Perfective vs Imperfective - grammar

Yes it does, because you probably used English language more than Polish with going to school etc, so Polish may well have become an almost 'secondary' language to you over time because you would have been constantly thinking in English, if you get what I mean. Plus, there's that saying that if you don't use it you lose it. At least to some degree.


You'll probably find it will all come back and get easier now you're living in Poland, especially talking to the locals. Give it some time and it will be back to native level again. I did read once that Polish is a language that takes longer than average to become fluent from birth, compared with English for example, and you would have been learning English at the same time.

That makes a lot of sense. To be truly bilingual you would have to have from the early age a private tutor who would know how to help you to deal with learning two languages at once (or to live one year in Poland, one year in Britain for the crucial period for development of your linguists abilities that is between three and sixteen). (Rather acquiring than learning) What happened to you is fairly typical. You unconsciously and naturally acquired the lingo of your surroundings and only regained ability to understand language of your parents.

I have no idea about grammar in any language. I have never attended schools and all that. However you can always ask me questions.
myć and umyć means something else, while I have no idea what pomyćmeans.

Chemikiem , Ironside

Thanks guys ,Just rying to absorb what you have said , which is most helpful.

You didn't go to school?


Thanks!


Well, I thought it meant to wash up, as in doing the dishes, but maybe I have got it wrong :(

Można pomyć naczynia zdecydowanie - You can definitely pomyć the dishes


umyję naczynia is definitely not wrong - but it is often not the word of choice

I did get something right then :-)


Is it wrong in the context of washing dishes?

Maybe you mean pozmywać? Wash up(British English).
Myć - you cannot translate it into English.
myć naczynia -wash the dishes
myć podlogę - mop the floor
myć się - wash oneself
myć zęby - brush teeth
-----
umyć - to wash the dishes
- and so on
---
Sorry that is the best I can do. Ask questions.
--


ja


What? that makes no sense.

Nah, only Lyzko deserves that ;D


We can always try you out in the "Po polsku" section of the forum :)


You could try to practice here on PF, I'm sure people would help you out.


Not really, people use this word too. I would say it's the case of coloquial Polish (umyję) vs. correct, "proper" Polish (pozmywam).


Wow, I have a sixth sense or sth :D


"Pozmywać" is a word kind of "reserved" precisely for washing dishes, while you can use "umyć" for basically everything, except for laundry.

But it happens that people use "umyć" colloquially in case of washing dishes too.


You can use it in such cases:

- Pomyję trochę naczyń, a potem obejrzę film. (I'll wash some dishes and then I'll watch a film.)

Lazy Husband :): - Wiadomości się zaczęły! (The news are on!)
Wife: - Zaraz przyjdę, pomyję tylko trochę naczyń! (I'll be right there, I'll just wash some dishes!)

It kind of implies a little that she won't wash all the dishes, just some, hence "pomyję" and not "umyję" ("u-" usually implies sth finished and "po-" the opposite). But one could use "umyję" in this context too (colloquially).

Again, it's coloquial Polish but it's possible to use it in this context.

No. You can't. It's "pozmywam" in both cases.Period. The word "trochę" implies action wont be finished.

Pozmywam trochę naczyń, a potem obejrzę film.

Lazy Husband :): - Wiadomości się zaczęły! (The news are on!)
Wife: - Zaraz przyjdę, pozmywam tylko trochę naczyń! (I'll be right there, I'll just wash some dishes!)

Pomyję can easily be used, but this is regionalism, it's not "proper" polish.

@majkel
Definitely not used in so called High Polish or Western Poland where i come from.

NoToForeigners, as I already wrote pretty clearly this is a coloquial usage, not correct, proper, "standard", or, as you put it, "High" Polish. This is not what people are taught at school, obviously, but people may use it like this anyway, so I think it's always good when foreigners are aware of some coloquial uses too and when it's explained to them that although some native speakers may use this word in this or that way it isn't necessarily the correct, "proper" Polish.

I don't think there's a country where 100% of population use only the "literary" version of their language so I think it's better when learners know what thay can face when they'll get in contact with live language on the ground.


Yes, that's the correct, proper Polish, but I'm pretty sure that it happens that people use also "umyję". I don't know if it's only a colloquialism or also a regionalism - gumishu and majkel would have to tell us where they're from in Poland or where did they hear it being used :)

I myself will try to remember to pay attention next time and observe whether people also use "umyję" (I'm pretty sure I've heard it) :)

"Pomyję" would be more rare and even more colloquial in my opinion, but it doesn't mean people don't use it (at least where I live).


So? One doesn't exclude the other - it's Polish, not English.

Btw, this is not PWN dictionary, but still:

sjp.pl/pomyj%C4%99

pomyć

umyć, oczyścić z brudu wiele rzeczy, osób lub zwierząt (to wash, clean from dirt many objects, people or animals)

That's not how I would understand it myself (washing many things) but, who knows, maybe people use it in such a way too (definitely not in my region though).

