Things Polish people who speak English language say

Actually, I was speaking more along the lines of grammatical errors, sorry for being unspecific. I do plan on searching the forum for it, but if anyone feels like linking me or possibly even answering here, I would be much obliged.

*'I have 15 years' is a standard mistake- because in Polish 'mam' is the equivalent to 'have' and people mistake 'Ja mam 15 lat' for '*I have 15 years'

A couple of typical and recurring errors.

Where he lives? or Where he live? (instead of 'Where does he live?")

I don't know where does he live. (instead of "I don't know where he lives.") (This is more common than the first, very frequent among even advanced learners).

I thought she is rich. (instead of "I thought she was rich.") (This is because Polish doesn't use any kind of sequence of tenses - hooray!)

Are they riches? (instead of Are they rich?) (Not so super common but they clearly want to decline adjectives).

There's also a host of things that aren't technically mistakes but which are stylistically odd and not the way that native speakers anywhere would do things.

He is such a stupid one. (instead of He's so stupid.)

I think that I won't go. (instead of I don't think I'll go).

Finally, just search around the forums as many of the mistakes made in speaking happen in writing too.

By the way, could you please clarify where the accent should be placed in the word "controversy"? Should it be controversy, controversy or maybe controversy? I think there is quite a lot of controversy about it.

The pronunciation CON-troversy is correct, though some poor misguided souls say con-TROVersy instead. I've never heard contro-VERsy before.

Some typical pronunciation errors (as in 'no native speaker says that')

COM-puter (this one drives me craaaazy)
HO-tel
deetER-mine (last syllable pronounced just like 'mine')
MOUN-tane and FOUN-tane (last syllable rhymes with pain)

There's also a general over-reliance on the past continuous when native speakers would use something else.

"I was buying that magazine when I was young." (instead of "I used to buy .....)

Last time instead of lately.
Advices, informations etc instead of the counters.
Forever adding 'be' in conditional sentences.
Glass instead of glasses.

There are many more

More like MOUN-Tyne I'd say.

Yes, deterMINated is another favourite :)

Present continuous instead of present simple is another one.

Its depend, instead of it depends.

An avoidance of saying s where there is one. There are two pens, read as there are two pen. Is it a vanishing letter in Poland, written in invisible ink? ;)

Comfortable, as sth monstrous. I hammer the FT sound into them.

The schwa probably means sth like a Native American tribe to them, rather than a phonetic/phonologic feature.

can we start a new thread,,,,"Things English people who speak Polish language say"
In general (present company excepted!) this would be NOTHING!!!!(Because they don't....,or have any wish to.)
instead of being picky about silly little errors that don't affect communication or understanding at all, why not praise Polish ppl for how WELL they speak English?

Simples!!

I agree, I was just being a teacher, njc. I'm not here to nitpick but to help as this is my job.

I am really impressed with the level of writing here. Much better than many of my FCE students.

yeh it's my job too Seanus, I am a shit hot teacher..:)

How about your teaching skills? ;) ;)

niejestemcapita,

somebody asked a question, people are answering it in an informative and non-judgemental way.

What's the problem.

For the record, a fair amount of English speakers in Poland do know Polish to various extents and I think research on the typical mistakes we make would be interesting and informative.

In my case there's:

a tendency to overregularization : as in przyjacielów instead of przyjaciół

poor sense of aspect : pisałem instead of napisałem or napiszę instead of piszę (in my case I understand the concept of aspect but my judgements about when each is appropriate often don't coincide with Polish speakers')

underuse of plain instrumental : Pokroił chleb z nożem. (instead of plain 'nożem')

not declining numbers : widziałem cztery mężczyzn (instead of czterech?)

Overreliance of English like word order (etc etc etc, the list goes on).

mafketis no problem at all, I am just adding an opinion..:)
uff your level of Polish is beyond mine!!
all I can do is nod and smile and say ....Tak, tak, no, prawda....ide do sklepu..csesz kawa?..:)
SEANUS
My teaching skills are excellent thanks, that's why I have a pile of glowing references..from employers and students alike..:)

Not too much to worry about that: 1. the "przyjaciel" is a noun that doesn't fall into any specific declension of nouns; 2. using z or not with the instrumental has been a matter of change in the language over past ages; yet if the notion of a thing serving you as an instrument is so strong as in your example, there's no need to support the instrumental case with "z".

