PolishForums LIVE  /  Archives [3]    
   
Posts by Koala  

Joined: 4 May 2011 / Male ♂ 		Last Post: 19 Aug 2011
Threads: Total: 1 / In This Archive: 1
Posts: Total: 332 / In This Archive: 280

Displayed posts: 281 / page 8 of 10
sort: Latest first   Oldest first   |
Koala   
11 May 2011
News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]

1/3 ever voted for them in the last elections...can't we say also that 99% of the Poles had been firm communists?

It's not as if Poles ever cared about Germans killed Jews, isn't it...
Quite to the contrary how many Poles are glad that they are now such a homogenous country, barely any Jews, Germans, Ukrainians and whatever left...no complaints!

I think you should seriously cut this crap. Jews lived on Polish territories for hundreds of years and there wer much more Jews in Poland and in Germany. There were tensions between Poles and Jews, sure, but we never, at no point, turn extirminating Jews into a doctrine, never did such doctrine gain much popularity (1/3 support is huge) and we never turned such doctrine into grim reality.

Seriously, you've got some nerve.
Koala   
11 May 2011
News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]

Germans in Poland (what is left of them after the mass expulsions) are natives, the borders of new Poland were shifted over their heads and against their will. No minority rights for them for most of the last 50 years of course...

Now this is hillarious. They voted for and further supported a political party that had genocide and imperialistic ambitions in its program, later on they participated in genocide of millions of Jews, Poles, Russians and other nations. The only reason they were not kicked out from their houses was because they claimed not to be Germans, but Poles or Silesians instead. I don't think their will should be mentioned and since they rejected to be Germans back in 1945, they should not have minority rights.
Koala   
11 May 2011
News / Row over status of Poles in Germany sours relations [176]

There are 2M+ Poles in Germany, so there's a lot of money involved. I can see German being hesitant about giving Poles "minority" status. Although, if Poles work hard over there and pay taxes, they should have some privileges. I don't see a conclusion to this matter anytime soon.
Koala   
10 May 2011
News / Do Poles take Kaczynski seriously!? [199]

I like how Kaczynski put department of economy into really competent hands (Zyta Gilowska) back when he was prime minister... However, I dislike pretty much everything else about him. I definitely won't vote for PIS in Fall (or PO for that matter).
Koala   
10 May 2011
Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

How about "widziałem pana Kowal" "idziemy do pana Kowal", "wypiłem setkę z panem Kowal"? Unfortunately, this happens more often than you think! ;-(

I really do not encounter such forms.

ale do Cottbussu to chyba nie jeździsz :P :) tylko do Cottbuss

Do Chocieburza :P
Koala   
10 May 2011
Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

That was my afterthought as well, but though this inflection seems correct, as in "sounds good to me as a native speaker", if I were asked whether most Polish people would know or bother enough to actually use it - my answer would be "probably not", when there are so many people out there who don't even inflect "easy" surnames such as Wiśniewski or Kowal.

That's the first time I heard about not declining such surnames. "Idziemy do Kowal"? No, just no. Actually, I had a teach in high school whose name was Morajko and everybody declined his name even though he preferred his name undeclined!
Koala   
10 May 2011
Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

I remember someone complaining that we use words komputer or pecet for computer, which are both borrowing. However, in less formal circles, other words can be used - piec, piecyk (both refer to PC obviously, but both more familiar), blaszak, blacha. So it's all good in my opinion. :) (even ignoring that blacha comes from German)
Koala   
10 May 2011
Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

I think the ultimate rule is that we decline what is convenient and easy and sound sounds natural when declined and what is not we leave undeclined. :D Not much of a guidance for foreigners though trying to learn Polish as they have no idea what soinds natural and what doesn't :P
Koala   
9 May 2011
Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

Two things.

I've seen foreign womens' names declined both on polish internet pages and in print. In Poland.

If and only if the last letter of the name is 'a' (first name or last name, doesn't matter). Otherwise we do not decline. The same example, but with Serbian tennis player Jelena Jankowic.

To jest Jelena Jankowic.
Nie ma Jeleny Jankowic.
Robię kawę Jelenie Jankowic.
Widzę Jelenę Jankowic.
Mówię o Jelenie Jankowic.
Rozmawiam z Jeleną Jankowic.
Jeleno Jankowic, przyjdź tu!

