Po polsku / Młodzi polscy prozaicy - kogo polecacie? [66]


Jak najbardziej. Następne zdanie też właściwie oddaje myśl Aleksa, chociaż powinno być tu "e" z ogonkiem tj. "czekam na Waszą propozycję" albo "czekam na Wasze propozycje".


Jeszcze nie przeczytałem żadnego kryminału Marka Krajewskiego, chociaż od dość dawna się przymierzam. Ostatnio czytałem dosyć sympatyczny kryminał: "Przystanek Śmierć" Tomasza Konatkowskiego. Rzecz dzieje się współcześnie w Warszawie i sporo w tej książce informacji o stolicy Polski, a zwłaszcza o warszawskiej komunikacji miejskiej; autor jest tejże komunikacji wielkim miłośnikiem. Także niedawno czytałem rosyjski kryminał, którego akcja działa się w Moskwie; też mogłem się wiele dowiedzieć o życiu codziennym stolicy Rosji.

Language / Grammar help; Dokąd? and Gdzie? [19]


I think you are right. People just don't speak in the way they are told they should. Even the educated ones would say "gdzie idziesz?" rather than "dokąd idziesz?". Nevertheless, most people would never use that form in writing. When uttering phrases like "gdzie idziesz, ty głupi baranie!?", replacing 'gdzie' with 'dokąd' would even sound a little "improper".

In contrast to the above, "poszłem" instead of "poszedłem" is a gross mistake both in speech and in writing. I would not say the same about 'gdzie' in place of 'dokąd'. A similar story is about the usage of 'tą' instead of 'tę' in speech; I think most grammarians these days accept the fact that almost no one will say: 'czytam tę książkę', but everyone will say 'czytam tą książkę'.

Language / Grammar help; Dokąd? and Gdzie? [19]


And it made me remember another old joke:
- Panie, na ile ta kiełbasa?
- Na miesiąc.
- Ja się nie pytam 'na ile', tylko 'po ile'?
- Po plasterku.

Language / cookery, word usage question [19]

80% of people in Poland know nothing about their levels of cholesterol, 70% of them do not know their glucose blood level, and 66% think themselves in good condition of health - is the outcome of the National Health Test.

News / Gazeta Wyborcza of Poland losing readers [301]


Damn it, even bad teeth and digestive problems of some may become a hot political issue in Poland these days ...

News / Gazeta Wyborcza of Poland losing readers [301]


The term "moherowe berety" has been conceived by Jan Maria Rokita, one of the original three co-founders of the Civic Platform (PO). Semantically, it has nothing contemptuous in it as both words 'mohair' and 'beret' are neutral in Polish. Its, in a sense, "political" counterpart, the term 'wykształciuchy', only slightly less popular, has been invented by the once prominent member of the Law and Justice (PiS), often referred to as the "third twin" of the Kaczyński brothers, Ludwik Dorn. This term has semantically been somewhat despicable for 'educated members of society' due to its suffix -iuch/-ioch [in words like: świńtuch, tłuścioch]. In a way, the interim score is one to one in this eternal match between the "GW readers" and the "ND readers".

Po polsku / Młodzi polscy prozaicy - kogo polecacie? [66]


Raczej nie czytuję współczesnej prozy, czytuję klasykę [w języku polskim, angielskim i francuskim] oraz prasę tak polską jak i obcą. Jeśli chodzi o książki autorów współczesnych, przychodzi mi na myśl Eustachy Rylski i jego powieść "Warunek". Książka ma ten swój niesamowity klimat, który bardzo wciąga, choć jednocześnie jej język jest miejscami trudny. Akcja jej nie dzieje się jednak współcześnie, lecz w czasach napoleońskich; w żadnym razie nie jest to jednak powieść historyczna.

Charakterystyczny błąd, który zdradza, że nie jesteś "rodowitym mówcą" to "szukam od wielu czasu". Należy powiedzieć: "od dłuższego czasu"; można też powiedzieć: "od [bardzo] dawna" albo - by użyć liczebnika "wielu" [tak mi się zdaję, że jest to liczebnik nieokreślony] - "szukam od wielu tygodni/miesięcy/lat".

Innym błędem [?] jest wyrażenie "czekam na wasze polecenia". Technicznie może ono być nawet poprawne [polecać coś --> polecenie; Polecenie pani Zosi jako opiekunki do dziecka okazało się zupełnym nieporozumieniem], ale inne znaczenie rzeczownika "polecenie" tj. polecenie komuś konkretnej czynności do wykonania [w wojsku synonimem takiego znaczenia będzie rzeczownik "rozkaz"] nasuwa się jako dominujące.

