Language / When do you use 'się'? And what does it mean? [37]

there was a very good explanation on "się" already posted in one of the threads, but I can't find it now.

Anyway, I'll try to summarize it:
- basically, there are two types of verbs which take "się":

one is verbs needing an object - e.g. myć - myję ręce, matka myje dziecko, on myje się - you always wash something or somebody and when the thing washed is oneself, then you use "się". It's the same for every grammatical person - ja myję się, on myje się, wy myjecie się. This is your example with killing - ona zabije się.

The other group is verbs which take "się" for no apparent reason, you just need to remember which ones they are and treat "się" as a part of the verb itself. Examples:

stać się - to happen
okazać się - turn out
podobać się
Notice that some of these verbs take on different meaning when devoid of "się", as with "stać się" and "stać", which means just "to stand".

IMO you should just accept that some verbs are like that and memorize them, complete with "się".

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

The word robot was introduced to the public by Czech writer Karel Čapek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), published in 1920.

However, Karel Čapek himself did not coin the word. He wrote a short letter in reference to an etymology in the Oxford English Dictionary in which he named his brother, the painter and writer Josef Čapek, as its actual originator.[14] In an article in the Czech journal Lidové noviny in 1933, he explained that he had originally wanted to call the creatures laboři (from Latin labor, work). However, he did not like the word, and sought advice from his brother Josef, who suggested "roboti". The word robota means literally work, labor or serf labor, and figuratively "drudgery" or "hard work" in Czech and many Slavic languages. Traditionally the robota was the work period a serf had to give for his lord, typically 6 months of the year.[15] Serfdom was outlawed in 1848 in Bohemia, so at the time Čapek wrote R.U.R., usage of the term robota had broadened to include various types of work, but the obsolete sense of "serfdom" would still have been known.[16][17]

The word robotics, used to describe this field of study, was coined by the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot

Love / Is she genuine? - I would like some advice please re a Polish girl. [130]

is she from Poland, born and brought up here?
if so, ask her what her favourite cartoons were when she was a kid or sth along these lines... and then come back here and check up on it :)

News / Poland's fidelity to support wars and its limits. [46]


and rightly so. All the names that end in -ska in Polish get -aya in Russian (think Krupska - Krupskaya). Preserving the -aya ending would mean unecessarily retaining the English transcription. There's no need to transcribe Russian names into Polish via English.

Language / Polish and Hungarian, how similar? [53]


The country was named Czechosłovakia, still there were Czechs and Slovaks living there, both groups speaking their relative languages, out of which Czech was the country's official language.


You're right in that Czechoslovakian-Hungarian border was actually a Slovak-Hungarian border. Still, ethnicity issues in that area were a rather complicated affair for many years after the fall of the Habsburg Empire; they might have been Czechs as well as Slovaks.

Language / Polish and Hungarian, how similar? [53]


The father was probably conversing with the Czechs, then it rings true enough. Unless the Hungarians could also speak some Czech, which is possible, depending on which part of Hungary they came from. He definitely wouldn't have been able to talk with the Hungarians not having any common language with them.


It's possible to just memorize simple phrases, although with Hungarian you need to know the pronunciation rules.


why not?

Language / Polish and Hungarian, how similar? [53]

Not similar at all. Different language families. There are probably more similarities between Polish and English than between Polish and Hungarian.

As for the phrase book - well, I don't know, depends on how gifted linguistically she was.

Language / FULL WYPAS, WYPASIONY, ZAJEBISTY? [20]


It's an euphemism for zajebisty, which is still considered rough by most people.

I remember Agnieszka Chylińska using it on TV, but I'm not sure when exactly and what programme it was. I don't think she was the first one either, but then I'm not much of a TV viewer.

And I remember "wypas" used by Gulczas, a guy from the 1st edition of the Polish Big Brother, in some sort of a TV commercial - something to do with cars probably, as the exact quote was "Nysa to jest wypas". I've just checked and the 1st edition of BB in Poland was in 2001, so the commercial must have been on the air soon after that - end of 2001? The expression was quite new then.

Genealogy / Krupski name [36]

Might you by any chance be related to Nadieżda Krupska? ;)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadezhda_Krupskaya

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


And technical: śruba, wajcha, wichajster :)

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


I like the word wieśmak better.

TheOther:
Didn't you know that Poland was a British colony for a long time?
Maybe in the future....

;-)

for now it seems the other way around ;)

Genealogy / Missing/unknown letter in my great-grandmother's last name. Any ideas? [34]


Zosia (without the dot over Z) is a diminutive from Zofia. Susan in Polish is Zuzanna, shortened to Zuzia.

Genealogy / Paluch family from south Poland near the Czech frontier [25]

There are over 15 000 people with the name Paluch living in Poland now:

Genealogy / Missing/unknown letter in my great-grandmother's last name. Any ideas? [34]

IMO Rypała is the best guess so far. The name could have easily been messed up with one "a" changing into "y". Rypała is actually an existing name, see the map: mapa/kompletny/rypa%25C5%2582a.html

Most Rypałas live in Krapkowice and the neighbouring districts. The area used to be Galicia once.
If you are able to find any place names from where your grandfather originally came, you could check if it is the same area.

