Language / Polish verb aspects: to memorize pairs or not? [8]

Whatever works, Cleiton 1996!

Many such programs turn out to be somewhat gimmicky in my experience and therefore of limited value. Admittedly, verbal aspects are a particularly difficult part of the language for foreigners, owing to the confusing, yet deceptive (and FALSE) similarities with English tenses:-)

While memorizing in pairs may appear a helpful learning aid, often the aspect pairs themselves may be so different from one another that only contextualized usage could tell them apart, e.g. "brać" vs. "wziąć". A non-Polish dictionary in a language which has no such equivalent, usually will give only one definition/translation which can be quite misleading, and thus inaccurate. Both of the above verbs mean "to take", yet one is not interchangable with the other.

For this reason, I'd be slightly wary of those sorts od apps.

As an erstwhile student rather than a teacher of Polish, I can only surmise that there's probably some mnemonic "code" or clever memory device for Polish native speakers as well as for foreigners to help in the rote acquisition of aspect pairs, but hanged if I know what that could be:-)

Love / Do women in Poland change their surnames to a feminine form of their husbands' surnames? [40]

Probably because Germany has been more socially emancipated than Poland, and for a considerably longer time:-)

Love / Do women in Poland change their surnames to a feminine form of their husbands' surnames? [40]

In some countries, Germany for example, the husband may choose to take his wife's family name IN ADDITION to his own surname, e.g. Arndt Braun marries Annette Mueller, thence becoming "Arndt Braun Mueller":-)

Normally though, this is only done where both of the couple are working professionals.

I know of a woman from Kraków, married to a man with a different family name, yet the woman still identifies herself as "Jola Adamowa", instead of "Jola Adamowa Pocztowska" or even "Jolanta Pocztowska", thus assuming only her husband's surname "Pocztowsky".

Genealogy / Angela Merkel is partially Polish. Her family name could be Kaźmierczak [208]

Your (clearly idiotic) point escapes me, Wulkan:-)

Genealogy / Angela Merkel is partially Polish. Her family name could be Kaźmierczak [208]

...supported by what, pray??! Sounds like rubbish to me:-)
And Barack Obama's actually a testtube baby or an alien foreign agent, right?
LOL

Genealogy / Angela Merkel is partially Polish. Her family name could be Kaźmierczak [208]

Were she Angela Guermann (nee Gursoy on her TURKISH grandfather's side, thus changed to sound more German) for instance, her heritage would indeed become a significant issue, given the relations between Germany and Turkey!

Germany's relationship with Poland is equally contentious.

Genealogy / Angela Merkel is partially Polish. Her family name could be Kaźmierczak [208]

This information has been well known for some time now. The cross-pollination over the centuries between Poles and Germans is legion! Often, I can't intuitively tell the difference any more between Polish and German tourists I frequently encounter here on the streets of New York.

I will say that, for obvious reasons, while Ms. Merkel has never once denied her Polish origins, she has never broadcast them either:-) This in itself is telling.

Life / Are there many crypto-Jews in Poland? [67]

True indeed, Delph:-) Jan Brzechwa, Jan Keipura (through his mother!). Julian Tuwim, Tadeusz Różewicz (both FULL, unbaptized Jews!!), Bolesław Leśmian, Kantor, the famous theater director etc.. were all Polish by birth as well as nationality, though they identified themselves first and foremost as Poles, second as Jews.

Even the most identifiable Artur Rubinstein considered himself a true man of the world, a musician, who described himself as a Pole "through and through" (Polak z krwi i kości) with a Jewish soul (z żydowskiej duszy):-)

Life / Are there many crypto-Jews in Poland? [67]

Really? Polish Jews I know, as opposed to ethnic or gentile Poles, have led me to believe that most are ultra careful NOT to reveal their Jewishness in public (wearing kipot, prayer shawls, other identifiable garb) for fear of reprisals, even in the larger town and cities such as Warsaw and Lodz.

Why would they lie?

