"non polish characters"

Hi everyone,

As my boyfriend is polish I decided to study Polish.
I think this site will be very helpful.

I wonder after how long of studying for half hour every day would I be able to have a baisc conversation in Polish?
I learned German and Latin, so that may help I guess.And I am pretty fast.

Is it ok to write in "non polish characters" in the beginning or is that going to slow down the process?

I am driven to learn and I would love to show Szymon my love by being able to talk to him in his mothertongue...and to surprise his best friend by this summer..

Dobranoc

I would recommend always using Polish accents because some words are spelled without accents and can mean something different(chcę<I want>, chce<he/she/it wants>)

I don't think learning basic phrases will be that hard or take that long but I would recommend looking at the Polish alphabet/pronounciation and diphthongs first.

czesc

cześć
część

paczki=parcels
pączki=donuts

hi hi, it's fun!

I would say start out using the diacritical marks right from the beginning, they form the basis of matching pronunciation and spelling, which is very easy in polish once you've mastered the phonetics.

Once you're a little more familiar with the language you will find there are times where other people don't or can't use them... (sms for example) and knowing them well will help you to figure out (or guess a bit) at where they are missing and so understand their sentences better.

thnx guys and gals

Is there a way to convert your keyboard ( azerty) to a polish one?
Or any other suggestions?

thnx

S.

My advice is to not worry about the keyboard at this stage. Most of the writing you do should be done by hand (much more effective in learning than typing).

I'm pretty sure that a Polish keyboard should be easy to download, ask your boyfriend what he uses.

hint: avoid 214 and go with the word keyboard layout (where you type alt gr and a letter) it's potentially slower than 214 but for a non-Pole that's not an issue and it integrates better with other keyboards.

alt gr = ą

sad - orchard
sąd - court

zrób mi łaskę - do me a favour/grace (or to condescend to sb - i'm not sure)
zrób mi laskę - do me a bl*wjob

:)

Go to your control panel and keyboard settings, there should be a language option, select Polish and then whenever you type accent select alt+a(at the same time) and you get 'ą'

Niegrzeczny Rubaszny.....lol

I will try it out and see what happens... will let you know if the right action was produced..lol

S

these are not Vatican Forums, you dont need to censor word blowjob.

I tried to change my computer setup so it could do Polish characters, but whatever I tried, it made no difference. I have managed to train Microsoft Word to do it and of course I can do Polish characters on here, but otherwise I have to go without. When texting in Polish (I do this quite a lot) there is no option of Polish characters, so whenever I read any texts lacking in Polish characters that include words I don't know, to try to translate, I have to guess which letters need to be Polonicised. Guessing tends to get easier the more you learn.

It is best to use the characters because they all mean something and they do make a difference, but it is important to realise that they are not always used, either through lack of a availability or because of laziness.

To set up Polish language on PC computer:

start -> settings -> regional and language options

select second tab: languages
in 'text services and input languages' click 'Details...' button

in 'settings' tab hit 'Add...' button
from the first list select Polish
from the second list selecct Polish(Programmers)

hit OK

Done.
Down the bottom, on the right side, you should see a little language square, it will read either EN or PL. You can toggle between languages using mouse, or while holding left ALT - press left Shift

Polish letters:
while holding right Alt

a - ą
l - ł
z - ż
x - ź
n - ń
o - ó
e - ę
s - ś

Good luck!
E_T

That's what I did Easy_Terran. It's funny when I forget to switch back to English and get a y where I expect a z and visa-versa.

Softsong - there is a keyboard layout in which you don't get z and y exchanging locations -
and you get Polish diacrytics by pressing right alt key - plus unaccented/cedilla-less charachter - altgr (right Alt) + a --> 'ą', altgr + o --> 'ó'; altgr + z = ż;

and altgr + x = ź
in polish version of Windows this one is called 'programmer's layout' - 'klawiatura programisty'
i am not sure this one is available in English/US versions of Windows, and I don't know the technical names or the number of the layout but I'm sure you will find help on this in this forum

Thanks Gumishu,

I have little sticky letters that go over my keyboard. They are clear so you can see the English characters below and it has the Polish characters in blue. One day, I may try the programmers layout, for now at least I do have all the characters.

Have a great weekend! And thanks again.

you can also use the character map that's on every pc at this location:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\charmap.exe

or open a terminal and run

$ gucharmap

if you're using a proper OS ;)

go shiftless and just run: charmap.exe :D