Speaking with wrong Polish case endings?

think this is my problem. i know now that isc is only used to go on foot somewhere. ide do sklepu for example. this is difficult for me to understand. in english its totally different. its just so frustrating!! :)


now you have made my day strzyga, oops pomylilam sie, bo teraz jest rano i nie wieczorem! it wasnt an easy conversation for me because i find it harder to understand people on the phone. just pleased she understood me !! expect grammar wrong again, but thanks for all your support. its nice to have so many friendly people on this site

But so many people including very educated ones say byLIśmy, I sometimes think I'm missing something if I don't do as the Romans (so to speak). BYliśmy comes more naturally to me (since that's what I first learned) but I worry it makes me sound too priggish.

At least I don't say 'se' even though I had a friend who was always saying things like "Se kupię..."

.... though I do tend to say 'jest do góry' a local thing I was warned against saying (but which I somehow picked up instead...)

heh Pam - I was not able to understand people on the phone at all initially in England and I have studied English for 7 years before - actually it is not said enough - I may be repeating myself here but when I arrived in London in 2001 when a first Londoner turned to me I was not able to pick up a single word (and it's not that he spoke some very odd Cockney accent) I was able to pick a single word 'flat' after he repeated - the thing is he did not mean 'a flat' but 'a flat tyre' and he was looking for some help which only emerged after he spoke slow and clear - I was actually willing to help him but after so much trouble getting across to me he just gave up on my help ;)

having said that I actually never had trouble picking up words pronounced with the Received Pronounciation (of course when I knew the words or could figure out what they meant) which is often called 'Oxford English' in Poland and is the language of the British television news (we used to watch SKY News for our lessons of English occasionally)

I think, pam, that the way of yours is better way of learning a language. I remember when my English teacher in school gave us as a homework to learn by heart a whole text in English from our book, later she was checking if we learnt it and gave us marks. We were frustated about that and we asked why we should learn BY HEART some silly text?! She replied that's the proper way of learning languages. The point is if someone learn grammar only and focus on that he won't be able to put words together either way. It will take too much thinking. If you learn by heart expressions then they're always "ready" for the immedate use.

Funny thing - maybe I'm able to write a comment in English by myself but if you met me on the street I wouldn't be able to say a word in English! That's why now I'm starting learn English by learning full sentence by heart and I believe people who learn Polish also should do that.

This is so true. But grammar is needed to be aware of what you say and why you say it this way and not the other. For a Polish learner studying English it would be the awarness for using the definite or indefinite articles. Suppose you learn thousands of English text by heart - you still wouldn't be able to produce your own English phrases correctly if you don't know the rules governing the use of English articles, and that's grammar!

Another example is using the Present Perfect Tense by Polish learners, a tense for which ther is no equivalent in Polish. Someone who has learned hundreds of English phrases by heart might not even be incliined to use this tense when producing sentences of his own in English. Grammar is essential, but obviously it won't make you speak the language!

Of course, that's true. That's why I suggest to read about grammar first, then learn by heart all the examples given in the text books.

Having studied Second Language Aquisition I can agree that this was a waste of time for you students, and your teacher was a lazy ***

Obviously, not every text is worth learning by heart, but learning by heart (or better say, repetition) is essential for acquiring a second language. That way you build a quick-access resource to which you can reach when speaking ...

So what is the good way of learning, any tips?

Or, I think that at the Second Language Acquisition study they might have called it "memorizing language patterns" or something similar. I'm sure they must have something of the kind...

yes, like learning 'chunks' or phrases rather than words. e.g. 'ide do sklepu'
But learning whole passages by rote seems a lazy cop out on the side of the 'teacher'

a.k., I learned Polish 'contextually', that is, I forced my eyes and ears to focus on structures in use, through POLISH (not English!!!) closed-captioned TV broadcasts, movies etc.... Afteward, sometimes even while watching/listening in the beginning of my studies, I'd write everything down, relying on my memory to reinforce structures as well as vocabulary I'd already acquired.

