Adjective/Noun Order?

"...adjective precedes the noun if an intrinsic aspect"
Anyone who can explain this distiction and provide a few examples will be providing a service.

No idea, give an example. Does this again simply mean that the adjective must agree with the noun in gender and quantity?

I think you're trying to absorb too much theorical knowledge for a beginner.
Generally, in simple sentences, the adjective precedes the noun.
Mam starszego brata i młodszą siostrę. (I have an older brother and a younger sister.)
but
Mam brata starszego o dwa lata i siostrę młodszą o trzy lata. (literally, because I don't know how to say it in English: I have a brother older two years and a sister younger three years.)

(In the second example the adjective is extended so it wouldn't "fit" before the noun, stupid explanation, I know.)

And the adjective comes after the noun in expression that are more or less fixed, so the adjective isn't describing a trait of the noun, but it's rather limiting its meaning:

przerwa techniczna (tto, technical timeout, in volleyball, 1st after 8th point, then after 16th point).
So you'd say:
Na pierwszej przerwie technicznej Polki prowadziły 8-5, a na drugą przerwę techniczną zeszły z pięciopunktowym prowadzeniem (16-11).
At the 1st tto Poland were leading 8-5, and they went for the 2nd tto with a 5 point lead (16-11).

This applies also for example to animals species (and many other things):
bawół europejski - European buffulo (if such a species exists)
bawół is a wide range of animals, europejski limits the noun to one species, that's why it follows the noun, on the other hand, a wounded buffulo = ranny bawół, because the adjective here describes the noun in the natural way.

dom publiczny - wh*orehouse
biblioteka publiczna - public library
but:
publiczne przyznanie się do winy - public confession of one's fault (here the adjective is first, because it describes how the confession was made, i.e. publically)

I think I need to expose myself to more examples of simple Polish sentences. That way I can learn to intuit when a word order is correct.


No. Some adjectives follow the noun, some nouns follow the adjective BUT it's not due to the specific noun/adjective used but whether the adjective is describing an intrinsic quality of the noun or not.

I just wanted examples to help me better understand the difference.

Krzyszytof went someway to providing me with examples with his 'public library/ public confession' example.

Then you can start reading short Polish news online, politics, sports, culture etc. (whatever is more interesting for you).
If you know what is described (for example you watched ManU-Chelsea game and/or read some reports) it will be easier for you to understand (or guess correctly) what is written. Of course you'll see lot of verbs in the past tense in such texts, but don't worry, concentrate on the things that you are currently studying, don't try to learn it all at the same time.

Could you recommend some internet sites that would be the type of thing needed?
Sports not really my thing. World news and current affairs tend to interest me.

Are their any sites dedicated to learning Polish to children, or better still, adults that never learned properly and are now trying to learn to read as mature students?

you could always try online editions of Polish newspapers, they usually post some agency news. maybe rp.pl gazeta.pl


I really don't know, it would require some research and I'm very busy till the end of May :(

That makes it LOOK as though if the adjective is of greater importance than the noun, say it first.
There are two old fashioned style telephones on a desk - one is ringing, but which one?
"Pomarańczowy telefon." (ie. not the green one.)
Oh dear! Am I supposed to think of an example where the same the words are reversed in order? I can't think of anything.

Blah blah blah "Telefon pomarańczowy." blah blah blah...
Does it look right anyway?

I don't really know if that's right. I tend to say the words I can remember first, then think of the ones I'm not so sure about.

osiol.
????WHAT!????

I was thinking about the difference between a green thing that happens to be a telephone and a telephone that just happens to be green. I thought what I said might provoke someone into saying something intelligible.

edit: Oh look! It's green now! It had been orange. Who's that lurking around with a tin of paint?

try out the lessons for beginners at: languagelearninglab.com

Teraz jest zielone what of it. It is not too difficult to understand is it

Talk about misunderstanding the point! Idiot.

yeah "guest" create an account. rather than going around anonymously abusing people!

When an adjective describes an individual feature of the noun, it goes before the noun. Amerykańska borówka - an American cowberry.

When the adjective describes a type of the noun (e.g. in the names of species), it goes after it. Borówka amerykańska - blueberry :)

So you've got: fale krótkie (high frequency waves), because it's a kind of radio waves, but you've got krótkie nogi (short legs) because it is just feature of some individual pair of legs. And so on.

Pomarańczowy telefon - is simply an orange phone (of orange colour).
Descriptive adjectives like that are pre-noun.

Telefon pomarańczowy would be some phone (or line) that has nothing to do with the colour but for example with orange fruit cultivation (or something else that has to do with oranges). Imagine for example large company in field of food processing, managing director's office and a line to orange fruit assesment office or a overseas branch in a country with lots of orange fruit plantations or maybe to the company's office at the raw materials market (I don't know the proper name for the place where for example raw food is traded for (in industrial amounts)). Then the line could well and very conveniently be called telefon pomarańczowy, mainly for its shortness still giving a good idea what the line is for.

This shows that post-noun adjectives are in some way defining - together with the noun they create some new idea, new notion, at least a new term to define some phenomenon, object, etc.

This is rather obvious in biological or other scientifical terms.

Brązowy sęp - yes this is a vulture that simply is (or happens to be) brown
sęp brązowy - would be (to my knowlegde it is not) a name of a particular species - so only both names together are the actual name of an entity

(in German it is often rendered as one word unlike Polish or English)
(btw. there is sęp kasztanowaty and sęp płowy (vulture specia) which are also colour names)
this one single entity - say sęp płowy can be itself brown (well, a specimen can be) (no idea if these vultures really happen to be brown)

then it is perfectly correct to say brązowy sęp płowy

the paragraph does not cover the whole multitude of possibilities

Merged: Adjective, verb, noun etc

OK,
A few months ago when I was fresh out of my 65 hours of intense Polish tuition I made a 'breakthrough' realising some relationships between the different parts of speech (word types). But, I didn't write down my findings and now I've forgotten.

My question is this: are there any general rules regarding the types of words in Polish that might help me create a noun from a known werb of vice versa?

For example, in English a driver drives, a swimmer swims, a heater make heat, or heats. of course, there are exceptions, like a cooker is not the person who cooks.

any hints on this or other ways to expand vocab overnight would be great!

thanks

T

Well, sometimes you can:
a swimmer - swims => pływak - pływa
a heater make heat => grzejnik-grzeje (or ogrzewa)
a driver drives => well, you can say "kierowca-kieruje (pojazdem)" however in common use we say: "kierowca prowadzi (pojazd)"

Hi Tony,

I was just wondering where you had 65 hours of tuition?

Thanks.

Varia school in Krakow,

I had 2 different teachers there, the teaching methods of oen worked very well for me, the other didn't. Exercises like "Here's 40 words - guess what they mean" withou even tellign if they were nouns, verb, adjective or even what subject the were from, did not help. But, when I asked to change teachers, the situation was much improved.

Anyway, go take a look at them. If they still have Magda teaching, she would be my teacher of choice. I also took their 'cultural program' which I found very relaxing and informative. The lunch time trips to Babacia Malina were fantastic too!

varia-course.com

You'll even find me in their gallery. I had a fantastic time there, wish i could go back and do it all again!

T