Language / Bilingual Polish-English books with audio for listening and reading learning method [75]

However, monolingual texts or readings w/accompanying dialogues in the language being acquired must be
supplemented exclusively with visuals in order to make clear what the learner is learning in a language
not their own. The danger is that the learner simply learns to translate into their native tongue instead of
learning the language they wish to know.

Otherwise, it can be an exercise in frustration, that's obvious.

Life / Jerzy Kosinski: Are his works popular in Poland? [48]

I'm only familiar with Borowski's text in translation ("This way to the gas, Ladies and Gentlemen!") I never ran across the
original, unfortunately.

Life / Jerzy Kosinski: Are his works popular in Poland? [48]

Jewish, albeit hidden Jewish, heritage. Surely nobody here is foolish enough to believe that a Jew in Poland, even an assimilated one,
has had the identical experience with that of a rank-and-file Polish gentile!

By the way, those who claim others are "projecting", are usually guilty of same, but are unwilling to admit it.

Life / Jerzy Kosinski: Are his works popular in Poland? [48]

So true, jon ol' man, so true indeed.

Language / Bilingual Polish-English books with audio for listening and reading learning method [75]

If Poles all learn English as you do, I shouldn't be at all surprised LOL
Truly knowing a language goes way beyond merely the idiom, the slang, the grammar
or the vocab, Ironside!

The reason your English is workaday fluent, yet will never be native, is precisely because
your language breathes, bleeds your Polish mother tongue.

Such passionately, blithely unbridled arrogance bordering, indeed often exceeding, pure
nastiness in my direction, reveals little of the more space giving Anglo-American, the irony
which allows the other bloke the benefit of the doubt, even if you hate their guts.

Conversely, my Polish will probably always be stymied by the mere fact that I by nature
tend to hold back my unbridled passions and am usually quick to compliment rather than
insult, indeed will apologize instead of keeping up the attacks.

Back to the thread of bilingual education, again, having taught German for umpteen years,
learning to translate only serves to satisfy the momentary need to "understand" a spoken
utterance, yet in the end doesn't allow the student to express themselves independently in
the target language.

Life / Jerzy Kosinski: Are his works popular in Poland? [48]

Poloniusz is wrong. But it's hard to convince others of the truth.

Language / Bilingual Polish-English books with audio for listening and reading learning method [75]

I've taught college level German to US students for nearly twenty-five years and find
that source language texts prove more valuable in the long run, often frustrating
as they can be in the beginning for reasons which I stated.

Language / Bilingual Polish-English books with audio for listening and reading learning method [75]

As a foreign language teacher, I caution against the down side of bilingual education for adults learning a second language.
While it can be useful while learning to see the trot in one's native language right alongside the language being learned,
in my experience, this can also serve as a crutch which can actually slow down instead of speed up the learning process.
When the mother tongue has been removed and the learner is then forced to communicate in their "new" language, frequently
they can become tongue tied and rely more and more on their first language, gradually losing idiomatic control of the language
they are trying to acquire. The result is that the learner will be looking for someone to constantly feed them the words in
English, or whatever their native language and the new language will never become a reality for them.

Life / Jerzy Kosinski: Are his works popular in Poland? [48]

You're merely taking offense for zero reason in order to appear politically correct......as usual!
Being Jewish has EVERYTHING to do with Kosinski's heritage, especially as he was nearly
forced into being an altar boy in a small village in order to survive!

What you posted, as with certain others here in PF, is merely to spread garbage as to my
person without the slightest scintilla of evidence.

The rest will back me up and show your type up for what you really are, and it's nothing
to be proud of, I can assure you.

Off-Topic / Will German Farmers change the EU policy? [45]

Well, "The dignity of every human being is an inaliable right" pretty much spells it out there, Alien.
Not much wiggle room, I'd say.

If a body, organ or similar authority is in violation of this, action should be taken.

Life / Jerzy Kosinski: Are his works popular in Poland? [48]

Exactly, Maf! "Jewess" sounds hopelessly old-fashioned nowadays!

Off-Topic / Will German Farmers change the EU policy? [45]

German agriculture is particularly susceptible to environmental protection. The EU
realizes that the Federal Republic represents the most powerful economy in Europe,
is therefore most willing to accomodate Germany.

Life / Jerzy Kosinski: Are his works popular in Poland? [48]

@pawian, the word "Polasses" doesn't exist in English. For female Poles, English
simply uses "Poles".

USA, Canada / Where can I meet Polish women in Chicago [85]

I'm not trolling! I was merely making a remark about a well known movie
about Polish life in Chicago, nothing more!
You extrapolated something from the message which wasn't there.

Language / Is it possible to master the Polish language fluently for a non-Polish speaker? [120]

Yes, you're doubtless correct. Imagine the editing required for a foreign
author, much less for a native English speaking one:-)

Life / Jerzy Kosinski: Are his works popular in Poland? [48]

@Poloniusz, please try to resist twisting my words! You're trolling, that's all.
Where did I ever imply what you claim I stated??

