News / Surprising ranking of Polish supermarkets (Biedronka expensive?) Living expenses in Poland. [35]

I wouldn't say that the quality of the products in Biedronka is low. Although in terms of fruit and vegetables, it's definitely better to buy fresh ones from local greengrocer's ("warzywniak", "zieleniak") or from a local market.

Biedronka started to advertise themselves as a place where you can buy high quality products for low prices some time ago. They fight with this connotation "Biedronka = low quality". And shops like Auchan or Real seem to be more messy inside than Biedronka.

Language / Short Polish<->English translations [1043]

Yes. The book is from the times when the Polish spelling was slightly different. The same with "seryo" - now "serio".

UK, Ireland / Polsat or NC+ in England? Subtitles. [14]

OK, so, if it's no problem to you to take it, then take it.

UK, Ireland / Polsat or NC+ in England? Subtitles. [14]

I am not sure if bringing a 1.5 m dish from Poland to the UK is worth the effort. I would rather sell this one and buy a new one in the UK. A 1.5 m dish isn't too handy to transport :)

Looking at the coverage maps of Hot Bird, the satellite used by Polish platforms like Polsat and NC+:
sattvinfo.net/beam.php?b=hotbird&lang=en

the signal level in most of the UK area, maybe except the regions on the very north, should be similar to Poland, or even much better (on the south). In Poland a typical dish size is 60 cm. The 80 cm size is increasingly popular, especially from the time when HD channels appeared. It's also recommended if you want to built an installation to receive signal from a few satellites (you may want to receive the British channels on the same dish).

If you sell this 1.5 m dish in Poland and buy an 80 cm in the UK, you will probably even earn some money on this :) Even taking into account that you won't get so much money for a used dish than for a brand-new one, and that the prices in the UK are higher than in Poland, the dishes of the size higher than 1 m are, generally, expensive, and the price grows rapidly with the dish diameter.

As I can see the 80 cm dish price in the UK is about £20-£30. A new 1.2 m steel dish costs in Poland about 600 zł. Even if you sell your antenna for a half of this price (you may leave the converter as it's small and quite handy, unless you are going to travel by plane), you will earn. There might be not so easy to find a buyer for it (maybe ask on forums dedicated to the satellite TV) though.

UK, Ireland / Polsat or NC+ in England? Subtitles. [14]


Yes, it's possible. Many Polish watch Polish channels in the UK using sat sets brought from Poland. If you bring a tuner from Poland, connect it to any satellite aerial directed into a proper satellite (it's possible that the dish in the UK has to be bigger than in Poland, but I don't know), then it will receive Polish TV.

It's against the regulations of the operators (nc+/Polsat Cyfrowy), but they don't do anything with it, because there is many subscribers who pay them only because it's the only way of receiving Polish TV abroad.

Language / Why is the Polish language so difficult? [309]

I was wondering if I should put something like "das" after "sag". I wouldn't call myself a master of German. Of English too :)


Now too, although not so often.

Language / Why is the Polish language so difficult? [309]


If somebody want to translate it literally, word by word, applying basic grammar rules like the imperative or the future tense (but without declination)...

- Ja powiem mama.
- Nie powiedz jej!

A pole would understand this. But not this:


1. Why mamusiu? Why diminutive? And why the past tense if in the original text there is a future tense? Ok, maybe you wanted to use "będę powiedział", which is a form that is theoretically possible to create :) Of course, if you don't take into account that "będę powiedział" is a strange mixture, verbs like "powiedział", "zrobił" do not make future form in such a way. It works for "mówił", "robił" - for these which indicate a repeated or continuous activity, like continuous tenses in English. And why this "mother" went into the middle? Aha, it was supposed to look like German :) Ich wird der Mutti sagen :)

2. But why here "powiedz" at the end? It's neither English, nor Polish, nor German :)
[EN] Don't tell her!
[PL] Nie mów jej! -> Not speak her. (speak because powiedzieć is here replaced by mówić - the speaker wants the mather not tell this not in a one moment in time, but at all)

[DE] Sag ihr nicht! -> Tell her not.
Nowhere the verb "to tell", "mówić", "powiedzieć" goes to the end :)


As for me, both look well, even if you don't do this ever day.

Language / Slavic languages words similarities with Polish [238]


This is from a yet another handwriting :) And it seems to have some errors, for example "w" in "spwczi" doesn't make any sense. Maybe it's "spvsczi" or something like this, where "v" means "u", like in the past in Latin where there was no difference between U and V in writing (hence the English name of the letter W - "double U", and the Polish name - "wu" or "vu").

