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Posts by Nightglade  

Joined: 25 Sep 2010 / Male ♂ 		Last Post: 8 Oct 2013
Threads: Total: 7 / Live: 1 / Archived: 6
Posts: Total: 97 / Live: 26 / Archived: 71 		From: Poznań, Poland
Speaks Polish?: Tak, ale niezbyt dobrze

Displayed posts: 27
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Nightglade   
8 Mar 2011
Language / Polish Accusative / Genitive case [20]

So I think I finally understand the accusative case (please correct me if not). It refers to the direct object of a sentence, so I have a book, I watch television, I have a new car, I want coffee (The bolded are the direct objects, which must be in accusative along with their accompanying adjectives

* Masculine nouns (only those which refer to people and animals) add -a
* Their adjectives add -ego

* Masculine inanimate nouns (things) remain nominative

* Neuter nouns / adjs. remain nominative

* Feminine nouns (both animate and inanimate) change a to ę
* Adjectives change a to ą

Thus: Masculine accusative;
- Mam dobrego kota (Mam dobry kot in nominative) I have a good cat

Masculine accusative (inanimate)
- Mam dobry regał (Unchanged) I have a good bookcase

Feminine accusative:
- Mam dobrą książkę (Mam dobra ksziążka in nominative) I have a good book

Neuter accusative:
- Mam dobre łóżko (Unchanged) I have a good bed

~~~~

Now to the genitive case...

It's used in 5 different ways:

1.) Posessives.. equivalent to english 's, eg Marks brother (brata Marka) - the possessed object comes first
2.) Negated verb.. genitive replaces direct object, eg Mam siostrę.. Nie mam siostry (I have a sister / I don't have a sister)
3.) After some prepositions such as od / do.. (z Poznania do Warszawy)
4.) After quantities; Mam małó czasu
5.) After some verbs like szukać, słuchać, uczyć się, życzyć

* Masculine animate nouns (people, animals) have same ending as in accusative (-a)
* Masculine inanimate nouns (things) add -u
* Neuter nouns also take masculine acc form and add -a
* Genitive ending for masculine / neuter adjectives is -ego

* Feminine nouns take -i after k,g or soft consonants
* Other nouns take -y
* Feminine adjectives add -ej

Thus, Masculine genitive (Animate):
- Nie mam brata

Masculine genitive (Inanimate):
- Nie lubię brązowego regału

Neutral genitive:
- Muszę iść do miasta

Feminine Genitive:
- dom mojej siostry

So I think I kind of understand all of this, it makes sense as I wrote all of the things above .. but I'm having real difficulty trying to determine if something should be in genitive when speaking or writing. Will it always be so analytical or will it come eventually? Does anyone have any suggestions or links to some excercises (with simple vocabulary) on accusative and genetive? I thought I would learn about accusative / genetive / locative before I start learning all of the vocabulary, since these 3 (+nom) make up for the majority of stuff. I'm learning only from a book I have as I don't really have the money to afford private lessons here in Poznań :)

Appreciate any help, thanks

PS> I found this: polish-dictionary.com/polish-accusative-case
Nightglade   
8 Mar 2011
Language / Polish Accusative / Genitive case [20]

Cześć i dziękuję bardzo Ania.

That's very helpful, I know quite a lot of vocabulary (mostly nouns and adjectives), not so many verbs (I might pick up '301 polish verbs' that I keep hearing about). However, I've found whenever I'm trying to use words in a sentence, even if I just stick to conveying thoughts in a basic sense using nominative, people insist on correcting my use of cases and it's very frustrating(the woman at the store below us always insists on emphasizing the correct casing and even goes so far as to say she doesnt understand if I try to use nominative, when the rest of them understand me completely:)), that's why I was thinking it'd be a valuable idea to first learn at least accusative and genetive so when I learn a few new words I can start using them with the proper declinations when trying to express myself.

Those excercises would be perfect, I can't find many on the web and the ones I do tend to be a little more complicated than they need to be and may be aimed at higher-level students.

Pozdrawiam
Jay
Nightglade   
19 Aug 2011
Language / Is this true about Polish pronunciation of English (that some words sound identical?) [34]

From what I've gathered with my students, and my partner (whom is Polish) they can certainly differentiate the sounds when hearing them, but pronouncing them is another matter. Whenever my partner says something along the lines of "My ankle [sounding like uncle] is in pain" I always ask what's wrong with him. Aunt / ant is another. I am quite cruel, but with time I managed to get her to pronounce it perfectly with this unusual and crude sentence:

"My uncle ant's aunt had an uncle with a broken ankle after my uncle ant's aunt's uncle tripped over an ant"
Nightglade   
19 Aug 2011
Language / Is this true about Polish pronunciation of English (that some words sound identical?) [34]

Try -ough. There are nine ways to pronounce this in English.

8. A rough-coated, dough-faced ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough, coughing and hiccoughing thoughtfully.

