A Native American or a Native Pole: Who is better into which language?

Why would I want to learn a word that has that meaning? I dont use these words in English so why would I need to in Polish, but it is interesting you see this as a basic word. Ravi Shankar


No and I dont need to. Thankfully you arent in Poland so I wont have to use it.

Michal,

For foreigners, the tough thing about German (and I'm only talking about the grammar) is basically the word order and the oodles of prefixed verbs followed by the gender/case agreement. Without all that, I supposed German would be called, well, English -:)

Polish is less transparent, especially in the numbering system!

Marek

I find English quite easy but I know that I am far from being as fluent as I want to be.
Thing that I will never get is difference between "a" and "the". Because in polish we dont use prepositions at all i find it really difficult.

Another thing is getting difference in pronunciation of words like sheet and **** :) they still laugh at me when i ask for **** of paper at work :-)

Yes, i have come across this mispronunciation before. It does make the english laugh:)
English must be very difficult to learn. I am english and even i have trouble writing correctly. The written language is so precise. Such words as there....( over there) ... or their.. (that is their house)

actually written english is not as bad as getting correct sound in pronunciation :)

Interesting:) we have to be educated for 10 years at school to learn our grammar etc, so you are doing very well

hehe try to learn polish grammar + orthography (all our "u" and "ó" etc).
at least english has got a structure. Polish is well messed up and i feel sorry for people trying to learn it. But i do encurage them and i am well impressed when they succed :)

Witaj, Buniu!

"The" = specyficznie przedmioty i osoby, n.pr "Where are THE books? - On THE table" (Tylko JEDEN stol), "Where is THE man?" itd.

"A"/"An" = powszechnie przedmioty i osoby, n.pr. "I'm looking for AN empty (wolny) table." (Cokolwiek!)

Czy zrozumiesz?
Marek

A lot of people that learn English seem to think it's easy. But really only the Polish English teachers really speak it correctly. Otherwise even the highest CPE level students still make a lot of common mistakes...

English is an easy language to understood in....but it's a difficult language to perfect. Polish I agree is hard but in a different. I find myself having to do a lot tedious memorizing for my Polish. So if memorizing equals hard then I agree Polish is very difficult. I don't see how anyone could learn without copius amounts of drills and memorizng.

I do get general idea behind it and most of the time (i hope) i get it right, but there is alot of diffrent rules to it and i mess them up :)

Czesc!
Bunia, you seem to want to practice your English here so I'll correct a few minor things in English instead of using Polish:
"I do understand the general idea behind it (not a bad idiom).......but there are (not "is") a lot of different rules and I tend to confuse them......"

Overuse of slang seems to be your biggest problem in English, not as much the articles. In your position, I'd focus more on the standard language rather than on phrasal expressions, i.e. "mess up" etc. until you're quite sure of correct usage.

Marek

Bunia,

Polish has indeed prepositions, "na", "w", "pod " etc... just as English or German. You mean "articles" (artykuly), of which Polish has in fact f.ex. "ci", "te", "ten" for English "this", but not for simply "the", that's true.

Marek

The easy thing about english is the lack of conjugation of the verbs. They might have 16 tenses like some Guest pointed out. In spanish we have the same and we use them. Yes, other languages are simpler in terms of tenses because instead of saying "I'm doing something", they just say "I do something". So no continuous forms which is a pity cause I like to use them hehe.

But it's really an advantage in learning english that you don't have to conjugate the verbs. And I'm talking of course about the verb forms for the different persons (I, you, he/she, we, you, they).

We all "do" something, well, besides he and she ;-) So everybody executes a verb the same way, you just have to remember that he and she don't. And it's as simple as writing an "s" or "es" at the end of the verb. While in many other languages you have to learn the painful rules of conjugations which are one of the biggest problems in learning a new language unless you don't care sounding like Tarzan.

Anyway, no offense to all the english-speaking people but english is not a very rich language. It's an easy one and I think that's one of the reasons it's become the "international" language. Yes, just one of them, not forgetting the influence of the US power and all that ;-).

And english is quite ambiguous which is a pity cause it can lead to misinformation or misunderstandings. Take for example the phrase "I love you". Makes no distinction from fraternal and friends love to that of the love to your partner/spouse. If you say "you do it". You don't know if it refers to one person or to many, you have to check the context and even then it can lead to misunderstanding or the necessity to ask to clear that up.

Although one thing I like about these ambiguities is not having an informal and formal "you". Sometimes it leads to problems in spanish or german or other languages about "how should I treat this person, formal or informal?". That, and the fact that you get rid of learning another conjugation ;-)

Anyway, I finish before I lose the track of a point (if I didn't do it already). I just wanted to share what I think about english and the difference to other languages. And to those native english speakers, no offense, I like languages and I have nothing against english. On the contrary, I mean if it wasn't for english I woudln't have met my polish girlfriend. It's very useful and it's a nice language.

And well, I'm not fluent in german but I wouldn't agree with Michal, Polish seems more difficult than german to me. It's confusing to me, and sometimes even funny, how in polish they decline even personal names. It's funny in my case. If I say "Miguel's house" I have to say "dom Miguela" and that's funny cause in spanish most nouns ending in A are feminine so it's like they make me a woman every time they say something that's mine.