It worked!

It probably wasn't the only method employed by this teacher and learning longer texts gives you a set of whole sentence structures ready at hand. The method certainly shouldn't be overused, but from the point of view of a learner is not bad at all. You need to practise your memory when learning a language anyway.

She wasn't a good teacher, that's a fact. We were doing elementary level for 2 years (2 x 45 min a week) and yet many pupils had problems with the very basics (however the fault laid also on the pupuls' attitude). But that's how teaching in Polish state schools looks like.


Exactly.


Did you managed to understand spoken Polish? I watch much of English tv and shows yet I understand only about half of what they are saying. I can't even check a word I don't understand because I don't hear it properly.

With this I wouldn't agree. Learning passages gives you more than learning chunks. You memorize how one sentence "flows out" of another, you memorize characteristic words or expressions that serve as "glue" in sticking particular sentences to form a logically contained passage. That helps you assimilate the language as a sort of interwoven entity rather than as a set of isolated phrases.

I did that during my stay in England without any inspiration from a teacher, just because I liked it, and because I noticed it was helping me a great deal in longer conversations with the English people at parties, dinners or other meetings. Without it, I'm sure my English would have lacked fluency understood here as an 'uninterrupted flow of speech with rythm and intonation characteristic for that language'.

To this very day (and more than 25 years passed on since that time) I remember, for example, entire passages from the satirical programme "Weekending" on BBC Radio 4, just like this one below:

People keep saying to me that our policies are wrong and derisive, and that they will wreck British industry... I know... But they are ever so brave! Now, we in the Conservative Party may be wrong, but we are wrong with much more courage than any other party! Certainly, the majority of my ministers disagree with my policies, but they don't say so in public. Bravery is a great attribute and thank God they haven't got it!

The passage shows how people argue their points, what linguistic means they use for developing their argument further (Now, we...), how they counter the adversary's argument (I know, but...) and so on. I also learned in that one logical context where to ommit articles ('bravery' used in a general sense as here; or 'British industry' as 'undefined and opened' reality as opposed to a 'specific entity treated as a whole' in which case the native speaker might perhaps be inclined to use the definite article: 'the British industry').

Well, a.k., I've honestly not the foggiest idea about your spoken English! I'm sure you're exposed to plenty, living in Europe. Your written English, though mostly comprehensible (like my Polish, for that matter) reveals many common errors. As to whether or not I managed to understand spoken Polish, the answer is my speaking still lags way behind my writing. I never require a 'translation' into German, but I'm sometimes slow to pick up a shaded nuance. Basic, everyday language though was never a problem.

OP wrote:


generally, poles are pretty blown away if a foreigner so much as utters 3 words in polish in the same sentence. don't know why that is, but it is. they also tend to reeeeally exaggerate a foreigner's polish speaking abilities, again, don't know why that is.

often times though, if you start hacking up the endings, they're gonna revert right to english because it probably gets pretty annoying listening to someone speaking completely mutilated polish.

i for one get totally lost when people don't use proper grammar in polish. i learned from the very beginning to speak grammatically correct, so much so that in the first 2 years I studied, i had near perfect grammar yet a miniscule word bank to choose from because i spent more time drilling cases than learning new words. in the end though, it enabled me to learn new words each week and easily decline them making the whole learning process that much more smooth.

grammar is king in polish. gotta learn it. not only will you be more understood but you'll understand 100 times more when people speak.

I know. I'm only b2 level. But I'm glad that it is at least comprehensible. :)


Polish people appreciate the efford that someone wants to learn Polish. It is always a sign of the highest respect paid to the people of another country if someone tries to speak their language. So why are you supprised by the positive response?


The problem is that languages in general have some amount of specifics sounds which are hard to decipher for an unexercised ear. Also the accents don't help. I can't understand too much of British (except BBC) while American English of Northern states is not such a big problem. In Poland there is no a variety of accents now but people speak fast or mutter, and the syntax is quite free.