Po polsku / Młodzi polscy prozaicy - kogo polecacie? [66]

Bardzo interesujący post, a w nim bardzo staranny język o bogatym słownictwie. Tym niemniej, pewne nieliczne i nieznaczne błędy skłaniają mnie do przypuszczenia, że nie jesteś "native speakerem" polszczyzny. Jeśli tak jest rzeczywiście, to gratuluję niewątpliwie głębokiej znajomości języka polskiego.

History / Why is there NOTHING (besides Gdansk and Szczecin) in former Prussia? [80]


Breslau was Prussian between 1741 and 1945. Before that it was Austrian, Czech and Polish. I remember I told you once that the emperess of Austria could not sleep at nights to the end of her days since the moment the Prussians had conquered her beloved land of Silesia, leaving her only the small bits of the province, that is the areas around the town of Opava [now in the Czech Republic] and the Duchy of Cieszyn [now divided between Poland and the Czech Republic].

Travel / A business trip from Warsaw to Bialystok - transportation? [26]

Indeed, you are right ... I thought the Centralny operated as usual ... I had no idea the platforms were in repair. I only use the Śródmieście station and sometimes visit the bookshop at the Centralny without getting down to the platforms. If that is the case, there is some likelihood they will get lost.

What's the solution? I'm afraid there's no solution, unless they board the train in Warszawa Zachodnia which is a very ugly station, but there seems to be no repair works there at the moment.

Travel / A business trip from Warsaw to Bialystok - transportation? [26]

There are eleven TLK connections on a business day between Warsaw and Białystok. They can check the timetable on the rozkład-pkp.pl which is available in English, German and French, though not in Flemish. If they are grown-up boys and if they manage to make it as far as Warsaw, I'm sure they will not get lost in Warszawa Centralna.

Law / What information is in the Schengen Information System? [10]

Indeed, it is unlikely that any police force in the world investigate a childlish exchange of letters between one former Romeo and one former Juliette. Certain "Juliettes" may sometimes be very crazy, however. An extreme case of stalking in Poland in which a woman did not let alone a handsome and married surgeon whom she met during her appointment in a hospital and who rejected her "advances" had lasted for two years and resulted in a police brigade breaking into Juliette's flat in order to arrest her [a full page story on that in the "Rzeczpospolita" daily].

Rejected Juliettes may be dangerous, not only in the Schengen zone.

Language / Correct usage for 'going' in Polish [25]



Przychodzi baba do lekarza. Lekarz ją pyta :
- Co Pani jest? [meaning: What do you suffer from?]
A baba na to:
- Krawcowa, panie doktorze! [thinking the doctor has asked her: What's your profession, my dear lady?]

Language / Correct usage for 'going' in Polish [25]

Chodzić and iść, aren't they different verbs?
Chodzicie do kościoła (szkoły)?
Idziecie do kościoła (szkoły)?

Language / How to remember Polish words? [23]

The best method I've worked out so far is to assocciate the actual word to its imagination in my mind as hard as I can. The trick is to forget its "intermediary", that is its English meaning, almost completely. For example, you should repeteadly try to associate 'czarny' with the colour itself rather than associate it with the English word 'black'. The method takes some time and effort, but it works. After a time, the image of an object will provoke an easy "coming up" of its name in a given foreign language.

There are a lot of such words in my vocabulary of English. Most of them I acquired while living in Britain with my English friends for a while. One of them them is the verb "to splash". The association was so strong that to this very day - about 20 years have passed since then - I feel the verb as one with which I am much more "familiar" than with its counterpart in my native language. There are, of course, English words that I have learned in Poland; in the process of remembering them I was using my imagination which this way "replaced" a stay in a foreign country.

News / Y Shaped high speed rail line Poland [78]


Trains may have problems when it is snow and ice everywhere in Europe. For example, it took 28 hours for a train in France which departed last Sunday from Strasbourg to arrive in Port Bou on the Spanish border. The journey should have lasted 11 hours only. "On aurait pu aller en Australie [One could have made it to Australia]" - complained one angry passenger. Five hundred ninety-nine other passangers were equally 'not amused'.

The recent chaos on the railway tracks in Poland was connected to the change of timetable. It seems that winter time had added to it considerably, but was not the main reason.

