Language / What's the time? Numbers in Polish. [14]

13.00. - trzynasta (1 pm)
14.00 czternasta (2 pm)
15.00 piętnasta (3 pm)
16.00 szesnasta (4 pm)
17.00 siedemnasta (5 pm)
18.00 osiemnasta (6 pm)
19.00 dziewiętnasta (7 pm)
20.00 dwudziesta (8 pm)
21,00 dwudziesta pierwsza (9 pm)
22.00 dwudziesta druga (10 pm)
23.00 dwudziesta trzecia (11 pm)
24.00 dwudziesta czwarta (midnight)

It'll become easier once you've got the cardinal numbers straight.


You can do it too, just add "po południu" or "wieczorem" for p.m. - 15.00 is trzecia po południu, and so on.

Language / Wiedzieć,Umieć and Znać When does one use the verb(s)? [30]

wiedzieć - to know
umieć - can, to be able to do something
znać - to be familiar with


yes, yes, and yes. The only correction is: znam trochę język polski.

A side note: in questions like "Czy umiesz pływać?" czy is usually omitted in everyday language.
Umiesz pływać?
Wiesz, gdzie jest Poznań?
sound more natural.

Wiedzieć is about single pieces of information:
wiem, kto jest prezydentem USA
wiem, gdzie leży Kilimandżaro
wiem, że Paweł złamał nogę.
(wiem = I am aware that...)

Znać is for first-hand experience.
It's always used for people: it's znam go, never wiem go :)
Also for places: znam Poznań - I've been there and know the place first-hand.
Znam matematykę, chemię, hiszpański, włoski.
Znam to - when talking about experiences: been there, done that.


Languages too, it's perfectly fine. Znam niemiecki, nie znam łaciny.

Po polsku / Co potrafią zaśpiewać Polacy? [15]

Nie płacz Ewka i Autobiografię. Zapewne zamiast Górala, tu wszyscy znają tylko pierwszą linijkę i na tym koniec.
Aaaa i jeszcze Przeżyj to sam. Ale tylko refren.

Language / Province or Voivodeship [36]

The link I posted was the search results, but seems it doesn't work this way, the session expired. So this is the way to go from the main page: Simple search --> by word --> search for --> type `voivodship`--> in Options below, click `Title and text` (important!) --> click Search, and you`ve got it.

If you e-mail them and they answer, please let me know what they say.
Good night :)

Travel / Why won't internet work from the network provider on my Android phone -htc magic vodafone? [20]

Why don't you change your contract into one that would include a data transfer package? Then, after exceeding the package limit, the transfer speed goes down to minimal but there's no extra charge. And if you want to up the transfer again before the end of the month, you can buy an extra package for, like, 10 zł.

My son has a 45 zł/month contract with Play including 500Mb data transfer. Check up the All Inclusive contracts on Play website.

Language / Province or Voivodeship [36]


Here, see for yourself: eur-lex.europa.eu/Result.do?idReq=12&page=7

65 EU acts including the accession treaty with all the appendices and directives.
This is the base for legally binding EU terminology.

Po polsku / Światopogląd polskiej młodzieży? [14]


Szczerze, to ja też szczerze wątpię, że jaram. Chcesz powiedzieć, że pracujesz w zakładzie geriatrycznym czy że gnębisz swoje dzieci, bo przodkowie kiedyś gnębili ciebie? Trochę to niejasne jest.

Po polsku / Światopogląd polskiej młodzieży? [14]

hehe dobre. Gdyby się moje dziecko bardzo postarało, to od biedy już by mnie mogło babcią zrobić.
Mogłabym raczej założyć kącik pod nazwą Chatka z piernika. Tam wszyscy chętni mogliby się do woli wyżywać na młodzieży.

A ja tam nic do nich nie mam. Jak sobie przypomnę swoje czasy dojrzewania, to głupszym być już naprawdę trudno. Może możliwości było mniej, ale te, które były, były eksplorowane baardzo dogłębnie...

Po polsku / Światopogląd polskiej młodzieży? [14]

Havok, to Ty jeszcze młodzież jesteś?

Life / Polish dubbing in movies; why is it so that on polish television all the films are dubbed? [135]


Not me, I'm not doing films.
But AFAIK translators are paid per 3-minute or 10-minute unit of the original, so it doesn't matter if it's for a script or for subtitling.


They're always subtitled in the cinemas and lektored on the TV. If the TV shows a film that's been shown in the cinemas before, you get both.

Which leads me to believe that the original reason for introducing the lektor was actually small screens and poor vision quality of the old black-and-white TV sets.


voice-overer? ;)

Language / być pod ręką [7]


It does make sense, however, it sounds a bit instrumental, like you were using your friends.
There's another one: być na wyciągnięcie ręki - moi przyjaciele zawsze są na wyciągnięcie ręki - they're always there for you, no hiidn meaning there, sounds much better.