@Exactly, Delph! I think gumishu's exaggerating somewhat:-)

Life / Are there many crypto-Jews in Poland? [67]

[moved from]
Well, apart from John Godson, how many non-POLES serve or have ever served in the Sejm? How many professing Jews?

Life / Number of church attendees in Poland [54]

As Poland remains such a Catholic stronghold to this day, I was merely struck by the lack of uniformity in the choice of a non-Catholic to represent Poland, that's all:-)

There are non-Jewish Israelis aka Palestinians who represent Israel in her Knesset!

Life / Number of church attendees in Poland [54]

Didn't know that:-) Interesting. Must have been the glaring exception!

Life / Number of church attendees in Poland [54]

Which PM, pray tell?

Language / Polish vs Russian grammatical cases (accusative and instrumental) pronounciation [4]

Of course! By the way, the vestigial Polish form was "vremię" (or possibly "vręmie"), I'm no longer certain. My point was, that knowing Polish will not help as readily with speaking, reading, or writing in Russian as some might assume. Compare briefly below:

Russ. tjas = Pol. godzina
Pol. czas = Russ. vremya
Pol. szukać = Russ. iskat'

etc........

Another curious point is that Polish nasals have been "replaced" by non-nasal, frontal vowels in Russian, for example:

Polish: "Czytam książkę." vs. Russian: "Ja chytayoo knigu." In addition, Russian requires an adverb in such a construction whereas Polish doesn't, except for emphasis cf. "Ja czytam...", as opposed to someone else reading, etc.

Language / Polish vs Russian grammatical cases (accusative and instrumental) pronounciation [4]

I too learned some Russian, only AFTER I already knew Polish:-)

Russian cases are different enough so that merely because you've studied one of the two languages, by NO means is any sort of guarantee of either mutual intelligibility, much less "fluency" in the other!

Aspectual distinctions are nearly identical to Polish, e.g. Russian verbs of motion 'khodit', 'idit' etc.

Pronounciation however, much less basic, daily vocab?? Forget about it, if you haven't actually sat down and earnestly studied the other language! Russian, as previously observed, is far more palatalized than Polish, and it contains many sounds not found in Polish.

Once more, everyday words for "time", "look for something", etc. are NOT identical between Russian and Polish, not to mention the myriad false friends you're likely to encounter along your journey!!!

Life / Number of church attendees in Poland [54]

Righto! Not that I have much but deep dislike for House Speaker Ryan, he does on rarest of occasions say things with which I concur and and one of those was that there is a lingering, deep-seated anti-Catholic bias throughout this land, witness university president Gordon Gee several years ago complaining that it "it weren't for those d----d Catholics, ......"

Pretty disgusting for someone in his capacity, don't you think?

Back to Poland, I can't imagine the Lutheran minority having a great deal of say. Even the Jews are more politically representedLOL

Life / Number of church attendees in Poland [54]

Although I haven't followed specifically the question of church attendance in Poland, I'd imagine (if the New York tri-state's any guide!) that it's up from nearly any other European country, particularly neighboring Germany, where it's been declining for literally decades.

I think that Catholic nations tend to take their religious practices more seriously than Protestant ones. I'm speaking of course, of Europe, as the US is still predominantly Protestant, Methodists and Presbyterians mainly, and Americans outside of New York or L.A. tend to be very serious and regular church attendees in my experience:-)

Love / Do women in Poland change their surnames to a feminine form of their husbands' surnames? [40]

Wonderful, kpc21!

Appreciate the infos:-)

Love / Do women in Poland change their surnames to a feminine form of their husbands' surnames? [40]

Then how about, for instance, the surname "Nowak"? Should the correct form(s) therefore be?
Pan Nowak
Pani Nowak(-owa if married)
Panna Nowak(-ówna if unmarried)

Very helpful as always, kpc21:-)

Then I should have written "Nowak(-OWSKA)"
:-)

Language / "Hardening" of soft-sign endings of certain plural Polish nouns [4]

A most enlightening, native-speaker explanation, kpc!

