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Posts by mhurwicz  

Joined: 16 Dec 2018 / Male ♂
Last Post: 20 Feb 2021
Threads: Total: 10 / In This Archive: 8
Posts: Total: 20 / In This Archive: 10
From: Eastsound
Speaks Polish?: Trying to learn a little

Displayed posts: 18
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mhurwicz   
16 Dec 2018
Language / Meaning of "w tern" in Polish [27]

I don't know much Polish and am using Google Translate to try to get a general sense of an article about economics, written by Tadeusz Brzeski in 1936 ("O METODZIE W EKONOMJI")

repozytorium.amu.edu.pl/bitstream/10593/16857/1/2-014%20DR.%20TADEUSZ%20BRZESKI%20RPEiS%2016%282%29%2C%201936.pdf

I have run across the phrase "w tern" twice and have become curious about what it means. In one case, Google Translate says "in tern" which isn't too helpful! In the other case, I'm not sure which part of the translation corresponds to "w tern"! I've Googled it and found numerous uses, but can't find any consistent meaning that fits all of them. Here are the two uses in the article I'm reading, along with the translation from Google Translate:

1)
w tern też dopatrywać się można uzasadnienia wypowiadanej niejednokrotnie zasady "zdro­wego rozsądku", jako kryterjum zgodności z rzeczywistością lub po­woływania się na "pospolite doświadczenie" (gemeine Erfahrung u Wiesera), jako na metodę badania.

in tern you can also see the justification of the rule of "common sense" repeatedly, as a criterion of compliance with reality or after invoking the "common experience" (gemeine Erfahrung at Wieser), as a method of research.

2)
Uważamy to za zasadnicze założenie me­todyczne, idąc w tern w głównych zarysach za wzorem ekonomii klasycznej;

We consider this to be a fundamental cultural assumption, going in the main outlines following the model of classical economics;
mhurwicz   
16 Dec 2018
Language / Sense of "duchowego" [13]

I don't know much Polish and am using Google Translate to try to understand an article about economics, written by Tadeusz Brzeski in 1936 ("O METODZIE W EKONOMJI")

Google Translate gives "spiritual" as the meaning of "duchowego" In the paragraph below, and doesn't provide any other alternatives. I'm guessing there must be alternative meanings to this word. "Spiritual" has kind of a metaphysical ring to it that just doesn't feel right to me in this context. I'm thinking perhaps "mental" Is really what is meant? Or is there another meaning that fits better? Or maybe they used the word differently back then than people do now?

Założenie podobne w stosunku do zjawisk gospodarczych byłoby nie do pomyślenia, gdyż tutaj kierunek badania, zasadniczo odmienny przy zjawiskach życia duchowego, nie może abstrahować od związku z czasem i przestrzenią.

Natural sciences, formulating general laws, are based on the assumption of homogeneity of natural phenomena, each episode representing the whole; this is a necessary assumption, because no research can be complete in the sense that it covers all phenomena. A similar assumption in relation to economic phenomena would be unthinkable, because here the direction of the research, fundamentally different in the phenomena of mental life, can not be abstracted from the relation with time and space.
mhurwicz   
17 Dec 2018
Language / Sense of "duchowego" [13]

in Russian:
dusa ('soul,' seen as a person's spiritual, moral, and emotional core and as an internal theatre where a person's moral and emotional life goes on);

"Understanding Cultures through Their Key Words" - Anna Wierzbicka, p.3


Same in Polish?
mhurwicz   
17 Dec 2018
Language / Sense of "duchowego" [13]

Googling "spiritual development" I get over 5 million hits. So yes it has a sense in English, though based on our discussion, I suspect not exactly the same sense as in Polish.
mhurwicz   
17 Dec 2018
Language / Sense of "duchowego" [13]

Thank you everybody! What an interesting voyage this thread turned out to be! My conclusion is that a reasonable translation for the phrase originally in question might be:

"psychological, emotional and Intellectual life"
mhurwicz   
17 Dec 2018
Language / Meaning of "w tern" in Polish [27]

why are you using such an odd source to learn Polish

Although I am learning some Polish in the process, and very glad of it, my real goal in this case is to get a general understanding of the article for a writing project I'm working on.
mhurwicz   
17 Dec 2018
Language / Meaning of "w tern" in Polish [27]

What sort of writing project are you working on presently, mhurwicz?

I'm glad you asked! It gives me a chance to brag about my father, Leonid Hurwicz (leonidhurwicz.org), who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2007. I am working on a book about his life. Tadeusz Brzeski was a professor at the University of Warsaw when my father was there (1934-38). So I was trying to understand this article to get some idea about Brzeski's approach to economics.

I see you read German.

A little. But I use Google Translate fearlessly in all languages!

However, the German that is included above is just copied from Brzeski's article into the English translation, so no facility with the German language was required!.
mhurwicz   
18 Dec 2018
Language / Opinions on Google Translate for Polish [28]

My experience using Google Translate to get a basic idea of what a written document says has been pretty good, and I've learned some Polish in the process.

washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2016/10/03/google-translate-is-getting-really-really-accurate/ - This Washington Post article says pretty much what I would expect: It's not as good as a human translator, but it comes amazingly close!

