Too many English words in the Polish language!

Johnny'ego Deppa is laugh out loud funny.

And ridiculous.

But it's the correct form. Pronounce it "Dżonego Depa" or "Dżoniego Depa", it's up to your preferences.

I hang my head in abject shame for speaking such a ridiculous and backward language with a laugh out loud funny inflection system. :->

Magdalena, are you Polish or Czech?

Why? It's the Polish language grammar system. There is nothing to laugh.

A laugh is when an English speaking person pronounce Lech Wałęsa like Lek Valesa or £olesa! The same thing with Kościuszko. When I heard "Kozijuszko" for first time I haven't had an idea who is it ;)


it wuld be grammatically incorrect to not do those "silly" declensions.

For Polish person "silly" would sound if you say: "Dziennikarka przeprowadziła wywiad z Johnny Depp"...

50% each ;-)

Maaarysia wrote:


Maybe not for you. I find it funny. Just like I find some things in English funny.

Maaarysia wrote:


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.

Maaarysia wrote:


There's a fundamental difference between that and someone butchering Johnny Depp. When someone says Kosciuszko from say America, you struggle to understand it due to poor pronounciation. But, when you start adding 'ego's and owi's and random a's onto people's names, they don't understand it because you literally did not say their name. The first time my mother in law said "John'ego Deppa", I didn't understand what she was saying, even the 2nd time she said it. As a matter of fact, I didn't even know she was saying a name. If she had said it but with just bad pronounciation, I would have gotten it right away.

As a native Polish speaker - I completely agree with you. I actually had one or two problems once during extraction of original spellings from a page full of inflected foreign names. They were lesser known names, but thanks to internet I finally succeeded, I hope. If I had a power of effecting people's minds and habits I would suggest to live the surnames and geographical names alone; no inflection please.

Italian version of "Giovanni Sebastiano Bach" probably looks as funny in Polish eyes as the Polish phrase "z Janem Sebastianem Bachem" in Italian. I do not recall what the current grammatical rules say about using something of this sort: "na rzece Wisła", "w mieście London w prowincji Ontario", "ze wsi Warszawa" but long ago this used to be a proper alternative - avoiding inflections and preserving original names.

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?

And all of the sentences below are correct, too!
To jest Marylin Monroe.
Nie ma Merylin Monroe.
Robię kawę Merylin Monroe.
Widzę Merylin Monroe.
Mówię o Merylin Monroe.
Rozmawiam z Merylin Monroe.
Merylin Monroe, przyjdź tu!

Don't mock me, I might become angry! >:[
jk

In Czech it is worse.I became familiar there with Cindy Crawfordova,Klaudia Schifferova and Naomi Kabelova,ceske modelky always rule.

revue.idnes.cz/cindy-crawfordova-se-opalovala-naha-d6h-/missamodelky.aspx?c=A070731_125312_missamodelky_off

And this is how we do not declense the name of the actor Bruce Lee:

To jest brusli
Nie ma brusliego
Robię kawę brusliemu
Widzę brusliego
Mówię o bruslim
Rozmawiam z bruslim
Brusli, cho no tu ;-)
Nie ma czegoś takiego jak brusliowie
Nie ma bruslich!
Nie widzę żadnych bruslich
Nie mówię o bruslich, bo ich nie ma
Nie rozmawiam z bruslimi bo nie istnieją
Brusliowie, Was nie ma! ;-)))))))))))))))))))))

This never was an alternative - apart from post WW2 communist newspeak, that is. There is no justification for redundant phrases like "w mieście Warszawa" or "w miesiącu listopadzie" (both constructions are abominable).

Proper names should be inflected, foreign or not, in accordance with the rules of Polish grammar. End of.


It's much worse than that. See, if e.g. a Russian woman is called Karpova (the wife of Mr Karpov), then even though her surname already has the female ending, Czech grammar requires that another "ova" is added onto that, creating - Mrs Karpovova ;-)

(I am not making this up).

Koala wrote:


Two things.

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

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.

Imagine a conversation in Poland with Johnny Depp, Meryl Streep and a Pole:

"How come he messed with your name but not mine?"

"Oh, that's because you're a woman. We'll just call you by your actual name. Johnny though? Yeah, he can expect to hear it spoken at least 7 different ways."

Oops - I forgot to translate the following text. It discusses some ways of using compound names in Polish.

