Language / Inanimate vs animate nouns in Polish language [16]

In theory it's easy! This only affects singular nouns with masculine gender.

animate = alive, inanimate = not alive
so.... people and animals (that move around on their own) are animate and things are inanimate

but... there's also something called 'facultative (optional) animacy' where some nouns that refer to things are sometimes or often or almost always treated as if they are alive. It's not a terrible mistake if you accidentally use the wrong form with an inanimate noun. Just paying attention and mimicking what you hear is the best guide.

Language / When to use celownik (dative) in Polish language? [11]


The dative has the following main usages.

After verbs that govern the dative (as direct or indirect object). These include dać komuś coś (give someone(dative) something(acc)) ufać komuś (trust someone), wierzyć komuś (believe someone) and a few others.

With prepositions that govern the dative, the most common is przeciw(ko), there's also dzięki (thanks to) ku (toward - not that commonly used) and maybe a couple more

As the 'psychological subject' describing states that affect a person. In english you say 'I'm cold' in Polish that's 'zimno mi' (it's cold to me) because the cold is affecting you, there's also przykro mi (I'm sorry about that situation) smutno mi (it saddens me) and a few others

The book dominic pointed you to should also help

Language / When to use celownik (dative) in Polish language? [11]


the numbers are also used, but again, I don't think most people really know them

in addition to the kto/co method, I'd also construct frames for asking specific forms, prepositions can work for some 'przeciw .......' is good for dative, and just asking for pięć ...... is good for genetive plural, I had a bunch of strategies for asking different cases, for an unambiguous few I could just produce two different hypothetical forms ( czy to z koniami czy z końmi?)

it was easier to ask for tense forms (though not necessarily perfective and imperfective forms....)

Language / Wiadomości vs Aktualności [4]

wiadomości - news, general word

aktualności - (lastest) up to the date news

Language / When to use celownik (dative) in Polish language? [11]

You probably should never use the word 'celownik' when talking with Polish speakers. I found out from bitter experience that most of them confuse the names of the different cases.

I used to have these conversations (translated from Polish)

me: what's the dative of 'wuj'?
polish person: I think it's 'wuju'...? or is it wuja?....

what works is asking with kto/co

me: The word is 'wuj' and komu/czemu?
polish person: wujowi!

Study / I'm thinking to study in the Wrocław University of Science and Technology [55]


If anyone offers you an unpaid internship the proper response is: Fvkk you! Pay me! There is never anything remotely ethical or moral about unpaid internships.

A company that "offers" them would enslave you if they could. Tell them to stick their internship where the sun don't shine.

USA, Canada / Polish or American Education? [180]


A lot of the problem is the schools, not the students (due to systemic reasons that would take a long time to explain).

Also the skill sets needed for success in high school and unviersity (in the US) are different enough that you get a lot of cases of people thriving in one but not the other. A fair amount of students from crappy schools manage to get into college and do fine and a fair amount from great schools burn out. This happens in Poland too but to a lesser degree.

I personally did far, far better at university than high school (my high school was not terrible but not great either) because I always felt hemmed in and constrained in high school and simply felt freer at university which meant I did better work.

Language / The use of 'sobie' in Poland's language [16]


Czytam książkę = I'm reading a book (neutral statement)

Czytam sobie książkę = I'm reading a book (for no particular reason and/or having a nice time doing so)

The exact semantics of sobie can be hard to pin down and be difficult to translate but often does have an idea something done for its own sake.

In the southern US (po)czytać sobie might be something like 'have myself a nice little read"

USA, Canada / Polish or American Education? [180]


I might have over stated a bit, but where I went to university you weren't officially admitted to a specific major (by that department) until the third year. Lots of people 'declare' earlier but again the departments only officially admitted students after finishing all their general education requirements (and maybe some prerequisites that the department tells the student to get before they can be admitted).

And talking about 'years' is a little inaccurate, in theory every student is a kind of academic free agent and while almost all majors have required courses (and or sequences of courses) it doesn't matter much when you do them. I only filled one required intro course in one of my last semesters (after taking a graduate level course or two in the same area). The US system is much less lockstep and linear than European systems.


That's part of the problem, a university administrator once told me that, among other things, the first two years are meant to make sure the students know what they should have learned in high school. For those from better high schools the first two years are much easier and there's more time for exploring, for those from worse high schools they have to spend more time on filling in gaps as they try to broaden their horizons.