This strange letter (similar to a current lowercase "z", but in that "font" "z" looks differently, a bit like "3") doesn't seem to be a part of a lowercase "a". It appears also after other letters.

Language / Why is the Polish language so difficult? [309]


No. This isn't Polish at all, even broken one. These are random Polish words in a random order :) Especially "powiedź" which has nothing in common with the original words in English :) Jeśli już - it should be "powiedz". "Powiedź" is like "powiedź się" - "be successful" (about an activity).

Referring to politics in posts indicates that we are running out of topic and this thread should be closed :)

Language / Why is the Polish language so difficult? [309]


In what language is this? :)

Language / Slavic languages words similarities with Polish [238]

The version from this scan comes from the times when Polish didn't have any rules how to spell it. Nobody was writing then in Polish, even here it's is just a text of a song included in a Latin text.

Maybe the version "sławiena" appeared later, when the Polish ortography - although different than now - was already defined.

A more interesting thing is that here it begins as "Bogarodzica" (or rather Bogarodzijcza, but let's neglect these ortography issues). Boga rodzica. God's woman parent (the word "rodzica" isn't currently used, but this is its literal meaning; I don't know if in that times the word "matka" already existed).

In the "current" version of this text it's Bogurodzica. Rodzica (komu?) Bogu. I have read that in that times celownik (accusative) was used instead of dopełniacz (genitive), hence this form in this text. But it seems that in the original version it looked exactly how it should look now...

BTW, what is this letter between a and v in this "sławiona" (or rather "Sla...vijona") in this text? Or in "dzije...vijcza"?

Language / Why is the Polish language so difficult? [309]

F and W aren't considered here as identical :) Why? Don't ask me. It's a result of years of developement of the language.

See that we say for example "w firmie", not "we firmie".

But... "we Francji", not "w Francji".

If the word begins with F and then a cosonant, we say "we", if it begins with F and then a vowel, we say "w".

The same: "w Warszawie", not "we Warszawie".

It seems that this rule works only if the second letter of the word is a cosonant. If it's a vowel, we don't add this "e".

Also: "wziąć coś z samochodu", not "ze samochodu".

Another example, in case of which the cosonants aren't so similar, but still there would be a double cosonant if we don't apply this rule:

We say "ode mnie", not "od mnie". But, again... "od domu", not "ode domu".

And also "od drzewa", not "ode drzewa", which is something, that I can't explain. Sorry, I am not a linguist, I am just a language user :)

It's probably just not as difficult to pronounce as three cosonants one after another, including an "mn" combination and that's all. There is no other option than just to catch the "feeling" of the language, which comes with time when you learn it.

Language / Why is the Polish language so difficult? [309]

On nalał - he poured (sth to a vessel).
On nalewał - he was pouring (sth to a vessel). Rather not continuously (it's difficult to imagine :) ), but as an activity he was always doing or such that was repeated through some time.

But it works only in the past tense. In the present tense there is only one form - "on nalewa". Which is translated to English either as "he pours", or "he is pouring" dependent on the context.

This is one of the things due to which English is quite difficult to Polish people. There is many grammar forms in English that are not distinguished in Polish.

What about ponalewać? I would translate it such:
On ponalewał - he poured (or maybe has poured? - Perfect tenses in English is also something that is difficult for Polish native speakers). What is the difference between this and "on nalał"? In both cases he did it once, but in case of "on ponalewał", he did it for a few people. The prefix "po-" means doing something once, but repeatedly. Or continuously - but still once. For example:

Dałem mu pojeździć moim samochodem.
compare with:
Dałem mu jeździć moim samochodem.
Dałem mu pojechać moim samochodem.
Dałem mu jechać moim samochodem.

Dałem mu pojeździć moim samochodem. - I let him drive my car. Only once, but wherever and for ever purpose he wanted, even just for him to make himself a short tour.

Dałem mu jeździć moim samochodem. - I let him drive my car. Generally, many times, the time isn't defined (although you can define it later on: ... w ubiegłym tygodniu, ale zostawiał w nim zawsze taki bałagan, że już mu nie daję).

Dałem mu pojechać moim samochodem - I let him drive my car. Only once, and with a defined purpose. E.g. ...po zakupy, ...do pracy.

Dałem mu jechać moim samochodem. - It's also very general. Here I imagine the situation that I am with this person (and a passenger I am talking to about that person) in a car. And I let this person drive. He/she is now driving. Or was driving, but I decided that for example this person is a bad driver, I am afraid of my car and I no longer let them drive - now we are still together, but I am driving.

