Language / I need some encouragement from Polish language speakers! [30]

"Context" and "phrases" are two very important keywords when learning Polish. When it comes to for example learning all those personal pronouns, rather than learning all the 100 or so different forms in a table, you should put them in simple sentences and learn these sentences by heart. I already put together such sentences when practicing myself, and those are available as electronic flash cards (tagged "personal_pronoun") available in Anki: ichi2.net/anki/ in the Polish-English deck available for download from inside it. These sentences are like: "nie ma go tu", "dała mu pieniądze" etc, and they worked rather well for me.

Another good way to get a feel for Polish syntax etc is through watching movies and/or TV-series with Polish subtitles. These subtitles are also good for taking practice sentences from). Also remember that there is a huge difference between proper written Polish and Polish as it's actually spoken on the streets, so if your aim is mainly being able to converse in Polish, reading news sites and similar will not be very helpful, and contrariwise, if you want to be able to read news sites, dealing with colloquial situations is not very effective. As for myself I've been focusing too much on reading, and as a result I don't really understand very well when people talk in Polish (unless they're reading some text out loud or something).

Language / Bookstore in Warsaw - Polish in 4 weeks LEVEL 2 [19]

30 pounds? Sounds a bit steep seeing as it costs 42.49/45zł at Empik. empik.com/polish-in-4-weeks-ii-etap-ksiazka,prod7080159,p

Language / Which is the BEST, EASIEST to learn & most helpful"POLISH FOR FOREIGNERS"course? [32]

Pimsleur is good, although it will not take you very far. It's definitely not worth $270. Perhaps I'd pay $40 for it or so. Polish in 4 weeks is not bad; it covers all the most important things, it has fairly natural sounding dialogues, and it teaches you a vocabulary of some 1200 - 1400 or so words, although too many of them I would say are too rare to be taught at such an early level (not that you're forced to learn them or anything).

As for grammar, you can't really do without special grammar practice it in Polish. Especially the verb conjugations are important (seeing as personal pronouns in the nominative are generally omitted).

For learning and memorizing new words I recommend the program "Anki"

You can create your own sets of flash cards with words you encounter, or you can download mine (containing some 7700 entries including words, sentences, phrases and expressions, including most words from Polish in 4 Weeks and many many other).

Watching movies/TV-series with Polish subtitles is helpful too for learning conversational Polish. The really tricky part with Polish, though, is listening comprehension. I have yet to find any good way to practise this as it's almost impossible to find Polish movies with Polish subtitles.

Language / Instruction how to install Polish diacritic letters on your computer [30]

There is a program called Microsoft Applocale available for free download from MS that allows you to run non-unicode applications with their original languages.

microsoft.com/globaldev/tools/apploc.mspx

Language / WHY IS SATELITA MASCULINE? [25]

But those words you listed describe people who are by definition or potentially male, so I don't count them. "Satelita" on the other hand, doesn't.

Life / Do expats living in Poland speak Polish? [233]

To learn to speak and understand a language (spoken) has little or nothing to do with orthography, though. The fact that just about any word can be pronounced solely based on the spelling is helpful, but it will not make it easier to learn to understand the language itself. It will just help when reading out loud, and it saves some time in that you don't need to look up the pronunciation of words.

Language / Perfective vs Imperfective - grammar [150]

So the first means like "was aware" and the second "became aware", right?

Language / WHY IS SATELITA MASCULINE? [25]

The thing with "satelita" is that it's one of extremely few nouns ending in -a that is male (not counting those that describe an individual who is by definition male, or potentially male). The only other word I know of is "boa", but I guess it's male just because it's implied "wąż boa". If anyone knows of any others, feel free to share.

Language / Perfective vs Imperfective - grammar [150]

Jan 2, 10, 18:36 - Thread attached on merging:
Perfective vs. Imperfective aspect

What is the difference in meaning between:

"zdawał sobie sprawę" and "zdał sobie sprawę"?

Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]

Thanks for the confirmation. By the way, any idea why "satelita" is male?

Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]

Thanks. Although from what I could find in a dictionary "boa" is male, not neuter.