Genealogy / Missing/unknown letter in my great-grandmother's last name. Any ideas? [34]

Here's a site where you can check the frequency and distribution of Polish last names. Type the name in the box and click the Szukaj button.

moikrewni.pl/mapa/kompletny/kwiatkowski.html

I've tried some probable variants of Rypy?a, but unfortunately got no results.

How large is that white streak? Could it be that more than one letter is missing?

Language / rukes in if [8]

yes, that's correct

Language / The Polish language - it's bloody hard! [210]

In writing. Whether you would have understood it spoken is another story.

Language / The Polish language - it's bloody hard! [210]


Still, you could understand what she was saying.
I've no idea how good your Polish really is and how it sounds, so what I'm saying is just a general remark.
As it has already been stated many times in numerous threads on this forum, it's much easier to learn basic conversational English than basic conversational Polish. You need to know a lot more to make yourself understood on a basic level in Polish than in English. And the worst part is not the case endings - you could mix them up seriously and still get by - but verbs - just consider the difference in meaning between dać, zdać, wydać and zadać. It's very easy for a foreigner to mix them up and thus completely change the meaning of what they're trying to say. Add to this the usually butchered up pronunciation of prz trz szcz, and it can really take a lot of serious thinking on the part of a Polish listener to understand what the non-Pole is trying to say.

Don't get me wrong, I really admire you guys who've managed to make it with Polish and are able to hold a conversation. But it's just possible that the girl really wasn't able to get what you were saying and might have thought it easier to communicate in English.

News / The "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign theft from Oswiecim, Poland [240]

the British collector is a new part though

News / The "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign theft from Oswiecim, Poland [240]

We'll see in a couple of days, probably.
Anyway I suppose he's under close observation now so can't escape or try anything funny.

I'm not sure exactly how credible the Sunday Mirror is, however the article is marked as exclusive so they must have some unofficial info sources. It's hard to believe they've made it all up having nothing better to do on a slow Sunday morning.

News / The "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign theft from Oswiecim, Poland [240]


there are also many neo-nazis who would gladly protect him and make him their hero

News / The "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign theft from Oswiecim, Poland [240]

They say that at the moment Interpol is collecting evidence against him, so I think he hasn't been arrested yet. They don't give his name, just say that he's very rich and wanted to have the sign as a kind of a trophy.

Here's the link in English:

mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/01/03/auschwitz-sign-was-stolen-for-wealthy-british-nazi-115875-21937555/

News / The "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign theft from Oswiecim, Poland [240]

The Auschwitz sign theft was commissioned by a British collector

Gazeta Wyborcza after Sunday Mirror:

Citing sources in Sweden letter does not mention the names of the alleged collector , says only that it is very rich and that he wanted to have a sign in your possession , as treated by him as a trophy .

- It was found that the inscription ( after transporting him to Sweden ) will be hidden in the basement of Stockholm , where the Briton will pick it up . The plan was that the money received by the Swedes for arranging finance the neo-Nazi groups in Sweden - weekly quotes its source .

The extreme right in Sweden had planned disruption of this year's general elections in the country.

Swedish neo-nazis were acting as a go-between, however, it was one of them who panicked and informed the Polish police about the place where the sign was hidden. I'm starting a new thread as the previous one on the subject is closed.

Language / Perfective vs Imperfective - grammar [150]

yes

Language / Perfective vs Imperfective - grammar [150]

I will - ja będę
will you? - czy ty będziesz?

you don't turn the words round. If you want to make a simple question (answered yes or no), just add "czy" at the beginning.

On czyta.
Czy on czyta?

Ty idziesz.
Czy ty idziesz?

Language / Perfective vs Imperfective - grammar [150]

yes, that's right

Language / WHY IS SATELITA MASCULINE? [25]


no.
in "satellite television" satellite (satelitarna) is an adjective and has feminine ending only because the noun television(telewizja) is feminine. As any adjective, it could take any gender ending.

But "satelita" as a noun is always masculine.

Language / doing / making - the difference? [20]


I can't ride a horse :)


Same in Polish, you can use present tense for future actions. In English it's Pres. Continuous. Anyway, "co zrobisz na Sylwestra" pertains to the nearest Sylwester only, not to all future ones.


I've told you already that it means "what will you do" and has nothing in common with any job/profession/occupation/whatever. "Jaki jest twój zawód?" or "czym się zajmujesz?" would be "what's your profession/occupation". But it seems that you are waiting for a second opinion - OK, I'm fine with that.


Dziękuję i nawzajem :)

Food / Nowolatki New Year's cakes? [6]

I live close to Podlasie, but have never heard about it.

Language / The longest polish word in existence is..... [23]

it's a chemical term, meaning: having the valency of 999. Such valencies don't actually exist, nevertheless from the lingiustic point the word is correct.

Still I'm not sure if it's the longest possible word. You could try to make something even longer with numerals.