Language / Why is the Polish language so difficult? [309]

Nalał is here decent. You can say ponalewał if you want to be very precise, but you don't have to.

I would rather say "On nalał braciom piwa". Usually dopełniacz is the case that goes after nalać. After dolać, wlać etc. too. One can ask for example "Nalej mi wody do konewki". It seems that dopełniacz "likes" uncountable nouns. The same is with dosypać, nasypać etc. With biernik: "On nalał bratu piwo" I have the feeling as if the subject was supposed to pour his brother all the beer that is for example in a bottle. Biernik is OK with the basic forms: lać, sypać.

Language / Why is the Polish language so difficult? [309]

In £ódź there are two different streets - Plocka and Płocka. In different city regions.

The name of the first street came from a person whose name was Franciszek Plocek (hence "ulica Franciszka Plocka", shortly "Plocka"), while the name of the second one came from the name of the city - Płock. If you write the address without diactrics, the letter/parcel/whatever may get to a totally wrong place :) Admittedly, there are postal codes, but if there is an ambiguity between the code and the address, it happens that the post office follows the address, not the code.

Diactricts are sometimes very important in Polish. This is is a song sung according to a spelling without diactrics: youtube.com/watch?v=T2iISWltdzc

Firstly, the melody of the language virtually disappears, secondly, some words are ambiguous.

Language / Why is the Polish language so difficult? [309]

The word order in German is sometimes a challenge, when you have a long, complex sentence, written in an academic style. You read a sentence and you don't know what it's about because you haven't reached the verb yet :) But I wouldn't call it difficult - there are some basic rules which should be remembered. And - from the point of view of a Slavic language native speaker, who knows already English quite well - there are some similarities to English, which often help.

An advantage of German is the pronounciation - it's very easy to learn, unlike English, in case of which it makes the beginners big troubles for a very long time. I wouldn't also say that the grammar is difficult - although it's specific.

In fact German gives more freedom while building a sentence than English. In English you have the order - the person first, then the verb and the rest of the sentence. It's difficult to add something in front of the verb. In German you just put the person at the third place and then you can add something in front. Of course, such freedom, as in case of Polish, and probably all other Slavic languages, isn't given neither by English, nor by German :)

Language / Why is the Polish language so difficult? [309]

I've been learning German for 9 years and I still have problems with the cases - although my native language is Polish, which has more of them, and they are much more complex. Each language is different and it must always take some time to "catch" it when you are learning it.

Language / Slavic languages words similarities with Polish [238]

The German word Wirtschaft has the same construction. Gospodarz in Polish ist der Wirt in German (and host in English).

The question is what's the origin of the word gospodarz :)

What may be interesting here is Bogurodzica - the oldest Polish known poetry text. This is a religious song. There is - let's say - a legend, that just before the battle of Grunwald all the Polish knights sang this song in a chorus together.

literat.ug.edu.pl/bgrdzc/01.htm

The beginning is:


Interesting is the word in bold. Gospodzin meant in the past the same as now Pan - Lord (which in religious texts mean just the God).

Don't even try to translate this, it's a very old-Polish text and even for Poles it's virtually impossible to understand without additional explanations and translations to the modern Polish.

Language / Funny/strange/deviant words in the Polish language [35]


Which, in addition, no longer manufactures bicycles - it produces cars now :)

There is much more such cases in Polish. A commonly used word for a petrol station is in Polish "cepeen". There is also "stacja benzynowa". but "cepeen" is shorter. It comes from a company CPN (Centrala Produktów Naftowych - this is the same company, as now Orlen), which managed all the petrol stations in Poland in the PRL times.

Similarily a train station is often called "dworzec PKP", even if it has no longer anything in common with PKP, and a bus station - "dworzec PKS". You can say "dworzec kolejowy" or "dworzec autobusowy", but "dworzec PKP" and "dworzec PKS" are popular as they're shorter.

Sports shoes are called "adidasy", even if they are made by Nike or Puma.

But it's nothing unusual, English also has plenty of such words.


As somebody has already explained, it comes from the pronounciation - man is pronounced almost exactly the same as men, for a Polish person they are virtually undistinguishable.

But there is another strange thing. A sportsman is in Polish "sportowiec". It's ok - the core part "sport" with an ending indicating a person. But sportswoman is... "sportsmenka". It was difficult to make a female form from "sportowiec" ("sportowczyni"?), so the ending indicating a women was added to the English core. With a changed into e, but this is already explained.

