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Mam na imię Melusine.
Jestem Angelką.
Mieszkam w Francja.
Bardzo mi miło.

I have been learning Polish since September. Every lesson the teacher asks us how we are, and we have got the hang of replying

“Bardzo dobrze, dziękuję”.

What I would like is to see the question she asks us written down: my visual memory is never going to learn it otherwise, and then to know how to ask her how she is (“and you?”) and what the alternatives are to being well: or is it not polite to say one is tired or off colour?

Dziękuję

Do widzenia

Mel

it's quite ok to say so

does she ask: 'Jak się masz?'

Melusine is a very pretty name :)

Bienvenue Melusine

"A ty?" = and you?

"Piękna pani Meluzyna"
- it's a song written for a Polish movie (for kids/youth).
Does anyone know from what movie it is? (hint - from the 80's)
No googling, please!

No, that's not it. It sounds to me like "słychać" (spelling probably all wrong....)



Dziękuję


Wow, if I'd known I would have spelt my name like that! Specially now I've checked out what
"Piękna" means....

so it's probably "Co słychać?" (or "Co tam słychać?") (= How are you/What's up?)
you may answer for example: Wszystko w porządku, a u ciebie? (All right, and you?)

Thank you, I should be able to pronounce all of that apart from the first word.
We learned that the "w" in "wtorek" is closer to an "f" sound.

Does this also apply before "sz"?

Mel

"w" in Polish = "v" in English, but like other voiced consonants (b, d, g, z, ź, ż, dz, dź, dż) it becomes voiceless (so in this case "f") when it stands at the end of a word or by another voiceless consonant.

so in wszystko it becomes indeed an "f", (~ fshistko)

OK, I think I've grasped that - in fact English does it too (but most people never realise - I knew I'd got a specialist in my class when he said "Madame, why have you written disgusting, but you're pronouncing it discusting?)

Is it always the voiced consonant that gives way to the voiceless one? Does it matter which order they appear in in the word?

Could you give a few examples, please.....

And how does 'Jak się masz?' translate? I can see "masz" is the second person singular of "mieć" but I thought that was "have"?

Mel (on a steep learning curve)

doesn't translate literally, (it would be "how are you having yourself"), it's just "how are you?", one of many ways to ask it.

normally - yes, I have doubts about the word "jednakże" (however), I pronounce it "jednagże",
I'm not sure if it's correct or if it's an influence from my years in Poznań, because in some areas (for example in Poznań and Wielkopolska region) you may hear it the other way (voiceless at the end of the word becoming voiced because of the following word), it's considered an error though (Polish governments under communism were rather hostile to dialects and regional variation of the language and everything different from the official Polish was regarded as wrong)


no


Płaskowyż przypominał okręt przez brak wiatru unieruchomiony wśród płowego pyłu. Strome brzegi wyznaczały głęboki kanion, którego dnem, od jednej ściany skalnej do drugiej, wiła się smuga zieleni - rzeka i pola. Na dziobie tego kamiennego okrętu, w samym środku owej smugi, jako jej integralna część, niby ociosana i rzeźbiona skała, rozciągała się osada Malpais. Bryła na bryle, każdy następny blok mniejszy niż poprzedni, wysokie domy pięły się ku błękitnemu niebu jak piramidy o ściętych wierzchołkach i tarasowym kształcie. U ich stóp tłoczyły się niskie budynki, plątanina murów; z trzech stron ściany opadały stromo wprost ku pustyni. Kilka słupów dymu unosiło się pionowo i rozpraszało w nieruchomym powietrzu.