News / Y Shaped high speed rail line Poland [78]


There is nothing of a compliment in it. Someone who is a specialist in everything is a specialist in nothing. Above, I have summed up the opinions of certain "specialists" which only support such a point. The underground railway line built under the center of Warsaw in 1936 was an excellent and in a way "prophetic" solution which serves the city even better today than it did before the World War II. This solution is now to be repeated in £ódź. Telling that upgrading, repairing and maintaining the current old-fashioned network is better than building a completely new, modern and highly-efficient railway infrastructure between the four major towns in Poland: Warsaw, £ódź, Wrocław and Poznań simply doesn't make much sense.

Travel / Train from Katowice to Prague (timetable?) [9]


You should then choose "Katowice" from the proposed list ['Please select from the selection list']. In fact, it is 'Katowice' again as the central station in that city has no additional adjective such as 'central' to its name.

News / Y Shaped high speed rail line Poland [78]

I just can't believe what I'm reading in this thread:

Language / How to use time in Polish language? [20]

Nie da ci ojciec, nie da ci matka
Tego, co może dać ci ... sąsiadka!

Language / To wear: nosić, nieść, ponieść? [10]

To add to this excellent explanation of Nana, I'd like to remark that these two very similar verbs will decline in a different way:

nosić --> ja noszę, ty nosisz, on nosi, my nosimy, wy nosicie, oni noszą
nieść --> ja niosę, ty niesiesz, on niesie, my niesiemy, wy niesiecie, oni niosą.

As one foreigner said to me once: why should you conjugate and decline everything in Polish? For example:
Ja noszę kalosze;
Ty nosisz kalosisz;
On nosi kalosi;
My nosimy kalosimy;
Wy nosicie kalosicie;
Oni noszą kaloszą.

Indeed, why do we decline everything!?

Life / Imitating old peasant-type Polish dialects - polite? [11]


If the peasant hears such a request uttered in his local rural dialect, he will probably tell them:
Agnieszka już tu nie mieszka [Harry doesn't live here any more].

History / Lwów, Wilno ... kresy - Poland have lost enormoust part of our heritage... [389]


In that case, beware of China. They are a very big and a very hungry ... dragon!

History / Lwów, Wilno ... kresy - Poland have lost enormoust part of our heritage... [389]


Isn't it the same what you once in the Stalinst era thought about China? China turned out to be too big to swallow, however ...

The problem with Ukraine is that if Russia swallows it [unfortunately, it is not as big as China], it will immediately become a potential threat to the rest of Europe. I mean I have nothing against 'nashyh russkih druziei', but in consequence swallowing Ukraine may lead to turning Poland into the 'Privislanski krai' once again and then, with the subsequent establishing of the direct border with Germany, it will sooner or later lead to confrontation with an outbreak of another world war as already happened twice in the past. Thus, curbing Russian imperialism [as exemplified in the above phrases of KonstantineK] and maintaing the bufor zone between Germany and Russia is in the most vital interest of all parties involved including Russia itself.

Language / Z pięćdziesięciorgiem dwojgiem dzieci? [26]


'Dziewięcioro" is a collective numeral [the so-called 'liczebnik zbiorowy' in Polish]; a 'normal' numeral would be 'dziewięć'.


With this I may agree now. My first, spontaneous, feeling was right then. Here what a certain web site which seems decent says on that:

------------------------------------------------
Użycie liczebników zbiorowych lub rzeczowników odliczebnikowych zasadniczo wymaga rzeczownika w dopełniaczu (liczby mnogiej), niezależnie od przypadka, w jakim został użyty liczebnik, np. dwoje studentów, z trójką dzieci, przez dwoje wrót, bez nas czworga. [...]

Uwaga! Dla liczebników zbiorowych wydawnictwa poprawnościowe przewidują związek zgody w celowniku i miejscowniku, np. trojgu uczniom, o czworgu uczniach (choć z dwojgiem uczniów, z obojgiem rodzeństwa w narzędniku) nie dopuszczając w ogóle związku rządu (tj. konstrukcji z dopełniaczem). Niemniej jednak jednak wyrażenia typu trojgu dzieci, o czworgu dzieci (z dopełniaczem) szerzą się we współczesnym języku. Oto więcej przykładów: dwojgu rannych, trojgu podróżnych, o dwojgu rodzeństwa – słowniki proponują jedynie dwojgu rannym, trojgu podróżnym, o dwojgu rodzeństwie – zwłaszcza ta ostatnia (podobno poprawna!) forma budzi sprzeciw i absolutnie nie przystaje do wyczucia języka.

