Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

A random sign in a Gothenburg hotel dining room (in English, not even in the native language of the country!):

PLEASE DON'T HAVE CHILDREN AT THE BAR

Indeed, perhaps a hospital would be a more suitable venue.

Directions at an outdoor rest stop in Germany's Black Forest.

BATHROOMS FOR EITHER MALE OR FEMALE OR BOTH SEXES!

Last time I looked, I had only one:-) If the signage person had meant "UNISEX TOILETS", when
in the name of Creation didn't they bloody say so?!!

OUR LIFT MAKES YOU RIGHT NOW UNBEARABLE!

Perhaps vaguely comprehensible, but geez, why not get right the first time?

Need I go on? And the kicker is that those in these different countries don't even
see the ridiculousness of it.

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Correct, Milo! English has become the global language of miscommunication.
Examples?? I wouldn't know where to start.

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

You can say that again, Rich! Glad to hear you finally admit it.

Language / I'm native Polish and I hate my own language. [106]

Spot on, elizabethwilliam!
Hate a language as one well might, I can't tell you all how many times
I've encountered Europeans typically who merrily claim to love English
and who even prefer speaking it to their native tongue.

Most of the time, their English is nothing more than a hodge podge of
vulgarity and substandard grammar, easily rationalized as representing
the "English of today" LOL

Because a tree is sick from acid rain or decay, do we therefore justify
its sickness and decay as somehow healthy? Or do we instead try to cure
it by eliminating the root disease?

Simple exposure to sound, textured, and rich English usage will cure the
language from the illness of slovenly indifference.

A language like a person is nothing more than living tissue and much English
nowadays is dead from the neck up!!

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Spot on, Milo!

Food / Traditional Polish Foods [141]

Whoops, I meant "czerwona kapusta", sorry!
Occasionally I confuse the adjective order.
I realize there is a difference:-)

Food / Traditional Polish Foods [141]

@johnny, actually, I haven't got a Polish translation program as yet. Am looking for one though:-)

Oh, yes! Fladra with a side of kapusta czerwona along with pyzy or barring that, placki ziemniaczne.
YUMMMMMMMY

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

The evidence is too numerous to list.

Language / Should I learn Polish or she learn English? [83]

Correct, Rich. You're learning!

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

The proof is in the reading, you lot, so get real!

Language / Should I learn Polish or she learn English? [83]

@Rich & Milo, all I'm saying is that twenty is bloody advanced to acquire something totally new, be it
a motor skill such as driving (most here learn by seventeen tops) or certainly a new language.

Sure it's done. It's done all the time. All I'm saying is that the younger, all the better for maximum success.
You were born in London, and so your English is obviously completely native, regardless of whatever
language was spoken at home. Rich was born in Poland, didn't even attend high school in a native English-
speaking environment. Naturally there's going to be second language interference in his English that will
probably last for the rest of his life.

My own grandfather arrived in this country at around twenty-one years of age, having never learned English
until arriving at Ellis Island from Germany. He had an accent you could cut with a machete. Meanwhile, his
children, my father, came to New York at age ten or thereabouts, surely not older, and spoke, wrote, and understood
English indistinguishably from a native-born American.

Language / Should I learn Polish or she learn English? [83]

I submit you were too old when you arrived in the States to fully adapt linguistically or culturally
to the American experience! Most people lose their foreigner accent before or up to no later than
the age of twelve.

F-bombs and Woodstock culture alone do NOT an American make (paraphrasing Mark Twain on a separate topicLOL).

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Right about the fact that my English is way superior to yours, that's what.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1442]

Quite, Alien! Don't even dignify such shock value with a response.

Food / Traditional Polish Foods [141]

My favorite traditional Polish dish(s):

Zurek (or Chlodnik, depending on the season!)

Bigos

Language / Should I learn Polish or she learn English? [83]

Therefore old enough to have already been ingrained with the Polish language.
Tough to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, Rich. Once a Pole, always a Pole.

If I'd gone to Germany at 24, having scarcely any underpinning in German, save
for a light high school course taught by some random American, I'd barely have been
prepared for what I encountered when I arrived there at roughly 25:-)

I grew up with German, you didn't grow up with English, and therein lies the key difference!

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Thanks, Lenka.

@Rich, you know I'm right and it just galls you, doesn't it!

Language / Should I learn Polish or she learn English? [83]

How old were you though when you left Poland with your folks, Rich?

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Yes, Johnny. You do that.

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

It isn't, actually!
More of a pun, albeit apparently unsuccessful, on a Polish candy bramd produced to look like mini barrels LOL

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Amen, Pawian!

@Rich, my English is superior to yours any day of the bloody week. Polish? There, you've clearly got me over a barelka, he-he:-)

Language / Should I learn Polish or she learn English? [83]

Rich, as always, it's your word against that which actually happened!
Obviously there must be a rational explanation for your protracted bitterness
against Poland, and somehow, I can't believe it's because of Gomulka's politics LOL

Language / Should I learn Polish or she learn English? [83]

A common tongue, you mean. Yes, I can't disagree with that statement.
Sort of reminds me once more of that short, cute little scene in "Casablanca":

Man: And now we speak only English in America. You, treasure! Please, how
much watch?

Woman: Six watch.

Foreign Observer: I see you will both fit in perfectly in America!

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Protestations to the contrary, one's mother tongue remains one's
mother tongue for the rest of one's life!

Although I've never heard you speak, based solely upon brief
samples of your English posting here on the Forum, there are still
clear, if isolated, examples of first language interference in the way
you express yourself in English, especially when angry, which seems
quite often these days:-)

Above all, you came to the States essentially as an immigrant, not
a visitor, and so ridding your accent as well as trying to linguistically
adapt at leisure to the cultural nuances of American English
and the like, were probably the last things on your young mind.

A language is much like an iceberg. It seems normal on the surface,
yet beneath the ice, there's a hard chunk below the water.

Maybe you spent hours just watching American TV for as long as
possible. That doesn't necessarily mean that you absorbed the language
like a native speaker. There're always bound to be gaps and holes.

Hate to burst your bubble.

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

@Rich, while I can't substantiate your experience in Poland
and would scarcely wish to claim you're not being truthful,
unless you were either completely soused on bimber or
were looking at pretty women's skirts (which I could well understand),
I somehow can't believe that you had zero comprehension issues
not speaking Polish in Poland, furthermore, that somehow American
English will become the "second language" there in the future.

Simply put, I think you were on something, dude!

Language / Should I learn Polish or she learn English? [83]

Ideally, you both should learn each other's language,
at least, practice speaking the other's mother tongue.

Off-Topic / PF members MEETUPS.....everyone welcome! [122]

"Glasses", "classes". You rhymed, he-he!

Study / Jagiellonian vs University of Wrocław for a master's degree in English? [15]

Actually, you're right about that!
Although only briefly in Poland, I did notice greater confidence when I
returned home.

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Or how about "niedzwiedz" LOL
(Missing several diacritical accent marks however, sorry!)

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1442]

@Rich, you're either a plain ol' troll or just plain nuts.....or both!