The biggest difference between the US and Europe is the commitment to broad horizons, so that even when officially admitted to a major students have to have a certain number of elective courses from outside their major. This partly comes from the frontier/settler tradition where jacks of all trades are more useful than narrow specialists.

Also there's a lot less commitment to making sure that every student knows the detailed academic history of the discipline and more to getting students to contribute to their field as early as possible. Europeans tend to know the basics better than Americans but it also takes them longer to start doing original work as well.

USA, Canada / Polish or American Education? [180]


You misunderstand the system. From an American perspective European countries require students to choose what to specialize in far too early (before high school!) often without being aware the consequences of their choices.

The US system is set up so that students can specialize later when they have a broader perspective. The purpose of a high school diploma is to allow students into a university (if that's their choice) and the first two years of university are supposed to be about academic exploration when they choose a major and start taking specialist courses they'll need for it. Most US universities don't allow students to declare a specialization until they've done the equivalent of two years of higher general education.

The US system is also set up so that students can change their mind (the idea is that second, and third, and fourth etc chances are good). Contrast that with Europe and the idea that you've got one shot and if you miss it then you're out.

A big problem with the US system is a number of setbacks from funding changes in the 1960s, the triumph of neoliberalism in the early 1980s and the current SJW mania have all dealt the system heavy blows so that students are much more likely to exit high school with serious deficincies in several areas exacerbating educational and social inequality.

Life / What would you do in my situation (Americans lied to Polish cops about my reason for deportarion) [7]


Stop being scum of th earth? Stop trying to steal things?

Language / Are Anglophones able to detect different Polish accents? [17]


He's right in this case! Mostly distinct dialects have disappeared since WWII and have been replaced by standard Polish (maybe with local accents).

Typically if two Poles meet in a foreign country and begin speaking..... neither will have any idea where the other is from. There are some regional features but they're pretty subtle and seem to be less salient when Poles are abroad.

I remember a work related meeting (in another country with people from a few different countries) a Croat absolutely refused to believe that local dialects aren't a big thing in Poland. To make the point I asked one of two Polish women present if she could tell where the other was from (they had heard each other speak Polish).

"hmmm maybe south, like... Silesia?" the other Polish woman was actually from around Gdańsk...

Travel / Białowieża National Park in Poland [461]


Wait... you live within the borders of Poland? I thought you're in chicago or casper wyoming or some such....

Travel / Białowieża National Park in Poland [461]


Hey, more respect! You're addressing an internationally renowned expert in forestry _and_ international law!

Travel / Białowieża National Park in Poland [461]


Good for the government for openly breaking its word and not following clear regulations that it agreed to? Weird world you got goin' on in your noggin kid. Weird, weird world.

News / Berlin terrorist attack -- Poland's ethnic homogeneity a true blessing [436]

They did about what I expected. They're the only party that comes close to representing majority opinion on migration (an important issue). Why wouldn't they get some seats?

They seem pretty bad in some ways, but when no mainstream party can depart from orthodoxy enough to deal with majority concerns then extremists will prosper.

Travel / Białowieża National Park in Poland [461]


Jego racja, nasz spokój?

UK, Ireland / Are you able to hear the different English accents? [97]


Judge fer yoreselfie, lassieroo!

youtube.com/watch?v=vRnQ8lYcvFU

I can just about follow the general drift but when he starts listing words I have no idea what most of them might be

UK, Ireland / Are you able to hear the different English accents? [97]


I assume he's speaking out of his 4ss as usual and take it about as seriously as his claim that 'beatles' are a threat to Białowieża....

Travel / Białowieża National Park in Poland [461]



Getting ready to start devouring the trees...

d1e7s0fmwz7rm9.cloudfront.net/img/content/in-the-trees.jpg

Is no forest safe from these mop-topped menaces?

UK, Ireland / Are you able to hear the different English accents? [97]


Despite it's small size and population, Scotland has three languages.

1. Scottish English
2. Scots (regarded by many/most linguists as a separate language)
3. Scottish Gaelic (related to but distinct from Irish Gaelic)

I'm sure the situation is actually far more complex but that's the simple breakdown.

UK, Ireland / Are you able to hear the different English accents? [97]


Similar in the US except that traditionally the accents were kind of phony made up for TV versions of regional accents.

Pseudo Southern (White) Accents were supposed to be shorthand to let the audience know the character was either good natured and stupid, or malovent and stupid or aristocratic and corrupt (and maybe sexually perverted).

