I would have thought that as the party is going to be a 'one off', and in the future, that therefore the perfective zabawić się sounds correct in this instance.
I sometimes struggled with "Będę iść na operę (na pracę)." vs. "Pójdę na operę." etc... My Polish teacher told me the latter is better Polish, so I took/take her word for it-:)
Look forward to any further native speaker suggestions or comments, of course!
To express future, why not just something like "(jutro) idę na..."? Isn't iść a verb where you usually use the "normal present tense" to express something in the future?
I'm not entirely certain. I'm also not too clear whether it's always "Idę DO.." or "NA...pracę". As with any language with prepositions, their usage it seems takes a foreigner a dog's age to master.
WOOF-WOOF!!-:) LOL Still howling forth (..while trying to learn something)!
"Jutro" isn't a bad solution though)))))
Din polska ar ju valdigt bra! Ar du antligen polsk eller svensk?
And now an aspect usage question: Is the correct sentence "Zabawiłem się wczoraj" (just that once) vs. "Bawiłem się latem na urlopie....." (all the time)???
It's a primitive question, I realize, but I'm merely trying to get some final clarity on this point-:)))
isn't really a good example... native speakers or ppl with a good Polish will make fun of u because of that.
just take a look at Peter's examples lol awesome stuff though lol
you could just say 'Bawilem sie wczoraj...' which sounds 100 times better than 'zabawilem'. By adding yesterday after 'bawilem sie' it's obvious that you were having fun once.
I'm not entirely certain. I'm also not too clear whether it's always "Idę DO.." or "NA...pracę". As with any language with prepositions, their usage it seems takes a foreigner a dog's age to master.
I agree with you. The use of preposition in any language is a real challange. The Polish "do" versus "na" may be tricky; you never say "idę na pracę", but "idę do pracy". Another important example is "oglądać coś w telewizji" (never "na telewizji", although this may be proper among Polish Americans in Chicago). You say "idę na koncert", but "idę do kina/teatru". You say "idę do opery" with the meaning of spending the night in the opera, but you may say "idę na operę X" meaning a particular piece, just as you say "idę na sztukę X do teatru Y" or "idę na film Z do kina W". So generally in the above contexts, you use "na" meaning the performance, while you use "do" meaning a place where the performance takes place. Idę na przedstawienie do cyrku.
I sometimes struggled with "Będę iść na operę (na pracę)." vs. "Pójdę na operę." etc... My Polish teacher told me the latter is better Polish, so I took/take her word for it-:)
I'm a little amazed that the aspect of the verb may cause so many problems to non-native speakers of Polish. Having never analyzed the problem before, what comes to my mind is that the perfective aspect expresses the attitude of the speaker towards the result of an activity he performs/is performing, while the imperfective aspect underlines his need to express the continuity.
In your example, you can say: "Jak będę szedł na operę (przedstawienie), wstąpię po ciebie"; here you underline the continuity of the action using the imperfective aspect. In "Pójdę na przedstawienie (operę), jeśli uda mi się kupić bilet" you are describing the result of your action. Typically you will not say: "Będę szedł na przedstawienie, jeśli uda mi się kupić bilet", although - strangely enough - this sentence is perfectly correct; such an utterance will depend on the specific context and the attitude of the speaker in the given circumstances.
Many thanks to Ziemowit for clarifying my query (...as well as for confirming my belief that the issue IS indeed tricky for foreigner learners!!!) and to the rest of you native/fluent bilingual Polish speakers out there who offered their observations-:)
As one who teaches almost three or four foreign languages (one of them is not Polish, don't worry LOL!!), I well understand the perplexing issues language students often face.
Cheers! Marek P.
Not that it concerns the above, as this is a Polish language forum, but it appears to me that the confusion between "na" vs. "do" in the the above examples resembles the confusion among non-German speakers as regards the usage of "in", "auf ","an" and "zu" in German, where, what might even sound close to English, is grammaticallyincorrect and/or contextually misleading in German: 'Ich gehe ZUM Kino.' =I'm going to the cinema (.. though not necessarily inside - wrong German!) vs. 'Ich gehe INS or "in das" Kino.' = I'm going to the cinema (..logically enough, in order to watch the film, and the only correct way to say it).
In English, it's simply "I'm going TO the cinema.", no misunderstanding possible, cf. Polish 'Idę DO kina.', the sole possibility, I believe-:)
It does, gumishu. Odd though, that depsite my several years of Polish study, I'd completely forgotten the apparently common structure 'Idę pod..'-:)
Is is idiomatic? If I literally translate it, well, I guess I oughtn't. Gosh "pod" does have lots of different applications in Polish now, doesn't it. LOL
pod kinem - next to a/the cinema, by a/the cinema, pod kino - (in)to the vicinity of a/the cinema
W drodze do szkoły codziennie przechodzę pod kinem.
pod Kołem - in vicinity of Koło (a town in the middle of Poland), pod Koło - (in)to the vicinity of Koło
of course the most basic meaning of pod is under - pod stołem, pod stół - under a/the table - pod stół used when you move something (or yourself) under the table
there are some idiomatic structures - 'pod kluczem' for example ('locked')
'pogoda pod psem' - nasty weather literally under a dog
And now an aspect usage question: Is the correct sentence "Zabawiłem się wczoraj" (just that once) vs. "Bawiłem się latem na urlopie....." (all the time)???