To test the system, Google had human raters evaluate translations on a scale from 0 to 6. Translating from English to Spanish, the new Google tool's translation was rated an average of 5.43; human translators earned an average of 5.5. For Chinese to English, the only public-facing option that currently utilizes the new system, Google Translate was rated an average of 4.3 while human translators got 4.6.

I'd be interested in what others have experienced, using Google Translate for Polish.
mhurwicz   
18 Dec 2018
Language / Opinions on Google Translate for Polish [28]

It's an amazingly useful tool if you know how to use it properly.

Is there a good guide somewhere to its proper use?
mhurwicz   
20 Dec 2018
History / Significance of signing registers of students (interwar) [2]

I wasn't sure whether to put this in history or education, but since it pertains to the interwar period, I decided on history.

I read in this article about "ghetto benches":

Roman Rybarski, a professor at Warsaw University refused to sign the registers of the students who stood during lectures in protest against the assignment of separate seats for Jews.

academia.edu/37579016/_Ghetto_Benches_at_Polish_Universities._Ideology_and_Practice

My question is, what is the significance of not signing the registers? I am in the US, and the terminology of "registers of the students" is not familiar to me. Is it something showing that they had attended class on a particular day, or for a particular semester?
mhurwicz   
26 Dec 2018
Language / Opinions on Google Translate for Polish [28]

I think a good analogy might be that Google Translate is like someone who knows a target language well enough to translate fairly effectively most of the time, but still makes gross mistakes somewhat frequently. However, a listener fluent in the target language will almost always detect those mistakes: The listener may not know what the speaker intends, but will know that what was said in the target language makes little or no sense in the context, and can investigate to find out what was actually said or meant in the source language.

For example, "You can make book on that; it's a sure thing." --> Możesz zrobić książkę na ten temat; to pewna rzecz.

Google Translate has mistranslated two idiomatic phrases, but a Polish speaker is probably going to realize that something is wrong here and could investigate to find out what was intended.

Similarly, if I use Google Translate to translate, say, wiercić komuś dziurę w brzuchu, and I get "to drill a hole in the stomach," it doesn't create misunderstanding. It simply becomes an occasion for investigation and further learning.

"a bet" (as in "I'll make book on that.")

By the way, "make book" refers to the bookie's side of the operation, not the action of the people who place the bets.

"When he makes his book on a race, he sets the odds on each runner so that the money he receives in bets should exceed the amount he will have to pay out whatever the result of the race."

phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/30/messages/2172.html
mhurwicz   
20 Jan 2019
Language / Opinions on Google Translate for Polish [28]

A long but good article on machine translation:

cairn.info/revue-francaise-de-linguistique-appliquee-2003-2-page-99.htm
mhurwicz   
2 Mar 2019
Language / Meaning of zrewanżować in this context [4]

On this postcard: leonidhurwicz.org/postcard-from-kaunas/

There is this sentence:

Jak wiadomo - to tylko ja jestem specjalista od odczytywania nie czytanego pisma, jak np. Twoje - a Ty nawet nie chcesz się zrewanżować.

I think I get the general sense of it:

As known - it's just me I am a specialist in reading an unread letter, such as yours - and you do not even want to (do anything at all).

In other words, "I even decipher your meaning when you don't write to me, while you can't be bothered to do anything at all."

Is that basically correct? Or what is the meaning of zrewanżować in this context?
mhurwicz   
2 Mar 2019
Language / Meaning of zrewanżować in this context [4]

@Nathans
Thank you!
So the sense would be, "I read your illegible letters, but you don't seem to want to read my illegible letters. (Which I'm deducing from the fact that you never answer me.)"

??
mhurwicz   
6 Jun 2019
Language / The rule determining pronunciation of " sprawdź " in the Polish language [3]

I am a native English speaker trying to learn Polish. When I hear " sprawdź " pronounced, it sounds like the "w" is like an "f" and the "dź" is like a "ch". But pronunciation guides say "w" is pronounced like "v" except before voiceless consonants, where it may be pronounced as "f". But the guides say "dź" is somewhat similar to the "g" in "gene" which to me is a voiced consonant. What is the rule determining pronunciation of " sprawdź " ? Thank you!
mhurwicz   
10 Jun 2019
Language / Pronunciation question: ę at the end of a sentence [5]

I think the ę at the end of sentence should not, or at least need not, be nasalized. But in this instructional video:

youtu.be/WPt8Fn8TLZc

At around 5 minutes in, he very distinctly nasalizes the final ę in these sentences:

Chciałbym zamówić kawę
Chciałbym zamówić herbatę

Just wanting to confirm that this is not preferred? Or at least not required? That what's grammatically acceptable is just a little bit of nasal sound. However, I as a foreigner trying to learn the language should probably just avoid the nasalization completely?
mhurwicz   
13 Jun 2019
Language / "Pan" or "Ty" - how people address each other in Poland? [55]

Merged:

Asking questions in a shop, would you use "pan / pani" ?



In this video: youtu.be/WPt8Fn8TLZc he gives examples such as "Czy masz lustro na sprzedaż?" (Do you have a mirror for sale?) To be polite, would it be preferable to use a construction with pan / pani?