On the other hand, businesswoman is in Polish often called just businesswomen, not "biznesmenka". Problably because among the business people the knowledge of English is much wider than among the whole nation.

It's also interesting that the words borrowed from other languages usually adapt Polish spelling (like this "biznesmen"), but there are exceptions. For example "weekend" - it's a word that has existed in Polish for many, many years and it has never adapted the Polish spelling - probably because "łikend" or "łykend" would look weird.

Another interesting example - "dealer". As a company, which is selling products of one manufacturer (especially cars) it is spelled like in English. But as a person who is illegally selling narcotic drugs - it is spelled "diler".



"Tusz" is generally ink in ball pens. In fountain pens it's called "atrament". Inkjet printer is in Polish "drukarka atramentowa", but ink for it is often called, as you have noticed, "tusz" :) Dot-matrix printer is "drukarka igłowa", literally "needle printer".

Mascara is "tusz do rzęs", but in advertisments it's also called like in English - "maskara".

Language / Short Polish<->English translations [1043]

They want you to send them 2 or 3 proposals of topics (ones that you could write about) with a short explanation, why, and their size that you would like to write. This is not a word count, but a number of characters.

Language / Slavic languages words similarities with Polish [238]

In Polish something that is spelled "rjeka" and "rieka" has exactly the same pronounciation.

To be honest - Polish could exist with "i" only, without "j" and it would work :)

See that for example the word "radio" in Polish was initially spelled "radjo". The spelling changed after some time.

Language / Slavic languages words similarities with Polish [238]


I know the difference, I didn't notice that that was referring to Czech, not to Polish :)


Did you mean "kociczka" (a diminutive from "kocica")? There is nothing like "kotyczka" in Polish. I have even checked in Google and it finds only people with such a surname - but no uses of this word as a normal common noun in Polish.

About Turkish word origins - in Russian tea is "czaj", the same as in Turkish. And I know that in many European languages the name of this drink is either similar to English "tea", German "Tee" etc. or to the Turkish/Russian "chay". Polish is here unusual with its own word "herbata" :)

The Polish word for a carpet - "dywan" - also, I think (as far as I remember), comes from Turkish. But doesn't the same word in Russian mean something different? From primary school Russian lessons I remember a poem for children about a lady who was travelling and took many strange things as a luggage (the title was "Sdawała dama bagaż"), and she had also a "diwan" with her. As far as I remind it myself, it wasn't a carpet, but something different (although, of course, also irrational).

I have checked, and "diwan" in Russian means... a sofa :) In Polish, as I have already written, "dywan" means a carpet. But a sofa is even more irrational to take as a luggage than a carpet, so knowing the Russian words you have yet more fun reading this poem :)

I was once on a camp, where the meals were prepared by a cook who was from Slovakia or Czech Republic (I don't remember this exactly). And he called a glass pot with tea "czajnik". In Polish "czajnik" is a kettle. Such a pot, like the one that this cook was calling "czajnik", is in Polish "dzbanek" :)

Sometimes when Polish children are learning writing, and they have problems with ortography of the words where for example rz doesn't change in r in any of its forms (it's called an "exception"), parents or teachers are explaining that for example rzeka is in Russian "rjeka" (which is, BTW, AFAIK, an improper pronounciation, it should be pronounced "rika", at least they learned me it so later on, on Russian lessons - is it true, Vlad?) so that when the child remembers the Russian translation, it's easier to remember that the Polish word should be written "rzeka" and not "żeka". Another example might be "morze", which, AFAIK, is supposed to be in Russian "morje".

Language / Slavic languages words similarities with Polish [238]

It seems that I quoted an item from a list that didn't contain Polish versions of any words, but English, Czech and Russian ones. My fault.

About kot - well to know. My education in Russian finished when I left primary school. But am I right that koszka is also used as a general word?

A male (and only male) cat in Polish is kocur. Are there similar ones in Russian?

Language / Slavic languages words similarities with Polish [238]

Somebody told about the words for dog in Polish and Russian. The basic word for dog in Polish (pies) is male, in Russian (sobaka) is female. And a male dog in English is called pios. It doesn't work the other way round, a b.itch in Polish is suka. But... this word exists also in Russian (and means a "sobaka" which is definitely female). Again, the other way round it doesn't work, there is no word in Polish for a "pies" which is definitely male.

Summing up...