I hope you found it useful.

Secondly, if it were true that foreign female names followed no Polish grammar rules yet the names of foreign men did, it would make it even more inconsistent, confusing and if possible....more ridiculous.

Not really. Please keep in mind that we don't have female first names that do not end with -a, so we don't know how to decline such names that do not end with -a, therefore we leave them undeclined. We tradionally add endings -ówna (for unmarried women) or-owa (for married women) to surnames that do not end with -a,so that they're easy to decline, but nowadays it's more popular to leave the last name undeclined.

I think there's logic in it and is less ridiculous once you think it through.
Koala   
9 May 2011
Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

Thank you, Captain Obvious. My Polish grammar is actually quite good for a non native. I studied declensions more than anything else during my first 2 years of learning Polish but when I get to names like Harrison Ford and Meryl Streep, I just can't get myself to decline them. Way too ridiculous.

Well you musn't decline Meryl Streep as we don't decline foreign female names!

All of the sentences below are correct!
To jest Meryl Streep.
Nie ma Meryl Streep.
Robię kawę Meryl Streep.
Widzę Meryl Streep.
Mówię o Meryl Streep.
Rozmawiam z Meryl Streep.
Meryl Streep, przyjdź tu!

Not so ridiculous anymore, is it?
Koala   
9 May 2011
Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

Johnny'ego Deppa is obviously the right one for the reason gumishu gave. I wouldn't say that grammar is better or worse among any particular generation, one of my jobs involved reading letters from (mostly unhappy) customers and spelling, grammar and stylistic mistakes could be hillarious among people of all ages.
Koala   
9 May 2011
Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

Thet would be fine if they just said 'remontowac lazienke' - it's the 'carry out a project of' that's pretentious.

Wait, you know people in Poland who say "przeprowadzam projekt odnowy łazienki" or do they say it all in English? I am confused.
Koala   
9 May 2011
Language / Super fast Polish language learning strategies from internet polyglots [29]

That's true, especially if you know English, you could safely read scientific texts in French and understand pretty much everything. But these things can be quite different in every language - let's take the previous example of "angular momentum" in some languages:

-French - angulaire moment - similar enough, but 'moment' doesn't mean momentum, it's the mathetical meaning of the word "moment" (refers to vectors)

-Polish - moment pędu - again moment doesn't mean momentum, it's pęd that means momentum
-German - Drehimpuls - compleletely different word and if you see it for the first time (or at least I didn't and was dumbfounded when I encountered it at one point), you might not guess it's meaning. It derives from Impuls - momentum and drehen - to turn

I just wanted to show that relying on educated guesses might be sometimes misleading and it's better to actually study a lot of different topics individually, but it takes time, waaay more than 3 months, to cover the amount sufficient to claim oneself fluent.
Koala   
9 May 2011
Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

I notice in Poland people saying that they're going to carry out a project of renovation on their bathroom, rather than just paint the toilet wall. Same sort of thing.

It's usually more complicated than repainting as the walls are tiled. So the word "remont" is used appropriately.

Training, instead of szkolenia, Marketing instead of whatever

What's the alternative to marketing? "Promowanie/promocja" doesn't have exactly the same meaning and something like "celowanie w rynek" would sound awkward, so the loan word doesn't replace any old one in this case. I have more problems with using "HR" instead of "dział kadr" etc. But in general it's the corporate language that degrates way faster than the normal language, my mother once called as she was asked for "fidbek" after a training (szkolenie) and she had no idea what it was. Entirely ridiculous.
Koala   
9 May 2011
Language / Super fast Polish language learning strategies from internet polyglots [29]

An important point here is, could you actually talk about the stuff in your own language as well.

Of course you're not an expert in all of these subjects, but at least you have basic vocabulary in most/all of them (let's ignore biochemistry as it's a specialised branch of science). I mean, if you graduate high school, you have at least a vague idea what following words mean:

- physics - angular momentum
- religion - ascension
- movies - movie release
- politics - election or supremacy
- travelling - flight delay

If a polyglote can immediately give translation to all of the above pretty basic concepts in all his/her 8 languages, then I can say he is fluent in all of them. Otherwise he should probably focus on 2 or 3 as he's actual skill in these languages is very limited.