography), which is the same looney thing as an all-inclusive proto-Slavic or a proto-Germanic or a proto-Romanian theory. As a matter of fact, these chauvinistic theories are always all-exlusive to one another, they are just trying to prove a superiority in vain.
Bondi   
3 Jul 2009
Language / Formal "you" and Informal "you" : which is which? [46]

Here we see the use of the third person when addressing someone, in place of the second person. As we have been discussing, that is something unique in the Polish language--though as benszymanski pointed out, in very rare circumstances it might be done in English.

Not as unique as it seems, European languages tend to do that. But it was a surprise for me to learn that Poles can also use 2nd/P (second person plural) - I thought only Russian use that for informal address these days.

And as far as I know the English "you" had been 2nd/P long ago! The 2nd/S form was "thou". For me, the level of simplification is still perplexing, having just one word ("you") for at least four uses: 2nd/S informal, 2nd/P informal, 2nd/S formal, 2nd/P formal... And when there's a need to overcome this mess and a cry for a plural form of "you": you two, you all - but round'ere they just use "you lot" or "yous" most of the time. :)
Bondi   
11 Jul 2009
History / Poland and Hungary in September 1939 [79]

Where are the Slovaks? I don't see them in between? Conquered by Hungarians? Buffer zone, you might say. It wasn't a border as such. It was territorires inhabited by the Slovaks, not Hungarians on one side and Poles - on the other, at least in considerable amount, so that it could have been considered a prevailing majority.

They were there hiding in peace. :) We shouldn't start an argument on things like that. Nationality did not stir such a fuss up until about the 18th century. "One nation within one border" is a completely stupid, modern, made-up rule. Despite the atrocities ("homo homini lupus est", of course), Central-Europe was still a great example of different peoples living together without losing their identity (unlike the mind-altering, "melting-pot" way of the US...), till the "Great War" finally destroyed it.

I would only like to remind you that Hungary was for centuries occupied by Habsburgs - just as Poland was occupied by them. It was Austria not Austro-Hungary who partitioned Poland. The last - third partition, took place in 1795. Hungarians gained partial independence only in 1867 when Austro-Hungary was officialy created. Before that it was Austria occupying Hungary.

I wouldn't say that. Of course, it wasn't always a pleasant situation, but the Habsburgs were the ones who took back our lost territories. Hungarians don't admit it even these days, but without the help of the Habsburg dynasty, the Carpathian Basin would've become a balkanic wasteland.
Bondi   
17 Jul 2009
News / Poland - a foreigner and a native Pole - different point of view...? [24]

Could the people that live in these poor parts of the cities be given more resources, assistance and encouragement then they could perhaps strive to improve their own streets?

Sorry, but... Sod that! I live in Brum, not even close to the shittiest, hmm, third-world parts, and the tenant downstairs can't even take care of his own flat. And I'm not being racist here, the bloke is full-bred English. Lack of education and a proper family background, and the lack of common sense, I'd say. That's what most people are famous of in big cities -- probably anywhere in the world.

When I was in Cracow, the huge number of homeless bums was a shock. They are a problem in Budapest as well... (Hmm, for everyone but the head-mayor.)
Bondi   
17 Jul 2009
History / Poland and Hungary in September 1939 [79]

To add my two groszy: throughout history, different territories of different countries changed rule not only by military conquest but also peacefully through royal succession + marriages between dynasties. (Btw, the Habsburg dynasty ruled lots of the European land through marriages.) Poland, Czechia and Hungary also "shared" a few kings. :)
Bondi   
23 Aug 2009
Language / HOW DOES RUSSIAN CZECH, URKAINIAN SOUND TO POLISH SPEAKERS? [18]

Ukrainian is somewhere in-between Polish and Russian (sounds the f'ken same as Russian, if you ask me). Native Poles say that Czech and Slovak conserved lots of old words, so they sound archaic.

As for Czech and Slovak, they sound hilarious to me, some words and expressions sound like a joke, I mean as if someone intentionally made it the way that it sounds very funny in Polish.

When I first heard "coś do picia", I was in stitches. Czech and Slovak pièa (same in Hungarian, picsa) = cipa in Polish. :)

As a native speaker of English I for one find spoken Dutch somehow clippety/gekloppen amusing.

Dutch = a drunken German sailor, with a pipe in his mouth, is trying to speak English. ;o)
Bondi   
11 Sep 2009
Language / I can't roll my r's damn it! [12]

"I'm from Bristol and I roll my R's... That's not the same as my arse!"

But seriously, it is not a problem if you just use your English 'R' for a start. In my Polish class, there's no problem for the English with that. It's a matter of fact that you have an accent speaking Polish. Your inability of saying kuuurrrrva! properly won't bother any native, I suppose... :)
Bondi   
11 Sep 2009
Language / Kids languages for mixed couples ? [26]

I can only add, too, that both parents should use their native languages with the kid.

Even if there is a "third language", the kid will pick it up. I mean, if a couple use the English between each other as they don't speak each other's language, it is always best to use the two native languages when talking to the kid, so they can learn the difference. Then kids can pick up the English at the nursery and later at school without the foreign accent of the parents.

