Language / Collection of learning resources for learning the Polish language [129]

Lately I've been using this dictionary quit a lot: slowniki.gazeta.pl

It has a nice, clean layout, plenty of real-life examples, and it loads faster, is more reliable and less buggy than ling.pl. I also like the fact that it always tells whether a verb is imperfective or perfective, and what the perfective equivalent of an imperfective verb is and vice versa.

Language / Tego/Jego [15]

In Polish "on" and the equivalent forms in other cases refer to either a living person or an object. It's not like in English where "he" is always a person.

Tego is the neuter/male genitive or male accusative animate version of "ten" which is "this".

"Samochód" is a masculine word, hence the accusative male inanimate version is needed, which is "go/jego".

Language / Collection of learning resources for learning the Polish language [129]

For learning vocabulary there's a good program called Anki: ichi2.net/anki/

My own Polish-English deck is available for download inside it (Filemenu -> Download -> Shared Deck). As of yet it contains 7200 entries and growing. It contains not only words but also sentences, expressions, phrases and special sentences for practicing cases.

Language / The Polish accusative case [32]

This site has some pretty nice tables with adjective declensions (also pronouns etc):

polish-translators.net

Memorizing tables is rarely a good idea, but it's a good reference from which you can make your own sentences and learn them by heart. Eventually with enough sentences after lots of practice you will start developing some kind of feeling for the declensions.

Language / The Polish accusative case [32]

Yes, it's absolutely necessary to learn endings by heart, however, to learn them in the form of a table is rarely advisable as it is too slow.

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

I know exactly how you feel. I hate sitting on the bus hearing some 2-year old coming up with more complex sentences than I ever could've. And they even get the inflections right. It's not fair!! ;)

I don't know how long it would take for an average adult Germanic or Romance language speaker who comes to Poland to start speaking Polish at a decent level, but I would suspect at least 4-5 years or even more. Although I'm sure it's possible to spend a lifetime hear without learning the language properly. Everyone says exposure is the key to learning a language, which is probably true. In the case of Polish it might not even be enough, though.

I fear Polish is the kind of language you simply need to learn as a child, because later it might be too late to "mould" the brain into thinking "po polsku". To use a very poor anology: So far in life a small workshop has been formed in your head with all the equipment, tools etc needed to build rowing boats, and now suddenly you have to start building ocean liners... Needless to say, you need to tear down everything, level a few square kilometres of ground and build a huge shipyard in your brain... ;)

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


Good luck indeed. ;)

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


Not very helpful I'm afraid.

I really must say I pity deaf people in Poland. They can only dream about watching movies.

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.

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.

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.

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 / 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. ;)

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.

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]

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]


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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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)

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]

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

Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]

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

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"?