Kids make hilarious mistakes, I remember my pupils saying "grandpartners", "open the widow", "T- shit", "My mom's got back hair", "I please you" and many more. Oh, I love kids.

My little one says that a horse laid a baby.

List and letter can be confused. Feerst and sheert instead of first and shirt. Grope instead of group, a big mistake :)

education related ones here:

'shit' instead of 'sheet'
'terrorist' instead of 'theorist'

the same probably with beach and bitch another big mistake..

I was always taught that utility/instrument is without the preposition, whereas accompaniment requires it. But even that is not obvious. For example: "sos z winem" (wine sauce).

When I first said it spontaneously, I said "sos winem". My Polish friend corrected me: "sos z winem". I said why? The sauce is not accompanied by wine, it is made of it. So it implies the notion of utility/instrument (as wine is here an ingredient), not accompaniment. She replied: anyway we say "sos z winem"...

you see - wine is not the main ingredient in the sauce - it isn't in any that I know of - but I am no cook - this is why we say 'sos z winem' - were the focus a bit different or were wine the main ingredient 'sos z wina' would be a prefferable choice

the more obvious example is 'chleb z kminkiem' and 'chleb z kminku'

chleb z kminkiem - is bread with cumin

while chleb z kminku would be bread made of/with cumin

side note: I am pretty convinced what the English call cumin is not really the same thing as what the Poles call 'kminek'

Actually kminek is caraway, cumin is kmin rzymski

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caraway
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumin

(I love cumin, indispensable in mexican and indian food and it was completely unavailable in Poland so I'm picky about the name).

If the sauce is made of wine, the only correct way to describe it would be - in my view - with the use of an adjective: sos winny (the synonime would be sos z wina [genetive]). It will perfectly match its English equivalent "wine sauce" where "wine" serves as an adjective. If anyone described a sauce to me as sos z winem, I would think of wine added to a sauce.

"Sos winem" doesn't make sense. I can imagine a sentence: Popijam [ten] sos winem, where winem serves as some sort of "instrument" (it is the reason for it being in the instrumental case) easing up the "digestion" of this sauce in your alimentary tract. [The logic of using the instrumental in this sentence is the same as in sentences like "Popchnąłem go ręką" where the role of the instrumental is clearly visible.]

Ja jestem Piotrek. Ja jadę samochodem. Ty jedziesz samochodem jutro?

Don't discourage Seanus. We have lesson for free ;)

can't and c*nt

Anything ending in able is not changed to sound like ible. Pleasurable for example.

Farther.

As a native French-speaker, I'm interested in that because I think I do the same mistake when I speak/write in Polish.

Am I correct with this : "lately" = niedawno, ostatnio.

But how do you say "last time" ? Examples :
"It's the last time that I [do something] !"
"The last time I [did something], [something else happened]"

Thanks

I think the word "time" in the English expression "last time" is best rendered by the word "raz" in Polish.

To ostatni raz, kiedy [coś robię]!.
Ostatnim razem kiedy się widzieliśmy, byłaś bardzo nieszczęśliwa.

"Ostatnio/niedawno" gives un unspecified period of time.

[Btw, don't you say in French: récemment (lately) vs. dernière fois (last time)?

Exactly. And I had a problem with understanding what "ostatni" refers to in Polish, because in French, "lately" can be expressed either by "récemment" or "dernièrement".

Your comment made everything clear for me. Thank you.

Hey Guys!

You made me laugh during long, boring working hours:) What a perfect topic!

I am Polish who speaks English and this is what I say:

- always 'I cannot' (never 'I can't')
- 'farrer' instead of further (nightmare to pronounce)
- 'goosey bubbles' instead of goose bumps

Have Fun
Kryspina