Poradnia językowa PWN,
poradnia.pwn.pl/lista.php?id=571

Jak to jest z tą odmianą nazw miast? Mówi się Prezydent Miasta Rybnika lub ...Raciborza, ale co z innymi miastami?
Prezydent Miasta Katowic czy ...Katowice? Prezydent Miasta Jastrzębie Zdrój czy ...Jastrzębia Zdroju? - tych miast, co do których mam wątpliwości, jest jeszcze kilka: Będzin, Ruda Śląska, Sosnowiec, Wodzisław Śląski, Bytom, Knurów, Rydułtowy. Jakie tu rządzą zasady pisowni? Dzięki za odpowiedź.

Nie ma tu sztywnej reguły, ale zwykle oba człony - miasto i jego nazwa - są odmieniane: Prezydent Miasta Warszawy (Krakowa, Katowic, Bielska-Białej). Pozostawienie nazwy miasta w mianowniku nie jest błędem, ale nadaje wypowiedzi charakter urzędowy. Gdy nie wiemy, jak nazwa miasta się odmienia, zwyczaj taki może być nawet użyteczny.

Wyrazistsza reguła rządzi nazwami rzek (np. most na rzece Wiśle, nie ...na rzece Wisła) i nazwami stacji kolejowych (tu na odwrót: postój na stacji Koluszki, nie ...na stacji Koluszkach).

- Mirosław Bańko

So please, go easy on me, and step down from your high horse.

That's an official title and official newspeak. Nobody would say "mieszkam w mieście Warszawa" or "wczoraj rozmawiałem z prezydentem miasta Bolesławca" in an informal context unless they were being extremely pompous ;-)


And you actually shot yourself in the foot there. I would always say "most na Wiśle" as "most na rzece Wiśle" is redundant (Wisła is a river, and you cannot have a bridge on anything but a river anyway), but at least they confirm you can't go down the "most na rzece Wisła" route.


Examples, please?

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.


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.

What about Bruce Lee? We declense his first but not last name. Why?

Hell if I know :D

Because his name sounds like Brus Li to us, and it's easy to find an inflection pattern for Brus but not that easy to find a pattern for Li :-)

Love it haha :)

"Most na rzece Kwai"? Do you have any problem with it? "Most na Kwaju?". It boils down to familiarity with a name. The well known proper names become polonized in nominative, like Londyn, or Monachium (Mniszkowo); the less known names, like Winnipeg stay as they are, without distortion. All I suggested was not to subject them to a torture of declensions.

And how do you know that I do not say "na Wiśle" in my regular day-to-day conversations? I was theorizing and suggesting possible alternative. But I hope you saw, and not conveniently ignored, the "if we do not know how to decline a city name, such habit [of using nominative] could be useful" part.

Little statistics:
"na rzece Hudson" - google, 121,000 results
"na Hudsonie" - google, 592 results

Ale na pewno "na Tamizie". "Czy w Liverpoolu, czy w Londynie."

And all I said was that they should inflected according to the rules of Polish grammar. Therefore - most na rzece Kwai, as we do not inflect names such as Kwai. But we can easily inflect the name Winnipeg - "mieszkam w Winnipegu". If we really need to stress that Winnipeg is a province, then we can say "w prowincji Winnipeg". Nobody ever claimed that every foreign proper name has to be inflected the same way in Polish.

What raised my hackles was your "miasto Warszawa / rzeka Wisła" example, as such usage is (forgive me) ugly, as well as being pompous and smacking of old-school communist "bureaucratese".

Yes. As I said above - a question of familiarity with a proper name.

A phrase "do London w Ontario" (google: 68) sounds OK, "do Londonu w Ontario" (48) - a bit worse, "do Londonu w Ontariu" does not even register.

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

"Kapela ze wsi Warszawa" :-)

This only means more problems for foreigners learning Polish. I think the only way to get a real grasp on any language is to live in given country long enough.


One of reasons (not the only one) I hate them.

London (not Londyn) and Ontario are not inflected in Polish anyway, so "London w (prowincji) Ontario" it is. All in accordance with Polish grammatical rules. On the other hand, the equally "unfamiliar" name Luanda (capital city of Angola) is inflected normally e.g. w Luandzie, do Luandy. It has got everything to do with grammar and nothing really to do with familiarity.