Oh, and in Mexico we use double negatives too hehe... Although some english-speaking people use them as slang too, like "I don't see nothing" :)

And TheKruk: 45 languages?!?!?! Including Elfic and Klingon? :-) No seriously, as I see some are dead languages, right? That's cool, how could you learn so many languages? I'd be more than happy being able to speak like 6 languages.

Sorry for the long message, sometimes I start writing and can't seem to be able to stop.
Cheers!
Miguel

"And, English is quite ambiguous......."

Indeed. Right you are, Miguel. Spanish, for instance, has "ser"and "estar" for the one English verb "to be". Even the seemingly complicated Polish tongue has only one verb for "to be".

Yet precisely in its ambiguity, lies the richness, the texture and melody of English, "the music in the malarkey", I call it. Why then do Abbot & Costello or The Marx Brothers often fall flat in other cultures? It seems "Borscht Belt" humor is NOT a universal language!

Marek

Yes Marek you are right and most foreigners have problems with "ser" and "estar". I always tell them "ser" is when you want to say something about what you are, your inner self; and "estar" is when you want to say something about how you are, the physical or emotional you.

I'm a man = soy un hombre (ser)
I'm an engineer = soy un ingeniero
I'm catholic = soy católico
I'm in Mexico = estoy en Mexico (estar)
I'm hungry = estoy hambriento
I'm in love = estoy enamorado

And we have "querer" and "amar" for two kinds of love ;-) And we have "amiga" and "novia" for a girl-friend and a girlfriend, you know what I mean ;-)

So this along with other things makes English much simpler, though unfortunatelly poorer in some cases.
But yes, for slavic people, the use of articles is a big problem. My girlfriend always makes mistakes about "a" and "the". Sentences like "Did you read a book?" when what she actually wanted to say was "did you read THE book?". Or even cases like "I send you a letters". But I stopped trying to correct her cause she always felt bad :-(

But again, thanks to English we all can communicate in this forum ;-) Cause besides TheKruk, most of us can speak only one or maybe two languages besides our mother tongue :-D

Correct, thanks to English, the universal "buffer tongue" of the world's citizens, everyone of us is able to communicate.......well, sort of, at any rate.

I suppose I've long since thrown in the towel of the purist's fight, the battle of the ever frustrated idealist, to rescue English from long-suffering abuse at the hands of linguistic incompetents, i.e. bureaucrats, more interested in profits than quality.

I've given in, but I've never given up!
Marek

I have never found German to be at all logical. I find Polish word order to be more like English. German verbs split bits up and puts in a 'zu' ect. Very very confusing!


Every word is important

Oh woo hoo you are back. I think racist words arent important however I think that the fact you regard this as an important word might be a revealing insight into your mind. Dont leave it so long before you post again.

I am not racist-simply the word in question is a basic word that anybody who knows Polish would know. Why is this such a problem for you?

Steady on. Who accused you of being a racist. Guilty conscience??

Also I suggets you have a problem with this as you are the one dragging up old conversations.

If you are in Poland I would suggest that you buy a course and learn some Polish rather than arguing with me! How do you survive not knowing a single word of Polish?

Who said that I dont know a single word of Polish? Michal you are the best source of free entertainment I know off. Everything that comes out of your PC is comical. Thats why I like to 'Argue' with you, as you so well put it.

It seems that you believe if someone does not know how to insult a black person in Polish then they cant speak Polish.

I wonder, is your wife allowed to read what you write on here about Polish people?

It is not really an insult as far as I know and you started this topic in the first place, not me. Why do you not look the word up in a simple basic dictionary for yourself, after all, if you are going to spend a lot of time in Poland, you will need a fairly good dictionary. If you do not want to learn the language, why are you even there in Poland at all?


I would imagine that as an English speaking person on your own in Poland without a knowledge of the language you are a pretty lonely guy-I know that I would hate it for myself.

You believe the word nig.ger is not an insult.


Once again when did I ever tell you that I dont wish to learn the language?


Actually you would be quite suprised. Most people in Poland can speak English. Did you know that they have lots of language schools here and also learn English in secondary and high school?

I have been to Poland many times and have never relied on English so I can not comment on the level of English spoken. Probably, it gives the Poles a lot of status to be seen speaking English amongs their friends, it is the same in France too.

As a PS none of my family in Poland speaks English but I do know that one or two have been having a lot of leasons. They have never tried it out on me so am not too sure.


I thought that is was Russian, which was a compulsory subject?

i don't hardly know any english gammar. I couldn;'t even tell you what the tenses for english grammar are. English grammar is starting to be a subject that is neglected in school, most the high schools around where i live don't focus on grammar. to me grammar is hard in any language! haha

nope.

Oh, yes, all the Polish learn or at least learnt Russian at school.

I know for a fact that Russian is still taught in Polish schools as my relatives have lessons even to this day. And why not? They are more likely to use Russian in Czestochowa than English!

I heard from a student in Poznan that Russian is no longer taught. Is it possible that each city is different?

I know that as soon as Poland gained its freedom, Russian went 'out the window' over night but apparantly, it has been returning again in popularity of late. After all, Russia is still Poland's biggest natural neighbour.

Michal,

As an older acquaintance from Krakow once remarked to me years ago (in German, as I couldn't even say, much less pronounce, the number "trzy" at the time, i.e. ZERO knowledge Polish!): "All Poles understand Russian language,....but noone speaks it."

Marek