Life / WHY ARE POLISH CALENDARS SKEWED? [42]

I'd say the Americans and English are backwards here if anyone. Around 2000 years or so. ;)

Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]

strzyga

You have a good point. I simply searched for the words in the nominative singular, and some words are of course much more likely to be found in other cases or in the plural. For example paznokcie would of course result in a lot more hits than paznokieć. In the plural it's not all that important to know the gender of a word, though. Also this corpus is made up from written sources and may not reflect everyday speech very well. Nevertheless they should give some kind of idea of which words are the most common and which ones you would hardly ever encounter. (The corpus has something like 450 million words so less than 50 hits there should mean it's not a common word for sure)

Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]

I decided to run all words through the Narodowy Korpus Języka Polskiegoand here are the results, sorted from most frequent to least frequent (unsurprisingly "rzecz" on the first place):

10000++:
rzecz 87920, odpowiedź 40304, młodzież 30646, stal 28382, sprzedaż 22385, twarz 22258, pogoń 18223, broń 16294, wieś 15253, krew 13904, wypowiedź 13775, straż 13649, łódź 10765

2000-9999:
podróż 8690, przestrzeń 6315, Przemyśl 6313, kolej 6200, dłoń 5727, Bydgoszcz 5703, kradzież 4926, jesień 4592, dal 4469, powódź 3951, zapowiedź 3627, Białoruś 3586, przełęcz 3480, odzież 3069, smycz 2548, sól 2159, więź 2043, pierś 2003

1000-1999:
rozpacz 1960, miedź 1880, podaż 1845, kąpiel 1513, cerkiew 1450, mysz 1399, woń 1300, pościel 1194, oś 1186, zdobycz 1184, kieszeń 1157, gałąź 1142, wyprzedaż 1137, gorycz 1112, spowiedź 1104, dań 1103, rzeź 1084

500-999:
przystań 965, macierz 873, rozkosz 816, krawędź 786, liść 774, żołądź 759, podpowiedź 757, chorągiew 748, otchłań 691, łokieć 669, odwilż 622, wiecheć 579, marchew 564, krokiew 527, odsiecz 520, gęś 517, ciecz 507

200-499:
klacz 484, czeladź 436, poręcz 436, sień 385, słodycz 357, pieczeń 353, grabież 319, satelita 305, brew 302, skroń 285, śmieć 281, maź 272, toń 259, obręcz 252, grań 252, boa 233, twardziel 228, Brześć 223, goleń 217, gardziel 217, uprząż 212

100-199:
paznokieć 196, krtań 185, dzicz 158, przedsprzedaż 124, jabłoń 124, gawiedź 116, swołocz 110, gołoledź 109, wesz 108, kapeć 103, półkrwi 103

50-99:
potwarz 92, czasoprzestrzeń 92, torbiel 88, szadź 82, gładź 78, piędź 78, rubież 75, kadź 74, darń 74, żagiew 72, kipiel 70, brukiew 68, topiel 67, odsprzedaż 63, pypeć 56, żerdź 50

0-49:
piszczel 47, rzodkiew 43, kądziel 38, rupieć 32, trzebież 32, dziegieć 31, Radogoszcz 31, spadź 30, zgorzel 29, sadź 22, szreń 11, uwięź 9, konew 9, stągiew 6, warząchew 5, śniedź 0, rozprzedaż 0

Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]

Thanks. The only word of those you marked in bold that I've ever encountered while reading is "rubież".

Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]

It's "myśl", not myśł. It can be a bit confusing seeing as it's "umysł", etc. Yes, "myśl" is female, but Przemyśl is male, as are all the "-mysł"-words.

Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]

I propose the following additional rules:

Female:
- -śń, -źń

- -śl (exception Przemyśl)

- Noun forms of colours in -ń and -l

- Nouns ending in -moc and -noc

Remaining exceptions:
Female:

J: kolej

L: dal, gardziel, kądziel, kąpiel, kipiel, piszczel, pościel, sól, stal, topiel, torbiel, twardziel, zgorzel

Ń: broń, dań, darń, dłoń, goleń, grań, jabłoń, jesień, kieszeń, krtań, otchłań, pieczeń, pogoń, przystań, sień, skroń, szreń, toń, woń, [przestrzeń, czasoprzestrzeń]

Ś: Białoruś, gęś, oś, pierś, wieś

W: brew, brukiew, cerkiew, chorągiew, konew, [krew, półkrew], krokiew, marchew, rzodkiew, stągiew, warząchew, żagiew