Language / Province or Voivodeship [36]


is EurLex good enough?

Like it or not, this is the official EU terminology.
I agree it doesn't sound great and in non-official texts, targeted to wide public, it's better to use 'province'. On the other hand, Switzerland has cantons, France has departments and arrondissements, and Poland has voivodships - it's country-specific.


At the time of the EU accession, government agencies were hastily organising tenders to translate the required documents and at the rates they were offering, the bulk of it was probably done by students, not necessarily of English. Good legal translators don't work for peanuts. Nevertheless, they must deal with the effects now, as whatever has found its way into EurLex, is formally binding.

Life / Polish dubbing in movies; why is it so that on polish television all the films are dubbed? [135]


Subtitling is even cheaper.


Get German TV. I'm serious.

Sometimes they also do the voice over dubbing where all the men's parts are read by a man and all the women's parts by a woman. Usually both the speakers have a very distinctive, shrill tone of voice and they're speaking with exaggerated intonation. Oh the beauty of it. I've seen this also on Russian TV.

I'm loving our lectors more and more :)

Life / Medicine limits: Ritalin, Xanax and Vicodin in Poland? [6]

Xanax is available under the same name, Ritalin under other names and Wikipedia says Vicodin is not available in Poland - we have no registered medication that would be a combination of the same active components.

All of them are prescription drugs.

Language / Czego, Czemu, Co, Kto, Jak, Dlaczego? [64]


Kup mi laptopa, netbooka.
Zainstalowałem Worda.

The -a biernik seems to be increasingly popular with new words that come into the language. Also, I don't think that the sentence "kup mi balona" would have been deemed correct 30 years ago. So it's all part of the process of dopełniacz forms taking over biernik role.

Life / Polish dubbing in movies; why is it so that on polish television all the films are dubbed? [135]


I don't think there was any TV before the WW II.

Life / Polish dubbing in movies; why is it so that on polish television all the films are dubbed? [135]


Now, Sky, the thing is that with lektor you don't change anything, the original voices are still there. The lektor's drone gives you the meaning of what they're saying and you subconsciously put that meaning into the actor's voice. With a good (monotonous and droning) lektor's voice this process is seamless. It really works so once you don't have to concentrate on the Polish sentences trying to gather what the hell they're supposed to mean.

What you say about changing the ingredients is very true about dubbing.


Of course the original is always best (or at least truest to itself), but hey, how many languages can you understand enough to appreciate all these intricacies? Every

translation is in a way a fake or a counterfeit, there's no way around it, translattore traduttore; still, it doesn't have to be a dumbefied cheapo.


Frankly, I can't see much difference between reading and hearing out these 2 sentences except that when reading them I have to constantly shift my focus between the script and the picture, which is irritating, it's like shifting gears in a car every 5 seconds. Maybe my mind is just not flexible enough. And every translation is a way to tell you in words what fillet mignon tastes like, or trying to make a chicken filet mignon. While never the same, the results can be quite interesting. And we translators need to feed our kids somehow ;)

Language / Czego, Czemu, Co, Kto, Jak, Dlaczego? [64]

You've got me checking, Gumisiu, as I was sure this was a case of biernik being taken over by dopełniacz. You're right though, as it seems that some nouns have double biernik forms, depending on whether you treat them as animates or inanimates (hence, widzę pomidor or widzę pomidora, both correct). Mostly it pertains to foods. But it's still a blurry area as there are words like balon (kup mi balona) - balon is neither animate nor edible. The "double biernik" thing is spreading to include more and more nouns.

For me, it's still dopełniacz which has been renamed biernik for some obscure reasons; after all, the question remains "czego", and not "co". But the grammarians claim otherwise. Oh well...

poradnia.pwn.pl/lista.php?szukaj=banana&kat=18

Language / How hard is it to learn Polish? [178]


you are right. nie mogę iść do sklepu, nie mogę tego zrobić - see, it works :)
and simple memorising is a great way to learn a language. after all, we all learnt this way as kids. so it works too. plus, you're reducing the threat of developing Alzheimer.

Life / Polish dubbing in movies; why is it so that on polish television all the films are dubbed? [135]

Hands off the lektor! for Poles his voice is absolutely transparent (exactly the reason why it should - and does - sound so monotonous; the more monotonous the better.) We don't really hear him, all we hear is the tone of voice and intonation of the actors, even if some original words get blurred. But I guess it only works for native speakers of Polish.

I hate dubbing, unless it's Shrek. Somebody has already mentioned the German passion for dubbing everything. Well I tried to watch a German-dubbed Bond once... no way. It all sounded like a washing powder commercial. Every time Bond turned around, I half expected him to get back to the screen with a 5 kilo bag of Persil.