Polish:
pies - a dog, general and male
suka - a dog, female only (a b.itch)

Russian
sobaka - a dog, general and female
pios - a dog, usually male
suka - a dog, female only (like in Polish)
and these are not the only words in Russian for a dog :) Polish has only those two, if we take into account the words which doesn't imply the specific breed (or lack of breed)

Similar situation is in case of cat. In Polish the basic word, used when the gender isn't important, is kot and it's a male word, while in Russian it's koszka and it's a female word. In Polish if you want to specify that your cat is female, you call it kotka or kocica. In Russian, when you want to specify that it's male - I don't know.

Going on, the Polish word for mouse - mysz - is female (even though it doesn't end with -a). The dimunitive form (often used also for a computer mouse) is myszka. So in Polish - on Polish TV, in movies etc. - Mickey Mouse is Myszka Miki. Which suggests that he is... female :)


I am wondering, what is the origin of the English word fall. Falling leaves? If so, it's the same as in case of listopad (November) :)

For sure jesień is an old Slavic word. In Russian it's similar - osjeń. But about jesion - I have no idea. For sure it has an alternative form, which you already know - jasień - and it gave names many geographical objects in Poland. For example in £ódź there is a small river Jasień.

Language / Slavic languages words similarities with Polish [238]

Lyzko, you got caught in the trap :)

łaska - grace
laska - walking stick, but colloquially also a nice looking girl
łąski has no meaning
wąski - narrow

In the Internet Polish people tend to neglect letters like ą, ę, ń and replace them with a, e, n, as it is faster to type them with a keyboard. But łaska is the word in case of which doing so may have fatal consequences :)

In Polish stół is a table, in Russian stuł is a chair :)
Russian uses "western" words for months, like English, while Polish has own ones (except for March and May).

English - Russian (Polish phonetic equivalent) - Polish
January - janwar - styczeń
February - fiewral - luty
March - mart - marzec
April - apriel - kwiecień
May - maj - maj
June - ijun - czerwiec
July - ijul - lipiec
August - awgust - sierpień
September - sjentjabr - wrzesień
October - oktjabr - październik
November - nojabr - listopad
December - djekabr - grudzień

There are similarities between the Slavic languages, but there is also many differences and false friends, even in case of very basic words.


Jesion :) Such things you can always check via Wikipedia.


You can say "mnogo" in Polish, but it isn't a commonly used word. Dużo, wiele - ok, but mnogo? It will be understood, as it comes from mnożyć - to multiply. As an adjective - mnogi - it sounds better, because means something different from duży or wielki (it means the same as liczny - numerous).

In Russian small - malieńkij, in Polish - mały. And maleńki in Polish is diminutive for mały. In Russian it's a normal word.

Language / Short Polish<->English translations [1043]

Ćwiczenia as a type of classes at university are tutorials.

Zaliczenie - maybe a final test. If you mean a kind of a test or exam. Credit or pass would be just the fact that the course is passed.

Life / Electricity in Poland: plug and voltage? [73]

As for me, it does not seem to look strange at all. Many of those who spoke English left Poland when the country joined the EU and the borders went open. Even if you speak Polish, it's difficult to find an electrician, you often have to wait for a few months, especially if you want to have more done than some simple things like socket relocation.

Genealogy / How Daniel surname is common in Poland? Could it have had its origins in the 17/18th c. Scottish immigration? [9]

It's a normal common name. Maybe not as popular as Piotr or Tomasz, but still common. Nothing funny or connotating in it.

Food / Confusion over flour names in Poland [46]

For shortcrust pastry (ciasto kruche) the best is mąka krupczatka. But other types will be also OK. In Poland there is many different kinds of flour ("mąka") and they all are the plain flour. Different is the content of minerals (you will find on the package something called "typ" - the higher it is, the darker is the flour, whole-wheat flour is of the type of even 2000, while standard flour is something between 400 and 600) and grain size (krupczatka has bigger grains than the other types).

According to Wikipedia:


So practically each flour sold in Poland will satisfy this condition. We don't have anything like flour with leavening agent. Or, at least, I haven't met anything like this in Polish shops. We just add baking powder or baking soda during the process of preparing a cake :)

Life / Electricity in Poland: plug and voltage? [73]


It seems that it exists in Poland, but it's terribly expensive:
tim.pl/simon54-lacznik-z-opoznieniem-wylaczenia-bialy-dwc10t-0111-wmdc-008n0t-011

And they describe it as something innovative :)

Look for "łącznik z opóźnieniem wyłączenia".