-: gałąź, maź, rzeź, uwięź, więź

Ż: grabież, kradzież, młodzież, [odsprzedaż, przedsprzedaż, rozprzedaż, sprzedaż, wyprzedaż], odwilż, odzież, podaż, podróż, rubież, straż, trzebież, uprząż

CZ: Bydgoszcz, Radogoszcz, ciecz, dzicz, gorycz, klacz, obręcz, odsiecz, poręcz, przełęcz, rozpacz, rzecz, słodycz, smycz, swołocz, zdobycz

D-: czeladź, gawiedź, gołoledź, kadź, krawędź, łódź, miedź, [odpowiedź, podpowiedź, spowiedź, wypowiedź, zapowiedź], piędź, powódź, sadź, śniedź, spadź, szadź, żerdź, żołądź, gładź

RZ: macierz, [twarz, potwarz]

SZ: mysz, rozkosz, wesz

Male:

A: boa, satelita

C: Brześć, dziegieć, kapeć, liść, łokieć, paznokieć, pypeć, rupieć, śmieć, wiecheć

ŚL: Przemyśl

I added "boa" as it's supposed to be treated as a male gender word. By the way, if some native Polish speaker could point out which of these words are so rare that one most likely never will encounter them, it would be nice.

Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]

The above post was written by me by the way. I thought I was logged in.

By the way, what about "źń" and "iew"? Are there any male words ending in any of those?Thanks for the correction of "miedź". ;)

Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]

That's why I added the rule:

"Nouns are of male gender if they describe a person who is potentially or by definition male regardless of ending (gość, teść, idiota...)"

I would say "berbeć" qualifies as potentially male, so I don't think it should be listed as an exception.

As for declension, it's a separate chapter since they seem to have more to do with endings than genders (with some exceptions).

I'd still say the "-c" = female rule holds up pretty well. Many common nouns with this ending are female after all, like: postać, śmierć, sieć, rtęć, pamięć, nić, dobroć, chęć along with the countless of -ość and -ść.

Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]

Thanks Cinek! "kmieć", and "berbeć" can describe a person of male gender I understand, but I will add the other ones.

By the way, if a foreign speaker were to say "your" about a foreign word ending in "-u", e.g. a brand name, he/she would say "twoje", right?

Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]


Thanks. Feel free to let me know what masculine words in -c you found. I only know of nokieć and paznokieć but I know quite a few female words with this ending.

Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]

It's not that bad actually. Some 60-65 exceptions for many thousands of words. I'd say only somewhere between 1 and 2% are irregular.

Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]

I just realised I forgot "paznokieć" (male).

Edit: and Cerkiew (f). From that link also "chorągiew", "marchew" and "młodzież". Thanks.

Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]

Well, it means that all exceptions from the rules that I know of end in one of those letters/digraphs. ;) Especially - and Ń tend to have many exceptions.

Life / Russian Language - is it offensive if I speak it to Polish people? [69]

Speaking Russian to a Pole is like trying to speak English to a Frenchman. ;)

Life / Do expats living in Poland speak Polish? [233]


I would say it is, because it's low degree of inflection. For example, if I learn the word "gra" (game) in Polish, and then somebody suddenly says "gier" I wouldn't have a clue what it means unless I learned the declensions at the same time. In English, generally one word has one function/meaning in a sentence, which makes it easier. I don't have to wonder if a verb is perfective or imperfective and whether it's in the present tense or the future.

Life / Do expats living in Poland speak Polish? [233]

Of course everyone who comes to Poland should learn some Polish. You can't expect to get by with English when talking to older people, but please... don't repeat my mistake of spending endless hours at home with studying grammar and learning words. So what that you can read Gazeta Wyborcza and chat in Polish on the net if you can't have a normal conversation.

Study / Help learning polish language in Wroclaw (any good language school)? [26]

I don't really know about courses, but check this site:

mediateka.biblioteka.wroc.pl/?go=Jezyk_polski_1

I think will go to check it out. ;)

It's in a place called Mediateka near the Opera.

Language / WHY THE HELL CANT I LEARN POLISH?? [64]


I don't think it's up to date, or this is something very rare. I've never seen any movie with English subtitles on that channel.