------------------------------------------------

Generally, we may say that the problem of the Polish collective numeral is gramatically very complex and difficult. As has been shown in this thread, native speakers are confused and may change their opinions on them. Shall I remind that the whole discussion had started with Nott's wrong assumption of the case of the noun which accompanies the collective numeral used in the instrumental:


?

Language / Z pięćdziesięciorgiem dwojgiem dzieci? [26]

A second thought on this problem now - the collective numeral requires the genetive case in all of the cases [and not only in the instrumental case] for its complement. Thus the above declination table of mine should look as follows:

Nom. - Kto? co? [się znajduje] Dziewięcioro dzieci;
Gen. - Kogo? czego? [nie widziałem] Dziewięciorga dzieci;
Dat. - Komu? czemu? [się przyglądam] Dziewięciorgu dzieci;
Acc. - Kogo? co? [widzę] Dziewięcioro dzieci;
Instr. - Z kim? z czym? [rozmawiam] Z dziewięciorgiem dzieci
Loc. - O kim? o czym? [opowiadam] O dziewięciorgu dzieci.


In contrast to that, the complement is declined when it meets the 'normal' numeral, e.g. spotkałem się z dwoma mężczyznami, z dwiema kobietami, szedłem z dwiema paczkami.

My mistake in the original table had arisen from the influence of one declination patter on the other; the above mistake is - I am sure - very frequent among native speakers. Dear foreign users of Polish - please keep out of the collective or other Polish numerals as often as you can!

Language / Z pięćdziesięciorgiem dwojgiem dzieci? [26]


Big collective numerals are as easy to decline as small ones. If you decline 'with 50', [z pięćdziesięciorgiem] you should also decline 'with 5' [z pięciorgiem]; to decline ' with 55' is now as obvious as ever [you should join the former with the latter].


It really does seem strange! The question to the statement should be: [z kim, czym? - instrumental] z iloma dziećmi?

Nom. - Kto? co? [się znajduje] Dziewięcioro dzieci;
Gen. - Kogo? czego? [nie widziałem] Dziewięciorga dzieci;
Dat. - Komu? czemu? [się przyglądam] Dziewięciorgu dzieciom;
Acc. - Kogo? co? [widzę] Dziewięcioro dzieci;

Instr. - Z kim? z czym? [rozmawiam] Z dziewięciorgiem ???????? [according to the rule applied in the rest of the cases, it should be 'dziećmi', but I would definitely say 'dzieci' here; it looks as if the numeral in the instrumental case required its complement to be put in the genetive case !? But am I right? I don't know!

Loc. - O kim? o czym? [opowiadam] O dziewięciorgu dzieciach.

Real Estate / Poland Housing prices in July 2010 [129]

Some people just can't wait until the second "P" for Poland will be added to this famous PIGS abbreviation. Although it cannot be excluded that Poland may be eventually included in it [but not for the reason of a property bubble, for sure], this longing has nothing more in it than a strictly personal factor. People like Milky or Espana or others said nothing about Greece, Iceland or Ireland before those countries' own bubbles - banking, public debt or property ones - broke out. It is quite likely that those people are as wrong by eagerly promoting Poland to the ranks of PIGS as they were wrong with not promoting to these famous ranks countries that have really become PIGS.

Lie on the couch, will you? Dr Freud is ready to see you, my dear patient!

Travel / Coming to Warszawa (Warsaw) 31st, where to spend New Year? [13]

Then they are warmly [warmly at this time of the year?] invited by the Mayor of Warsaw, Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, and the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, who will be delivering a word of welcome there on the occasion of the Polish presidency starting in 2011, to come along onto the Constitution Square in Warsaw.

Vive l'Europe! Vive la Pologne! Wiwat Król, wiwat Naród, wiwat wszystkie stany [with reference to all the three classes of the Polish society of the 18th century as depicted in the 3rd of May Constitution rather than with reference to the United States]!

Po polsku / Tragedia jezykowa, czyli "stay on topic" LOL. [95]


Czy ktoś mógłby tutaj podać angielski [lub amerykański albo australijski] odpowiednik polskiego powiedzenia "wyglądasz jak półtora nieszczęścia" [a może do niewiasty należałoby powiedzieć: "wyglądasz jak półtorej nieszczęścia, moja damo"]?