Language / Poltran? (the free online Polish-English dictionary) - where's it gone? [48]

Poltran was slow and not very good. Since it went off the radar I have found and begun to use Google and find it very much better: translate.google.com/#pl|en|

I see that it is the same basic translation engine that is used by the already recommended translate.reference.com/ and to be found on the multi-selectable translator stars21.com/translator/polish_to_english.html

Must try out BabelFish as Firefox add-on.

I think that any translators into one's own native language are very helpful but of course one never knows how good the translation is when it is into a foreign tongue.

Language / The Plural of Zloty? [46]

As I understand it there are some Polish nouns that are declined as if they were adjectives and złoty (a masculine noun for the English word zloty) is one of these. The same Polish word złoty (but as an adjective meaning gold/golden) is declined just the same but needs to agree with whatever noun it is describing.

"Quantities" in Polish require the genitive form. Thus kilka (a few), ile (how many) and so all would expect the genitive plural, namely złotych, to be used. The Polish "oddity" with numerical quantities is that 5 through 0 treat what they are describing as quantities and thus also require the genitive but 1 requires the nominative singular (jeden złoty) and 2 through 4 require the nominative plural (dwa/trzy/cztery złote).

When writing in English a good general rule is to either stay with the English way of writing the plurals but if using a foreign plural to always use it correctly as it would be in the foreign language. Thus in English text both 5 zloties and 5 złotych would be correct and inoffensive.

Quite a good example of where things can go wrong is with the word virus. The English plural of virus is quite simply viruses. Virus is of Latin origin and (unusually maybe for what I think is from the Latin fourth declension) has no plural form. There are those that think they know better and write viri (which translated from Latin means men) or worse still virii (which is untranslatable) for some sort of effect or to make it look how clever they are. No-one would say busi or busii when referring to a number of buses coming down the road!

Language / The Plural of Zloty? [46]


I sort of agree or at least I don't know what is absolutely correct because when or whether to use the plural of a word when referring to "collective nouns" in the English language is a matter of endless debate. Ten deer/duck/pound/penny/dollar/zloty/euro/cent versus ten deers/ducks/pounds/pennies/dollars/zloties/euros/cents can all be used correctly (though there are those that will disagree with this) when used in different contexts in different countries.

It is true that euro is the correct plural as dictated by the EU for use in legislative documents but every country also uses terms colloquially and these need not remain static or be the same. In Ireland, since joining the euro-zone, I can pretty much affirm that it would sound odd to hear someone say I want to change my euro into zloty and that I want to change my euros into zloties would be "much easier on my ear" even if others disagree with the grammatical or legislative correctness.

It is very easy to get bogged down with the semantics of grammar and though I find such debates interesting and fun I would be the last to say there is only one way of saying or writing things. In my opinion one of the beauties of the English language is that it has always continued to evolve and that this is likely to continue.