As for the subtitles, not a bad idea, but I, for one, am not particularly good at multitasking and when having to read the subtitles I miss part of what's going on on the screen. Lektor is the best :)

Language / How hard is it to learn Polish? [178]


the thing is, when backtranslated into English, they become perfectly correct ;) there's no way to make them sound like they sound in Polish.


see Pam, you could learn Polish precisely from the very bad English some Poles speak :) they use Polish word order and expressions translated word-for-word, so there are lots of clues there.

cheers :)

Language / Czego, Czemu, Co, Kto, Jak, Dlaczego? [64]


Excellent.


Seems to me that it makes things simpler: with personal nouns, you use just one form instead of two - dopełniacz and biernik are the same so you don't need to ponder which one to use.

With non-personal nouns, however, you have to know your cases as the forms are different.
Still, there is a tendency in Polish to replace biernik with dopełniacz (dopełniacz takes over), so you are very likely to encounter phrases like "jem banana" or "patrzę na pomidora" instead of "jem banan" and "patrzę na pomidor". Some of these are already deemed correct.

Language / GCSE Polish experience. [51]


Now, Pawian, that's not fair. Even Poles living in Lithuania protested against taking the same GCSE as ethnic Lithuanians.
Chrząszcz, you need to find another Polish teacher - I can't imagine there are no Poles within a shouting distance in any corner of the UK.

Either this, or come here and ask. Somebody's bound to answer every time. It's nice to be The One Who Knows It All ;)

Or, PM Catsoldier and ask him for hints - he seems to be getting there.

News / Poland in EU - before or now, which was better? [5]


About the same, I think. Now, if you think that upon joining the EU the wages will skyrocket, forget it.

But...
Everywhere I go I see historical buildings being renovated with the help of EU funding. For me, this alone is worth the union.
The farmers are quite happy too. And the infrastructure in most villages has improved largely (sidewalks, internet connections, sewage processing plants and so on - all done with the help of EU funding - the villages alone wouldn't have been able to afford it).

And I like being able to travel without a passport and waiting at the borders.
Lots of student and academics exchange programmes are going on (Erasmus etc.)
Life is simpler in many ways.

There are disadvantages too - for one, from what I know, ISO procedures can be a big headache.
But generally, the balance seems to be in the black.

One thing though - it pays off to keep your own money. The Eurozone is very unstable as of now.

Language / Biernik czy narzędnik (Accusative or Instrumental) [65]


Not bad at all :)))

For a change, you might want to do a pronunciation exercise.
Try to say: Cześć Strzyga, tu Chrząszcz.
Record the sentence and send me the file :)

Language / Biernik czy narzędnik (Accusative or Instrumental) [65]

hi Chrząszcz :)

Kot is male, but you've got the Acc right.


ok


TEGO PISARZA. Male and animate, even if he's already dead :)
The rule is standing for all the male profession names: tego piekarza, tego nauczyciela, tego prezydenta. Also for words that don't denote a profession but describe somebody in some way: nudziarz (a bore), mędrzec (a man of wisdom), pajac (a jerk), etc.


Dziecko is neuter, you got it right.

Dawaj dalej :)

Language / Biernik czy narzędnik (Accusative or Instrumental) [65]

That's an impressive list. Do you use these languages for any end, like work or travelling, or is it just a hobby?
In any case, you're a seasoned learner, if I may say so, which certainly gives you a good footing for every next language you might want to learn (unless you decide to stick with Polish, which would keep you busy for the next ten years or so). The case system is similar to many other European languages, the verb system however is more unique and troublesome. Your experience with Russian may help a bit though.

Language / Biernik czy narzędnik (Accusative or Instrumental) [65]


Just a bit, I'm a graduate of English studies and we had some classes on linguistics but I'm not a linguist as such. The Polish grammar I know comes from the elementary/secondary school and is therefore very different to what you guys studying Polish are taught. I've no idea how many declension patterns we have in Polish and so on, just as many English speakers are not aware of the structure of English tenses. When it comes to more complicated grammar issues, fellow English speakers who've learnt Polish as a foreign language may be of better help to you. Natives can spot the mistakes, but aren't always able to explain why they are mistakes :)

Language / Biernik czy narzędnik (Accusative or Instrumental) [65]


yes, Instrumental always follows z, but sometimes it also appears with no z:
Sophia Loren jest włoską aktorką - one of your sentences
Poplamiłem sobie spodnie kawą (I've stained my pants with coffee - here you have with in English, but no z in Polish).


yes


the explanations were correct, you've just got some of the endings mixed up

cheers :)

Language / Biernik czy narzędnik (Accusative or Instrumental) [65]