WHY "HIGH FEE" for HIFI in Polish?

1. The term is not used much anymore, but for some reason Poles pronoucned hi-fi (short for high fidelity) as haj fi. The first part was English, the second Polish -- instead of haj-faj or hee-fee. Anybody ever wonder why?

2. Nowadays one hears in Polish TV advertt Gilette Series, with the second word pronounced in a way that sounds like a Scotsman sayng "serious" -- not phonetic Polish ser-yes nor English see-reez but "serious". I presume one person mispronounced it, someone else repeated it and so it has remained.

3. Do you Brits have crêpes for breakfast as a rule? Whenever someone in a Hollywood film asks "are we having pancakes today" the Polish voice-over says naleśniki, when what is meant is placki or racuszki (raised pancakes). The Stanisławski dictionary, long a standard, may have started this misnomer.

Wrong assumption. Not having much contacts with spoken English language people tended to "rationalize" the pronounciation of the abbreviation read in foreign magazines, "i" in high is pronounced "aj" (in Polish transcription), while in in "fidelity" it's just an "i" (again in Polish transcription).

Btw, do foreign visitors to Poland travelling by train even care how we pronounce for example "PKP" (peh - kah - peh), or do they read it in their own language (or in English, as pee-kay-pee)?

I would read it as the latter....the way most Americans would.

English abbreviations and words are always problematic when they make their way into other languages. There are no rules for them.


?? Never heard that word... no idea how to pronounce it. If it is "pancake", then having pancake for breakfast is a US thing, while pancake is a dessert after a main course in Europe. English or Continental breakfast doesn't include pancakes.

no its a french thing. crepes/pancakes for breakfast. highly unusual

HUH? fi is fee and hi is hee.. that's all there is to that.. high is haj though.


americans love their pancakes and waffles.

there really aren't pancakes in poland that's why they translate it to 'nalesniki' everytime.

not really.

pancakes - naleśniki
waffles - gofry

yes...but Polish naleśniki and American pancakes are not really the same....
:)


and that's correct :)

i'll go with that

No, what I meant was that Polish people, knowing that Hi-Fi comes from High Fidelity, applied the natural abbreviation of those 2 words, pronouncing Hi-Fi as a truncated version of Hi[gh] Fi[delity], so leaving the 2 different sounds represented in English by the letter "i" ("aj" in high, "i" in fidelity)

In most European languages, 'i-Pod' is pronouced indentically with English 'EYE-pod', including Polish and even French. Here, the one holdout, i.e. exception (as usual!-:)) is Spanish, where, at least in Spain, it's 'EE-pod', and only 'EE-pod', so help me G_d. (Actually more like, 'EE-pawth' in correct Castillian)

Probably as few people among the rank and file in Poland speak decent, if any, English as in Spain. Poles do however, seem to take English language study a bit more seriously than many in the EU.

Comments, arguments from my colleagues??

Yes, I noticed that. My favourite one is when they talk about the tennis at "wimbledon".

They don't pronounce that either fully Polish by pronouncing the w as a v as in:
vimbledon

or fully English:
wim-bol-dun

As Krzystof says another one where they have tried to "rationalise" it...