A pseudo NYC working class accent was meant to show a cynical street smarts (even if the city wasn't New York which didn't make much sense).

And Americans' idea of an upper class English accent is often shorthand for evil personified...

IME Polish viewers (even those who are very fluent) don't pick up on those.

Life / ID pictures - Krakow city card? [10]


I used to practice in my head what I wanted to say before I got there (different versions and different things to say to different possible responses) and then in the US I found myself doing the same thing.... (sometimes in English and sometimes in Polish which made no sense, but....)

Travel / Białowieża National Park in Poland [461]


He's desperate to find ways to justify PiS's terrible policies, give him a break.

Food / Mushroom picking (and eating:) in Poland [36]


Which also means knows the mushrooms in the area they're picking them. I've been told that some mushrooms are safe in some parts of Poland and poisonous in others...

One of many reasons I'll never be a mushroomer (I like them fine but.... pre-selected).

UK, Ireland / Are you able to hear the different English accents? [97]


Mostly Poles couldn't leave the country (Hungary and Bulgaria were the main foreign tourism destinations) so domestic tourism was very developed in the PRL. It fell off in the early 90s and lagged some from its PRL peak. But through the 1980s a trip to the mountain area was something almost everyone did at some point or other.

UK, Ireland / Are you able to hear the different English accents? [97]


That's true but I was reacting to the old idea that TV would make everybody talk the same (the same claim had previously been made about radio and the telephone so there's a long history of overestimating audio media's power to shape speech if that's not what people want)


As one of the main domestic tourism destinations of the country? A better explanation is that they realize that their exotic funny sounding dialect is something tourists expect of them and so they assume it's in their economic interest to maintain it.


And i think some of the British imports that some Americans watch were made with them in mind and so tone down the differences (I've heard legends of there being two versions of some shows but I doubt that).

But lots of shows that were popular in Britain wouldn't be watchable for Americans because of comprehension issues (I remember a English guy who tried to convince me that Only Fools and Horses was hilarious - I didn't... get it in any meaning of the word). I remember a co-worker who enjoyed Are you being served? but admitted that sometimes she didn't know what they were talking about - sometimes that was purely linguistic (in the US 'belt up' can only mean 'fasten your seat belt') and other times there were cultural references that Americans wouldn't get (this was in the early 90s - I imagine a lot of the cultural references would now sail right past modern British audiences).


In the 'regained' lands that was an issue as there was local dialects speakers from different places settled into least common denominator Polish. There are also cultural factors and orthographic ones - it's much easier for people who want to shed a regional accent in Polish to adopt a reading pronunciation - the looser connection between spelling and pronunciation in English makes taking on upwardly mobile pronunciations much more difficult.

News / Berlin terrorist attack -- Poland's ethnic homogeneity a true blessing [436]


And they typically don't like to work for non-muslims (unless they can bully through a lot of special dispensations for their weird practices).


Apparently Germany can't produce credible politicians with reasonable positions. This does not bode well. And if Merkel has to coalition with the Greens then there will be more large scale migration into Germany (because tha'ts the kind of failed policy that they like).

UK, Ireland / Are you able to hear the different English accents? [97]


Thank you, I wanted to mention that but lacked the courage


From what I understand, the dissolution of distinct dialects/accents has little to do with mass media or education but rather whether mainstream values in the society favor centralization or decentralization. In other words, sometimes speakers of a language favor consolidation and at other times they prefer diversification (and linguists haven't found a real independent variable)

Polish dialects went through about 50 years to attrition after WWII but there wasn't much media (as late as the early 90s there were two TV stations one of which only broadcast a couple hours a day...). A lot of other forces though strengthened Standard Polish at the expense of local varieties (now more accents than real distinct dialects).

In a recent conversation with a student of Italian philology they said that Italy was going through several decades of consolidation and the expansion of standard Itallian that has recently begun to reverse with local dialect/languages showing renewed vigor (due to young people rebelling against their parents and grandparents).

Finally, getting back to accents in English, it's always a topic of keen interest for native speakers but tends to drive away learners.... just as in this thread!

Travel / Białowieża National Park in Poland [461]


PO has a lot to answer for with this, but that in no way justifies the current PiS rape of the forest.

I'm very upset that PO did not depoliticize the civil service when they had the chance - that doesn't mean I welcome the return to commie style patronage that characterizes PiS.