When it comes to the past tense I have seen that it's not as simple as the future tense regarding perfective/imperfective. There are several factors to pay attention too. I don't remember all of them. But there is a pretty good explaination, in one of the first chapters, of the book "301 Polish Verbs".
And prepositions seldom corresponds well when translating between languages.
Din polska ar ju valdigt bra! Ar du antligen polsk eller svensk?
Thanks. I'm 100% Swedish. And my Polish is not that good. There are still many basic expressions I can't translate into Polish.
Jag kan svenska mycket battre an polska, men polska ar enklare att uttala for en utlanning an svenska, tycker jag. Polskan har en ljudskriftmassig alfabet, svenskan icke.
I know Swedish much better than Polish, yet Polish is easier for a foreigner to pronounce than Swedish, I think. Polish has a phonetic alphabet, Swedish hasn't (..although the latter could be roundly debated-:)-:) ).
Szwedwpolsce, how did you become interested in Polish? My reason's rather simple; my business clients were mostly non-English-speaking Poles, whose German wasn't even that great, so I HAD TO learn their language.
For a Swede, I suppose, the question might be to myself 'Why did you ever bother learning Swedish when almost everybody speaks English?' The reason's also fairly simple, if a bit more personal. Having grown up with two Germanic languages practically as mother tongues, German and English, I decided after French and Spanish to learn other languages in a related family. I found Swedish practical in a different way from either Polish or German. Many significant companies in Europe as well as in N.A. are Swedish, particularly the car producers, of course-:) I also found that while many Swedes DO speak English, it's often not as fluent as I would have thought or preferred. Therefore, I found I frequently spoke Swedish more fluently than the average Scandinavian whom I met spoke English.
#23 Szwedwpolsce, how did you become interested in Polish?
I live (most of the year) and study (in English) in Poland.
I found I frequently spoke Swedish more fluently than the average Scandinavian whom I met spoke English.
Then you should be proud. Swedes were ranked #1 by the EU as the best English speakers in Europe (except native speakers).
Polish has a phonetic alphabet, Swedish hasn't
Yes, the pronunciation (Swedish) is very difficult because one letter or combination of letters can be pronounced in very many different ways, and it's often unpredictable. In Polish it's pretty easy to predict how a word is pronounced by looking at the letters in the word. For learning Swedish one can listen to native speakers and finally one will feel how the word should be pronounced. Everyone can do that.
Much appreciated your timely and detailed response, Szwedwpolsce! You mentioned you're studying in English in Poland?? How oddly interesting. What pray are you studying and why in English, save for at an international university, such as the Program for Foreigners at the Catholic University in Lublin or the Jagiełłoń University in Kraków? Are your professors native English speakers, perhaps from the UK, the States or Canada so as you can practice your English skills? Depends on the subject, I suppose.
Jeg ser din nasta mail emot och hoppas att faa veta annu mera over relationen mellan Sverige och Polen-:) Men paa svenska hellere per privat-mail, annars paa engelska, inte sant? LOL
Szwedwpolsce, I'm only curious (Jag ar aven nyficken.., Ciekawy jestem..) as to what you're studying in Poland. Your Forum-profile's also a bit unclear. Is it a state secret or something? LOL
I think I will write you a 'PM' (hmm, cute expression. It doesn't perchance mean 'private mail' now, does it? LOL)
You've definitely peaked (awoken) my curiosity, Szwedwpolsce:-)
I knew you meant that you weren't studying English, but that you were obviously taking courses IN English. By the way, I was encouraged to see that in many countries, Sweden in the forefront, incidentally, numerous foreigner (including from Nigeria!) teach university courses in both Swedish as well as English.
My brief time there suggested that your level of language education is exceptionally high, including in the more rarified realm of Swedish as a Foreign Language aka 'Swedish For Foreigners'. The exchange students whom I met in Gothenberg long ago, spoke an excellent Swedish, as far as I could tell.
You've definitely peaked (awoken) my curiosity, Szwedwpolsce:-)
I think only members can send PMs (not PMS... hehe). Anyway, I think you should register.
Maybe it's not that interesting. But since you're asking. Actually I haven't taken any English course since I was in High School. But I do study medicine (in English), that's enough for the moment. So now you know what I'm doing in Poland. I also "study" Polish, but I have never taken any course.
Med vänliga hälsningar från (för tillfället) Sverige [transl: Best regards... bla bla.]
How thoughtless of us, Ziemowit-:) Głupstwo, bardzo nam przykro. Uczcie się szwedskiego, drodzy adminystratory!!! £atwiej jest niż polski (...tylko nie tak praktyczny jak angielski))))