(rozciągała - this "z" not only becomes a voiceless "s", but it's also get softened, because of the soft "ci", so it becomes a "ś": rościągała)

z >> (voiceless) s >> (soft) ś

(from Aldous HuxleyBrave New World, 1967, Polish translation by Bogdan Baran. The beginning of Chapter 7)

maybe an easier example, with words you may already know:

Francuz (=a Frenchman) (pronounced like it would be written "Francus")
Francuzi (z remains voiced, because it's no longer at the end of a word) (=Frenchmen). But this "z" shifts to softer "ź" (because the "i" in Polish makes the consonants soft, with exceptions in some words borrowed from foreign languages)

młody (d is normal here) (=young)
młodszy (=younger) (d becomes t, because of the voiceless "sz")

Yes, that was easier: after a mere 8 lessons I'm not up to reading Huxley in Polish yet.

Dziękuję

Mel

Cześć Melusine. Jestem Irlandczykiem. I'm Irish, also learning polish!

Check this thread if you haven't already found it. The little polish lesson videos will bring you up to speed on pronunciation of all the sounds in polish...

https://polishforums.com/language/lessons-units-10526/

Cześć Hal9009,

I did find the thread ealier in the week - and you're right they are brilliant little videos: the one for that pesky sound "ą" does not appear to be working, which is a great shame!

Dziękuję

Mel

you live in France so you probably heard their language.


is pronounced in a similar way to the French "on" (nous parlons)
(Polish "ę" is similar to the French "in" - dauphin, we don't have the sound for French an/en - for example "en dansant", but you can hear a lot in Polish words like "włączać" where the "ą" should be pronounced like French "on", but many people pronounce it like French "an/en")

I'm French, may I help you ? ;)

some mistakes, just for your consideration

Thank you Ella.

I have some questions about this:


Would I say "we" also if I was giving the name of the town? What about the region (In English it's in Caen, in Calvados in France, but maybe not in Polish?)

Dziękuję

You need to learn when to use :
we or w (Polish) = in (English)

eg. countries:
Mieszkam we Wloszech = I live in Italy
Mieszkam w Niemczech = I live in Germany

cities:
Mieszkam we Wroclawiu = I live in Wroclaw
Mieszkam w Poznaniu = I live in Poznan

w,we - the e is added to facilitate pronounciation. (Happens with "z" and "ze" also).
You'll pick this up, I did :)

Yep, I managed two errors in that one, without even trying! Mr brain is not at home today.

But the example is valid I hope.

It's not your Poznan "conditioning". It's one of the rules in the Polish language, i.e. Udźwięcznienie or sonorization aka voicing. A voiceless consonant becomes voiced if a neighboring consonant is voiced, except for fricatives consonants.

some info on how to tell sounds apart:

1. voice-voiceless
pronounce a sound while holding tips of your fingers against your "Adam's apple". (toes may work too but, I'm told, are less practical). If you feel vibrations then the sound is voiced, otherwise is voiceless. Check it out using "g" vs. "k".

2. fricatives (spolgloski półotwarte)- are sounds which can be continuall pronounce (as long as you have air in your lungs to exhale). Examlpes: sz, z, h, s.

3. Afficates (or stops) are sounds that are produced after a certain amount of air is first compressed and then released suddenly. Examples: k, d, t

so:
"jednakże" is correctly pronounced as "jednagże" because k is not fricative (you can't pronounce it continuously), and ż is voiced.

but

"urosła" will NOT be read as "urozła" , even though ł is voiced, because "s" is a fricatrive, i.e. it CAN be pronounced continuously, so it kinda cancels the voicing influence of ł

The above may be rough on the edges. It's been years and years ago when I had to know these things, but this is pretty much the gist of it.

Yeah, I was going to post a detailed explanation, but I realized there are too many possible combinations, so just remember the easy rule:
Normally you use w, we is used always when following word starts with a group of 2 (or more) consonants and the first one of them is labio-dental (w or f).

Things get more complicated when the second second consonant is labio-dental ("we Lwowie", but rather "w czwartek") or in groups with bidental (m, b, p): w mniemaniu, w/we mgle, w/we młynie, we mnie, we łbie), and even more complicated (for a foreigner) in other combinations.

Actually its from Academia Pana Kleksa