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Posts by Zooey  

Joined: 4 May 2013 / Female ♀
Last Post: 22 Sep 2014
Threads: Total: 4 / In This Archive: 4
Posts: Total: 8 / In This Archive: 5

Speaks Polish?: No

Displayed posts: 9
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Zooey   
30 Sep 2014
Language / Some suggestions for Polish soft consonants and difficult word pronunciations [17]

Polish phonology has plenty of similarities to French phonology, don't you agree? Polish, and perhaps Czech and Slovakian, too, have nasal vowels that are not found in modern Russian, Ukrainian or Belorussian. Also, there are several French loan words that have made their way into Polish, which concludes that French is much more closer to Polish than was previously admitted.
Zooey   
24 Sep 2014
Language / Some suggestions for Polish soft consonants and difficult word pronunciations [17]

I am having some difficult with Polish phonology, particularly the soft alveolo-palatal sounds ń, ś, ź, ć, dź. Also, I am having trouble with the letter z and ż in Polish, especially in front of words like: z Francji, w Londynie, etc. I'm often obliged to say jkra for w Krakowieeven when I should pronounce it like fkra. I am having problems because English doesn't have a complex system of soft and hard consonants like Polish, which is part of the Proto-Slavic language family.

Sometimes I think that some consonants are palatalized, but that doesn't appear to be the case in Polish, as it is in Russian.

Now, do you have any tips for speaking these difficult words (tongue twisters for me):

Wziąć

Wziąść

Dopełniacz

Narzędnik

Miejscownik
Zooey   
23 Sep 2014
Language / Imperfective verb question [9]

Ok, but before I get more confused, can I ask you another question? What is the conditional form of the imperfective verb mean? Does it mean that if A happens, B might happen? I know about the past and future forms of imperfective verbs, but I don't know how to form them into coherent sentences.

You tell me that przeczytać is the perfective of czytać (to read). What happens to być in a sentence with przeczytać? Does być change to reflect the present tense? I am trying to tell someone that I'm currently reading a book, but I haven't finished it yet. I thought that I should use przeczytać to express this fact.
Zooey   
23 Sep 2014
Language / Imperfective verb question [9]

So the perfective forms of verbs can't be used to describe the present tense? The imperfective form of verbs cannot be used for the past or the future tense, only the perfective?
Zooey   
22 Sep 2014
Language / Imperfective verb question [9]

Hello, everyone in cyberspace.

I have a question about imperfective verbs. I know that you can form an imperfective verb to express something that's in the process of being done in the present only, so I have a few questions about the rules governing those verb tenses. Many Poles put a suffix before a verb; for example, the verb pić changes to wypić in the imperfective tense.

1.) How do you know what suffix to put before a verb? For example, how do you know that czytać becomes przeczytać?

2.) Do imperfective verbs describe things that occur occasionally, frequently, or not enough?
Zooey   
29 May 2013
History / Communal living in Poland [5]

In 1992, I visited Russia in order to visit my aunt. She is from Minsk, Belarus, and her father was a Belorussian nationalist (surprise, surprise, they exist!). She lived in a Kommunalka in St. Petersburg, a communal flat that houses six or seven families, all sharing one kitchen and toilet. And she still lives there, although most tenants own their own rooms, and the older Kommualkas are being demolished to make room for single-room apartments with modern amenities.

Since I have never visited Poland, I was wondering if Warsaw still has Kommunalkas from the Communist years. If so, what are they like inside? Are they as cramped and dimly-lit as the Kommunalkas in St. Petersburg? My aunt's Kommunalka flat was once a hotel for the prosperous, aristocrats. The building, I think, still has chandeliers and door cravings from the late 19th, early 20th century. The revolution in 1917 forced the aristocrats to give up their luxury flats in order to house the "proles" streaming into the city in search of work and food. There are indications on the ceiling of where a wall divided two families. The bathrooms are small, too.
Zooey   
20 May 2013
Travel / Museums in Warsaw [8]

Two months would certainly allow you the opportunity to travel outside of ther capital - that obviously depends on your time commitments,etc.

I am also going to Krakow and and Upper Silesia too (I am obsessed about the 1919-1921 uprisings there), but I don't know if the museums have bilingual signs, as do some in Warsaw and Wroclaw. I am taking some Polish classes now, but I don't have a solid grasp of the innumerable cases.
Zooey   
16 May 2013
Travel / Museums in Warsaw [8]

I'm staying for two months, at most. I really enjoy reading about Polish history and culture because those two subjects are so interesting and fun to learn about. It's unfortunate that there are not very many English language Polish history books besides, of course, Norman Davies' and Anita Prazmowska's books. Anita Prazmowska wrote about the Polish civil war and British-Polish relations before and during World War II. I believe she's a credible Anglo-Polish historian, although not as well known as the Welsh Norman Davies.
Zooey   
15 May 2013
Travel / Museums in Warsaw [8]

Hello everyone,

I am going to be visiting Warsaw this summer and was wondering if anyone knows any interesting historical museums that I could visit. I am interested in Polish history, as well as Poland's role in World War I and II.