Life / Electric rate (Tauron charges per kilowatt hour) in Krakow [9]

The basic rate is very misleading as most of what you pay is the additional charges. They are sort of a standby fee, you pay the company just for being connected (line maintenance etc.), just for them being willing and able to deliver. I have a summer house where the actual energy use is minimal, I still pay about 20 PLN every second month, even in winter when the house is locked and empty. I'm Polish but I'm not able to figure these fees out, I understand single words but I'm still not sure what I'm paying for.

Here's the translation for you:
Opłata przejściowa - transitional fee??
Opłata jakościowa - quality fee???
Opłata dystrybucyjna zmienna - variable distribution fee
Opłata dystrybucyjna stała - fixed distribution fee
Opłata abonamentowa - standing (subscription) charge

make of it what you will.

Language / Narzędnik - Liczba Mnoga (Instrumental - plurals) - table attached [24]

Glad I could help you, Chrząszcz.


tak


I believe verbs are much harder than nouns.

Can I give you a hint? Forget about "jestem" when rendering in Polish phrases like: I'm learning, I'm going, I'm looking. Uczę się, idę, patrzę, and that's it. We don't really have auxiliary verbs in Polish.

So the above sentence should read: Uczę się polskiego i myślę, że język polski jest bardzo trudny, zwłaszcza deklinacja!
Good job, anyway. Have fun! :)

Language / Narzędnik - Liczba Mnoga (Instrumental - plurals) - table attached [24]

With a combination of two nouns - mianownik + dopełniacz (Nom. + Gen.), which is an equivalent of the English construction N of N (a bottle of milk, a student of the university), when declining the first one, the second one will always remain in the genitive.

butelka mleka
studentka uniwersytetu
grupa dzieci
kostka czekolady
torby prezentów
stosy kłopotów

the bolded noun is declined, the other one remains fixed

I really admire your efforts guys :)

Language / Narzędnik - Liczba Mnoga (Instrumental - plurals) - table attached [24]


just as Catsoldier says, it's genitive

student kogo? czego? politechniki - a student of the polytechnics (technical university)
and politechniki in this phrase will always remain in the genitive, no matter how you decline student or students
you may call it a fixed genitive

studenci politechniki
widziałem studentów politechniki
mówię studentom politechniki
nie ma studenta politechniki
rozmawiamy o studentce politechniki
etc.

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]


If you say so ;)
seriously, you might be a genius, i don't know, I just read what you write here and respond accordingly. Though I'm not sure about the sense of humour, you sound quite aggressive.


oh, that one is old already ;) you see, these borrowings never last long. Besides its youthspeak and I'm long past the mark. And I'm not a man...


true dat

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]


I'm not saying they don't, I'm just saying that the thing came in package with the name so the latter was simply adopted. Happens all the time.And it can be inflected nicely too, so it'll probably stay.


Add to it school kids, students, people on retirements, freelancers, people working shifts (like doctors or nurses), housewives etc., and you'll get an army. Really, those who are living the corpo-style are still a minority, and come a day off, they immediately switch to the traditional system. But that's beside the point; the question was why Polish didn't have a word for lunch. For exactly the same reason that English doesn't have a word for obiad. And it's not late lunch, as it's the main meal of the day and not just a salad and a sandwich.


yeah... thank God for the lifeline.

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

maybe... just maybe.

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]


oh but it's quite a new habit, it came to Poland in the 1990s together with foreign (mostly American) corporations.
Before, the working hours in most places were 7.00 a.m. - 2.00 p.m. or 8.00 a.m. - 3.00 p.m. There was a short break around 10 -11 a.m. for drugie śniadanie (15 mins to eat a sandwich brought from home) and people went home for obiad.

Lunch is still very much a city/corporation thing. People with other kinds of jobs or in smaller towns live according to the śniadanie-obiad-kolacja scheme. I'm surprised that after a few years in Poland you don't know these things.


tell me please, in which edition of Webster's can I find the word uber?

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]


A culture in which no meal is eaten at this time.

Now, what's the English name for obiad - a meal eaten between 2:00 and 4:00p.m.?

Language / Double meanings, Polish slang and embarrassment [49]


oh yes, I forgot. ż/rz - sz, as ż and rz phonetically are the same. Thanks.


Once you get over the devoicing principle there are no more traps that I could think of and our pronunciation becomes wonderfully regular. As most English speakers, you'll probably have problems with differentiating between sz and ś or cz and ć so you just need to work on individual sounds. Anyway, if Poles can understand you, that's a lot already. And eavesdropping, when done discreetly, certainly is a great and inexpensive way to improve on your listening comprehension :)

Language / Double meanings, Polish slang and embarrassment [49]


yes :) but watch out for longer phrases, as the rule also works across words, eg.:
bez czapki is bes czapki
but bez domu is bez domu, as voiced dfollows, creating fully voiced environment.

I ran out of time when editing the previous post so here it goes further:

I don't know of any book that would explain the Polish phonetics in English. Others may be more helpful. But you may read up on the basics of articulatory phonetics. Some pictures, like this one, are actually helpful:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_of_articulation

They show the exact place of articulation of sounds in different languages. For example, t and d in English are alveolar, meaning that when pronouncing them the tip of your tongue touches the gums behind your upper teeth. In Polish they are dental - the tip of the tongue touches the upper teeth. Try to pronounce them this way and you'll get harder sound. Such little differences make up for different sounding languages. This knowledge is is helpful in mastering pronunciation. And then it's just practice :)


:)

Language / Double meanings, Polish slang and embarrassment [49]


No, phonetically they're the same.