@Paulina
I think it depends on the region people are from. I used the term "High Polish" not to describe some superlative form of Polish but to describe region of Poland that is called High Poland. In the west of Poland we have no dialects at all and we communicate in what i like to call "pure Polish" (hence High Polish). To me and my friends word "pomyć" doesnt look proper.

I didn't. That was the verb that Gumishu brought up in post #89 when he was talking about exceptions to the rule for Perfective/Imperfective future tense pairs. This was what confused me.


That has surprised me!


I just understood it as meaning 'to wash'.


OK, thanks Paulina, so it's just an informal way of saying the same thing then.


I'll remember that then. So Pomyć shouldn't be used? There is where I am now confused as Gumishu said " You can definitely Pomyć the dishes ". Or is it a case of how and where it is written in a sentence?

Apart from being interesting, it's all quite amusing because without fail Poles never seem to agree on their language! Guess that's the complexity of it......


Aha, now I understand, hadn't read the whole post.


I think it is the same with most languages. People rarely speak in the way found in grammar books. I probably know more colloquial Polish from speaking with friends tbh.

Only a note for any who are not yet Polish speakers, but "myć" is the imperfective of "umyć" and it means generically "to clean" contrasted with the verb

"prać" [NO relation with "pracować" = to work!], meaning "to dry clean" as in "to clean chemically":-)

Interesting derivations: "myć" = clean, mydło = soap (the thing which cleans or makes clean). "Prać" = to dry clean or LAUNDER, "pralka" = washing machine, "pralnia" = "wash house" i.e. "laundry".

:-)

sjp.pwn.pl/doroszewski/pomyc;5476984.html
sjp.pwn.pl/sjp/pomyc;2504411.html

nothing about regional, just colloquial.

Also there is no "High Poland" region or dialect, and no "pure Polish" , just so called "standard Polish".

My teacher called it "czysta mowa" or "pure language".
But she was from the former LwówLOL

God knows if i am on the right thread to ask this question tell me if not.

Why do people use the word toaleta nowadays, when I was taught to use the word ustęp for toilet, anything to do with high or low Polish ?

Farmer, peasent or aristocrat ?

IINM ustęp now usually refers to an outhouse. If it's indoors with running water it's a toaleta.

Means any kind of laundry not only chemical or dry clean. When you put your clothes in a washer it's 'prac' as well.


No one uses ''ustep' nowadays. For me ustep is like outside toilet in the old days when you had a wooden shed for toilet.

That's interesting we had an outhouse and a toilet indoors, my parents used umywalka for indoor bathroom, they were both farmers, so i suppose they may only of had an outhouse on their farms in Poland.

An equally modern term is ubikacja, but toaleta is more readily comprehensible to mutli-national vistors, tourists, passengers, etc. Used to be in the US the term restrooms was used in passneger terminals, stations and suchlike, but that was confusing to foreigners.

"I don't want to rest, I have to take a cr*p!"
In Poland, waiters, receptionists, cloakroom attendants and otehr hospitlaity-industry staff , etc. undertsnad toilets but generally have a blank expression when they hear gents, lavatory or loo.

The outhouse is also called a wygódka and sławojka. The latter was named after a pre-war minister who launched an outhouse-building campaign.

Thank you for the addendum, Lenka, as always:-)))

That has... institutional connotations to me, do Polish people talk about ubikacja in their homes? Not sure what native speakers would say.....


Also in Polish toaleta refers to the room and not the thing you sit on (as the word toilet does in the US) which is sedes in Polish.

It took me some time to get used to asking if there was a toaleta, since in US English asking where the toilet is would be really crude. I kept telling myself that they're just false friends but it wasn't that easy.... And I imagine most Poles would not understand "Excuse me, I have to go talk to a man about a horse"....

WC (wu ce) is also still used in Poland though I don't think the term was ever common in the US. Lavatory (to me) has connotations of transport, it's what you'd find on a train or plane.


And wychodek... (from wychodzić - to leave, exit)

Which brings me to another question, where did the symbol O for female and a triangle for male toilets originate.

Our local town has just built a new toilet block using those old symbols, it is going to confuse the hell out of most tourists.

Confused me too in the beginning, until I began thinking structuraly...... then it was easy to remember.

Please explain , I, cant see it

I suppose you would typically use "łazienka" in Poland when both the man and the horse are in the same room which is still the case in many flats in Poland. When the man and the horse are in separate rooms, one would be called 'łazienka' and for the other both ubikacja [less elegant] or toaleta [more elegant] should be fine, I think.

The very colloqial form which nobody has mentioned so far, but which is frequently used is 'kibel'. 'Muszę iść do kibla' is the phrase, but honestly I have never heard anyone asking: 'Przepraszam, gdzie tutaj jest kibel?' in a more formal situation.

The inverted triangle is the broad shoulders and tapering waist of a he-man

The circle is a........

Or.... both are very stylized drawings of human plumbing.... for number one at least

Or.... to be less crude, men have sharp edges, women have curves....