Spending holidays and socializing in the parents' native environment will help a lot, though.
Bondi   
26 Sep 2009
News / Exploitation of Poles working abroad [30]

In my experience, exploitations happen when someone goes to a foreign country as an 'unskilled worker' without the knowledge of the local language. Most of the time it's plain human stupidity. When they arrive, they learn it the hard way that it's not the Promised Land.

Have to add, though, that most of us from East-Europe were financially desperate to go and take on such an enterprise. But I still wouldn't have dared to come to work in the UK with no English at all!
Bondi   
26 Sep 2009
Language / How does Polish sound to you? How to make Polish sound more pleasurable? [100]

'Birds chirping', I like the expression! So Polish does not sound like Russian?

It sounds like Russian, but you can always tell the difference: Russians sound like a windbag or respirator, as if they had to force their breath in and out when speaking. :) ('Abrupt', to quote Sean.)

Polish, Czech, Slovak, Serb - they sound softer. Russian, Latvian, Ukrainian - they sound harsher.
Bondi   
22 Oct 2009
Language / 'Gateway' slavic language? [54]

I think Russian is more difficult than Polish - even its Cyrillic ortography is much like the English ortography: the spelling is confusing.

Not that I'm perfect in either of 'em... I started to study Polish and my remembrance of the mandatory Russian at school helped a bit - but when I look back at Russian (listening to songs, watching films etc.) it is shocking how confusing it is. Pronounciation and spelling is nearly a piece of cake in Polish, once you know the alphabet. While in Russian, it won't help to read Cyrillic when they always change the intonation and the emphasis in mysterious ways. They also have more softened+hardened pairs of vowels and consonants than Polish.

Just my two pence, though, as a non-Slavic speaker. :)
Bondi   
22 Oct 2009
Language / How does Polish sound to you? How to make Polish sound more pleasurable? [100]

Aj omm Dahhkoollah, aj beed yoo vallkohm!! Now you're talking about the Hungarians, with their measured, unslurred cadences, not the querky-jerkiness of the Poles!Bondi might roundly disagree:-)

Vat ár yu tolking öbáut? :-D

(Actually, when my sister came to England, the English bus-driver asked her if she was German! :)
Bondi   
22 Oct 2009
Language / Your Funniest / Strangest / Sadest Moments with the Polish Language [63]

Good ones, foufz. There was a shop in Budapest with sth like Arucha Cipa. It turns out that it meant building supplies.

I think it was "Ruha és cipő" (Clothes and shoe), I know it is a 'classic' for Poles.

But it was not less jaw-dropping for me to see this sign in Poland: "baszta". It is "bastion" in Polish, but it means "fucked it" in Hungarian...

Much the same classic as the Italian "curva" (curve, turn). :))
Bondi   
26 Oct 2009
Language / How does Polish sound to you? How to make Polish sound more pleasurable? [100]

OsiedleRuda

The reason it sounds more "singing" is because of letters like ý, the diacritic lengthens the sound of the "y", which would make a Polish "y" sound more like "eee", so Polish dobry sounds like DOBreee in Czech. Because of this, Polish sounds a bit more "monotonous" and less "musical" than Czech. And that's one of the reasons I like it (Czech) :)

Ha-ha... Perhaps that's the reason it's a pleasure to watch the Czech classic "Dědictví aneb kurvahošigutntag" in original dubbing, even when you can't understand half of it.

The "control" of Bohuš at the restaurant is simply hilarious even by the sound:

Bondi   
26 Oct 2009
Language / Zajebiiiiiście! [30]

"Over-f.ckingness." :) The root is j.bać, to f.ck. In the context, it's quite similar to the English unbe-f.cking-lievable, for instance. :) "F.cking great" etc.
Bondi   
26 Oct 2009
Language / How do little children know that they should say "mamo" rather than "mama"? [23]

I can't but help to think that Polish sounds very "obsequious" in this respect. What's really shocking to me, though, is when I hear somebody in his/her twenties call another person around the same age pani/pana. It sounds so completely unnatural in my ears. Could any young person really feel offended by being called "ty"?

It's hard to get used to it that I can't just walk into a shop in Poland and say "cześć" by default... In Hungary, when I go to a shop and see a salesman/-woman close to my age (in his teens or twenties, or even thirties), we can address each other and have a conversation in the "ty" form. Depends on the situation and the shop, of course, but people (both men and women) up to a thirty-something age are easily offended by the formal address in everyday speech in my country. (I.e. they say "I'm not so old to call me a "pan/pani".) The only exception to this are "obvious" formal places like banks and bureaus.

it's not the mamo that gets me, it's referring to grandparents in 3rd p.singular that I find bizarre. "would granny like a biscuit?" when referring directly to said granny is a step too complicated for me

It is because you can't call your grandparents "pan/pani", as that would be way too formal. But you still don't want to address them in the "ty" form, if you want to show respect. So it's somewhere in-between these two.