Catsoldier, there are pairs of voiced/voiceless consonants:
b - p
d - t
g - k
w - f
z - s
ź - ś
dź - ć
ż - sz
dż - cz

Try to say God (English) and kot (Polish). Put your hand on your throat and feel the difference. Your vocal cords vibrate when you pronounce the voiced consonants.

Now try to whisper the two above words - they sound the same. Is because when whispering, you're not able to voice the consonants so the voiced ones change into their de-voiced counterparts.

You may practice it with single syllables, like: do - to, go - ko, wo- fo wtc. (Polish pronounciation).

Now, when a voiced consonants is at the final position in a Polish word, it becomes devoiced - so you pronounce lód as lut, bez as bes and so on.

But when the word is inflected, the consonant often loses its final position and finds itself surrounded by voiced sounds, usually vowels:
lód - loda
mózg - mózgu
and then it remains voiced.

In your example with jeż, it's de-voiced in the Nominative and voiced in other cases (jeże, jeża, jeżom, jeżowi etc).

It's not really complicated, just a little practice should do the trick.

History / Why did communism in Poland fail? [180]


Ulysses by Joyce, for one...

Language / Co słychać? Why not Co słychasz [23]

also:
słucham - I'm listening intently
słyszę - I hear involuntarily

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


perfect :)

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

słuchać takes genitive - słuchać kogo, czego - słuchać mówcy, muzyki (listen to)

"słuchać co" is incorrect albeit used in speech - it's lazy language

News / Will Poland ever host the Olympics? [18]


I hope not. The Tatra mountains are overcrowded even now. No need to completely destroy the National Park area there.

Summer Olympics are a different kettle of fish though. Maybe in some 30 years.

Language / Co wy z tym żurkiem? / Terez dręczy mnie cały czas - Please correct my Polish. [12]


this is fine


Mam nadzieję, że zobaczymy się w przyszłym roku w Polsce i na weselu tutaj w Indiach.


fine when coming from a man; if you're a woman, it's "kupiłam"


no capital letter for żurek


Uwielbiam piosenkę Sylwii Grzeszczak Małe rzeczy


Ma bardzo ładne teksty piosenek.


fine


Nie lubię kotów


Znowu jestem twoim żartownisiem (dowcipnisiem? I'm not sure what you want to say here).

Language / How many words does the Polish language have? [30]


ok, so the dictionary I use most often has almost 133 000 entries. now, let's multiply that by 30 (14 cases for Sing and Pl combined for nouns and adjectives, plus diminutives - at least 3 are possible for each of the above, as for verbs - 6 persons x 3 tenses x 2 versions for animate and inanimate, minus prepositions and adverbs which only have 1-3 forms each, plus all the obsolete and specialist terms that my dictionary doesn't include). It's just an estimation, but the count comes to about half a million, and that's your number.

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


right, and it applies to "książkę", which is indeed in the Acc.
napisać kogo, co - książkę.
But "kto" is in Nom.

Genealogy / About Raczkowski [16]

google.pl/search?q=marek+raczkowski

Language / Colloquial Polish [8]


yes it is, very much so. A stiff and unnatural equivalent would be "ponieważ".


It sounds all right. In order to make it more colloquial I'd just cross out pytam in the last sentence - just: Bo szukam ulicy Ogrodowej.

The second dialogue is fine too. Two things that sound slightly off are:


Czy is rarely used in everyday speech as the beginning of a question, it's usually omitted. Masz trochę czasu? is more natural.


co u ciebie słychać - it's better in that order, but anyway it's fine and no more stiff than co słychać.

Life / Poland has to pick a nation and accept 3 million people of that nation - who do you choose [59]

Nobody wants the Spanish? Or any other Mediterranean nation, for that matter, just to liven things up a bit. But I'm all for the Spanish, I like them and besides with their vast experience in inquisition matters they could come in handy in politics.

Feedback / PolishForums Motto? :) [149]

In English: If you think you've read it all...

In Polish: Chłopy, ostrzyć kosy!

Language / Having trouble pronouncing Polish words? [35]

see posts 13, 16, 19 and 20

Life / You are Polish if... [433]


I'm still watching it, but frankly, it's not the same - most of the thrill is gone.

Food / Lentil pierogi & mushroom gołąbki [23]


Good when properly spiced.

Love / Help - evil Polish girl after my partner. [39]


Yep poor things... can't even speak for themselves.
Seriously though, it's up to him to tell her to lay off.

Language / plural forms (cztery kubki / czternascie kubkow) [23]


of course the opposite is true. sorry for the confusion :) and I've even managed to lead Szwed astray ;)
still what he said is true - 0 takes Genitive

Language / plural forms (cztery kubki / czternascie kubkow) [23]


100 - sto lat Gen
101 - sto jeden lat - Gen

102 - sto dwa lata - Nom
103- sto trzy lata - Nom
104 - sto cztery lata - Nom

105 - sto pięć lat - Gen
...

Always look at the last part of the numeral. With plural number, 2,3 and 4 are in Genitive case, all the rest take Nominative.
But note:
12- dwanaście lat - Gen
13 - trzynaście lat - Gen
14 - czternaście lat - Gen
- it's because 12, 13 and 14 are one-word numerals and not compounds.