Ziemowit

Everything is base on the individual preferencies. My teacher adviced us to learn whole texts, while I prefer to learn chunks and sentences. I make flashcards with sentences - it also gives me a feel of somekind of a game.

True enough, a.k. And indeed, your English is QUITE comprehensible (as is my Polish, I trust), errors and allLOL

Feel welcome to correct me :)

That's what I'm doing!!!!!

a.k. wrote:


I didn't say i was surprised by the positive response......rather......HOW surprised they are.

I suppose that Polish grammar might seem quite complicated comparing to English one and I think that many Polish people, with no interest in language issues, do not realize how difficult it is for foreigners to actually speak proper Polish. I think that we should respect anyone who puts effort to learn the language and support them rather than get annoyed. Fortunately, in our times there are so many different ways to practice foreign language (i.e. online courses, forums etc) that learning process has become more pleasurable.

yes gumishu, this is english slang, but this person was obviously very lazy. i would have said ive got a flat tyre myself, but londoners especially take slang to a different level. have you ever heard cockney rhyming slang? for example, apples and pears = stairs. it is said because brzmi tak samo. i dont think you will understand this, ale to jest nie wazne..


i think maybe you are underestimating yourself here.am sure your english is better than you think. i am learning polish by memorizing everything,BUT having said that i worked out how all letters and combinations of letters soounded first. painful memories of my head always in a dictionary...plus you will have the same problem as me, its not enough to simply remember everything..the 2 languages are totally different. putting a sentence together in english is totally different to putting one together in polish. i have been fortunate enough to mix with lots of polish people, so i have learned by constantly listening and writing everything down. keep trying, am sure you will get there in the end. plus dont stress too much about it. i often go into my local polish shop and make ridiculous mistakes, purely because i think about what i am going to say too much, and end up panicking, because i am talking to someone polish who is not a personal friend. just keep trying :)

For starters, a.k., always remember bezokolicznik po czasowniku posiłkowym (infinitive in English always follows auxilliary verb), e.g. "....did you manage.." NOT "did you managed" etc...

Many learners make such mistakes-:) Also, avoid spoken slang in writing. Write out "I want to", and not "I wanna" etc....

I agree that to orally communicate in Polish it is the best to listen to it as much as possible, especially because the sounds are so different to English ones. If it is hard to listen to native speakers you can always try online courses or some websites to listen to the Polish pronunciation. Memorizing a full sentences helps a lot as well. I think it is more or less like Callan method where you just answer questions by basically repeating the same words in a form of statement.

Maybe it meant "A Pear Is 39 pence a lb."???

Like in any other language the best method is imitation. Endings are barely touched upon in school grammar, so native aquire this knowledge by just hearing it. While its true that some errors, or " easements"are common, there is a scale of magnitude, in what you can get away with. The goodnews is, Polish has fewer idioms than English,so its harde to lose the meaning by wrong declination. Listen carefully, memorize, and imitate whole sentences.

Polish has fewer idioms??? I can't believe that! Polish, like every language, is doubtless as rich in vernacular and idiomatic usage as any:-)

Perhaps you meant that Polish is generally used in a more standard way than English which has a constantly shifting vocabulary and in which few Americans, for instance, even know the standard, much less are able to adhere to it.

i can't really say with confidence one way or the other because I'm not a native, therefore I don't speak like a native and natives simply speak completely different. BUT, as far as I can tell, American English does seem more idiomatic/slang based. Polish, in general, seems to be a more formal language. people speak more literally and properly whereas Americans try and use a slang term for every word they want to say, regardless of the age of the person they're speaking to. it's actually one of the things I've always appreciated about Polish, I like the formal aspects of it....maybe because it's quite different from my native language.

on paper, American English would seem to have the blueprints for a larger variety of slang and idioms. we have hundreds of years of immigration, each contributing their own flavors and brands of speaking languages, all lumped into one big country speaking one main language. Polish is simply far more isolated, with 99% of Poland being a native Polish speaker and very few "outsiders" adding spice to the pot.