Language / Is it possible to master the Polish language fluently for a non-Polish speaker? [120]

Much appreciated!

Language / Is it possible to master the Polish language fluently for a non-Polish speaker? [120]

Ah, I see. My mistake. Thank you, Lenka.
Guess I was easily mislead by the "-ywac" suffix:-)

Language / Is it possible to master the Polish language fluently for a non-Polish speaker? [120]

@Mowiciel prawdy,
I find it interesting if nothing else, that one of the master stylists
in the English language, Joseph Conrad, was a Pole who didn't
learn English until his was a young merchant seaman.

They say he spoke with a heavy Polish accent, yet his writing
seems to reveal no such interference.
Never once did I suspect he was anything but a native English
speaker until I was in my last year in high school and learned
he was a Pole from a well-born family.

Life / Jerzy Kosinski: Are his works popular in Poland? [48]

Thanks so much for your timely response. His biography, not to mention
his professional resume, is indeed impressive. Never quite understood why
he was ever so dogged by plagiarism during the latter phase of his relatively
short life.

Language / Is it possible to master the Polish language fluently for a non-Polish speaker? [120]

Dziekuje za objasienie, Panie Profesorze!

Language / Is it possible to master the Polish language fluently for a non-Polish speaker? [120]

Polish has an exceptionally elaborate morphology, complete
with a conservative system of productive prefixed verbs which
require a more subtle usage than their English equivalents.The
concept of "imperfective" vs. "perfective" can drive many a learner
to distraction!

For example, "pisac" (to be engaged in the act of writing) vs. "NApisac" (to have completed the act of writing) vs. "pisYWac" (to be continually writing),

and finally "ROZpisYWac" (to write until one's fingers are about to fall off, figurately speaking of course) etc...

English requires explanation more than translation, whereas in Polish, the prefixes themselves do all the work.

Language / Is it possible to master the Polish language fluently for a non-Polish speaker? [120]

@Mr.Grunwald, Aasen's was the same philosophy which motivated the change of your present capital
from Kristiana to the ancient Norse Oslo back in 1924.

Language / Is it possible to master the Polish language fluently for a non-Polish speaker? [120]

@Mowiciel prawdy, Norwegian's a most apt example, actually.
Nynorsk isn't even a centuries' old language, but a construct
based on Ivar Aasen's attempt during the mid-19th century to return Norwegians to their
true Norse roots by extricating all Dano-Norwegian aka Bokmaal/Riksmaal words from the language in a sort of nativist, peasant revolt.
He succeeded!

USA, Canada / Where can I meet Polish women in Chicago [85]

And you remind me of a guy who WISHES he were trapped in the 1940's
and pretends his isn't.

There was much to be said for the immediate post-War Era, my friend.

Language / Is it possible to master the Polish language fluently for a non-Polish speaker? [120]

This discussion reminds me of a most engaging debate between linguists
during a symposium headed by the Canadian Prof.Steven Pinkert, in which the concept
of dialect vs. language was being discussed.

A gentleman rose during the session and quipped, a dialect is merely an appendage
to a language, whereas the latter is merely a dialect with an army and a navy behind it.

Standardization, as I've said before, is as much political, indeed social, as it is linguistic!
:-)

News / How will Poland be affected by WW3 which has now started [559]

Thanks, fellow Private!

Language / Is it possible to master the Polish language fluently for a non-Polish speaker? [120]

Allow me to qualify. The language of the Dutch West Indies/Antilles aka Papiamento is technically a pidgin,
as is the varieties of English spoken in both Hawaii as well as the Pitcairn Islands in the South Pacific.

However, Australian English for example, is not a pidgin because it remains a recognizable facsimile
of the language which we all recognize as "English", albeit spoken in a different area of the world than
the UK, same with American along with Canadian English.

Typically, pluracentric languages such as English, Spanish or French, will experience dialect variation
throughout the world as a consequence of centuries of colonization, whereby "foreign" varieties, such
as new lexic etc. are gradually added to become part of the base vocabulary.

Polish on the other hand has no known pidgins or varieties of language owing to colonialist expansion
as the language is primarily, indeed almost exclusively, spoken within one country, namely Poland.

@jon, you're quite right. Yet, in my experience, the "Standard" English spoken throughout England
is still RP (Received Pronunciation), although even that pronunciation has changed considerably over
the past decades, perhaps to reflect a more brashly proletarian usage, even on the BBC.

Language / Is it possible to master the Polish language fluently for a non-Polish speaker? [120]

A pidgin in linguistics refers to a bastardized variant of an established
source tongue which, owing to political influences, has morphed into a separate
entity.

Since "British" (as opposed to "American") is the Ur- or Primordial language
from which the latter derived, I don't entirely see your point here.