Most welcome indeed, thanks:-)

Language / "Hardening" of soft-sign endings of certain plural Polish nouns [4]

Hate to answer my own query, but it occurred to me it may have to do with syllable stress; most Polish nouns are accented on the first, rather than on the penultimate or ultimate, syllable in the singular. This, of course, would depend on how many syllables in the word, for example "odpowiedź" has four. For instance "od - POW -iedź" vs."od - pow - IEDZI".

Something like this. Perhaps Poles find it simpler to velarize when forming the plural?

Language / Why does Polish form of Nicholas (Mikołaj) begin with an M? [12]

Maf may be on the money with those palatalized alveolars!

On a slighly different, if related, topic, Russian palatals 'dver, brat', imet' etc. are far more "palatalized" than anything in Polish. Yet, unless they're faking it (which I doubt), all the Russians, educated Russians at that, whom I know, claim to find Polish a b***ch to pronounce, even though both are highly palatalized.

Ukrainian though may take the medal for "softness" of alveolors:-)

Language / Why does Polish form of Nicholas (Mikołaj) begin with an M? [12]

Often languages will compensate for pronunciation with variant spellings, merely in order to provide for orthographic expediency!

In Polish, "N" is palatalized as often in similar combinations in other Slavic languages (in fact, considered a charactaristic of Slavic), e.g. "Nie" (nyeeh), "niosić" (nyawssich) etc. "Nikolai" (in Russian) would be NON-palatalized, Polish though, knows only a palatalized "N" in the above combinations, always preceding an "i", as in the above examples:-) "Mikołai" though, is non-palatalized in Polish, and therefore more comfortable for a Polish speaker to pronounce.

Sort of make sense? This is the linguistic explanation.

Whoops, "Mikołaj":-)
Sorry!

Love / Do women in Poland change their surnames to a feminine form of their husbands' surnames? [40]

Of this I'm also aware, yes, it certainly does:-)

I was watching an old Czech film from the 60's at our local Slavic film festival, "Obchód na korze" (The Shop on Main Street), with Ida Kamińska.

When a younger man enters the store, upon whose location the plot is based, and doesn't readily see the owner, he calls out "Pani Lautmanova, Pani Lautmanova!"

Love / Do women in Poland change their surnames to a feminine form of their husbands' surnames? [40]

Foreign aka (in an individual personal case) German/German-Jewish surnames ending in "-er", such as "Heller", "Faerber", a married woman bearing such a non-Polish name, might be called "Pani HellerOWA", "FaerberOWA" etc....

Is this basically correct?

Love / Do women in Poland change their surnames to a feminine form of their husbands' surnames? [40]

I know of one Polish professional who retained her family name and simply tacked on her husband's last name, much as we do it here in the States, Zarda-Rodriguez.

News / Do you believe that western Europe (ie EU) won`t punish Poland if Poland try to go out of EU? [44]

Poland would be foolish to exit the EU!! The only next step is to join the Euro zone:-)

News / Gazeta Wyborcza of Poland losing readers [301]

Sheckles are those things which manacle us to something and prevent us from being free.

UK, Ireland / Are there too many East Europeans, Poles in West Europe now? [47]

It was once so, Dolno, but has been ever less true over the past thirty years, what with Clinton's tax subsidies for minorities, the omnipresent black market and the voting blocks of immigrants who attract US bosses, because the strongest aphrodesiac has always been the scent of cheap labor.

As Western Europe's economy dwindles, you'll be seeing fewer and fewer Poles etc.. When it picks up again, they'll reappear....like a bad penny:-)

Law / EU nationals with a child and in cohabitation - long term Poland registration questions, job offer [13]

Curious, Helegal, whether you have begun to learn Polish. Although I scarcely can say to know much Finnish at all, many say Polish is nearly as complex:-) Then that's only an opinion. Certainly, English will stand you in relatively good stead among the younger, affluent set. Apart from that, unlike the Finns, the Poles lag behind much of Europe in terms of English knowledge.

Finland belongs to the European Monetary Union and as such, falls within the Eurozone. Poland, doesn't, and so this might pose some difficulty, given your particular situation aka status with the European Community (of which Finland is most certainly a member of long standing).

:-)