By the way. Does anyone ever stare at a word for so long, or use it so frequently in rapid succession that you begin to doubt whether it's a real word? A few nights ago I was beginning to doubt the existence of the word "door" and just now with 'uncle".
Nightglade   
25 Aug 2011
Language / Is this true about Polish pronunciation of English (that some words sound identical?) [34]

Actually bitch is pretty close to the Polish verb być.

I never let that one go ;)

I often hear troubles with sheet / shit, beach / bitch, leave / live too.. But always try to gently fix it with
"szit / szyt" emphasing the longer e sound in sheet. bicz / być, liw / lyw.

I gave one of my students today an article about the bermuda triangle conspiracy, and a plane flight to "Cockburn town" of Grand Turk Island.. My student saw it, and deliberately pronounced it wrong as "Kook burn". I had the dilemma of whether or not to correct her, but in the end didn't have the strength.
Nightglade   
25 Aug 2011
Language / Is this true about Polish pronunciation of English (that some words sound identical?) [34]

Hopefully it is. It's a Bahamian island, so I'm not entirely certain. Either way, if I choose to use the material again, I'll settle for just Grand Turk island to avoid more mishaps. Have to be delicate sometimes, took me almost 5 minutes to calm one student's laughing frenzy at the sight of "shittim wood"
Nightglade   
5 Sep 2011
Life / 3 reasons why you hate Poland. [1049]

As probably mentioned before, 'hate' is a strong word.. If I hated Poland I wouldn't be here, love and responsibility or not.
But there are definitely things that 'irk' me so to speak. Some of them include:

- Rudeness on trams/public transport
- Jumping queues in a way that's so damn rude and idiotic it makes my blood boil (I'll write a story after the list)

- Cars going through zebras when there's a green, got knocked over once and almost knocked countless times
- Does the language count? No? Jaki szkoda
- People staring incessantly. Back in the UK you'd have your chops smashed if you stared like they do here.
- Not to generalise, but "chav-ness" (to invent a word there) seems to end at around 22/23 in the U.K, it seems to continue until death here.

- Ticket inspectors on trams/busses, bunch of arrogant window lickers
- Beaurocracy, but I tend to avoid that avenue where possible.

Ah so the story.

So me and my partner were at McDonalds, waiting to get something to eat - we hadn't ate for over 12 hours and it was late so little time to cook.

We enter McDonalds and there's a bloody big queue. There were 3 cashplaces but only one queue. When a cashier called, the next in line moved over to it.

We'd been waiting something close to 15 minutes, and we were now 4th in line. Some old hag crawled her way up from hell for a BigMac, entered McDonalds, went in front of the queue to check the "menu". Then went straight to the cashier and stood there, looking behind her with a snobbish smirk at the long queue. Cashier comes along and starts taking her order. At least 10 people aurally voiced their displeasure. Me and my girlfriend had had enough and went to the cashier and said "Excuse me, but this woman just came in and skipped the entire queue, we have been waiting 15 minutes and you start serving her.. What the *****" Cashier looked gobsmacked, and the old bat said "Theres 3 cash places, why 1 queue, I didn't know", but got her food anyway and as she walked past the queue with her grub in hand, we heard at least 3 "stary k's"' and other obscenities along the way.

Bloody hell, the audacity of some people here never ceases to amaze me ;) In the UK never experienced anything like it, to jump in front of a queue is to the English is a crime equivalent to murder.
Nightglade   
4 Jan 2012
Life / Price of cigarettes in Poland? [192]

You can buy blow-up tobacco (20g) for 8.50zł or a Route 66 (I think) sack of 100g for 50zł. The cheapest tobacco I think is Blow up / Paramount. (8.50 - 9.50 / 20g). Seems bizarre though, the Polish don't seem to smoke it. Thus far I have never seen a single person rolling a [legal] cigarette. The reason it's odd is that a 20g pouch used conservatively can provide 60-80 roll-up's. When people are smoking a pack of Marlboro / Spike a day at 11zł a pack, it's not economical - especially for the Poles.
Nightglade   
26 Feb 2012
Study / Top Language Schools to Work for in Warsaw? [32]

That's what I'm seeing here in Poznan - a flood of unqualified people turning up and working for peanuts.

Yes and sadly that's not the largest problem. It's reached that point whereby students (and in fact, schools) are shocked that tutors would dare ask for more than 40zł for an hour of their time. After all, why should they pay more when they can hire a fresh-faced "yeah, I can teech innit" sixth-form graduate for 20zł an hour to fund his nightly beer runs with his new Polish bird? Country life is looking more appetising :)
Nightglade   
14 Apr 2012
Language / Polish case question (Mężczyzna jest zimno? or Dziewczyna jest zimno?) [71]

I'm not an expert in Polish and my Polish is frankly atrocious. But, I have always read that with simple constructions (which the op's example is), we should use the nominative case, right?

"To jest samochód"
"Ten samochód jest biały".

So why not "Mężczyzna jest zimno" as he says? Which case is it and why is that case the appropriate one for this simple construction? Is it really instrumental Lyzko? Because with most lone adjectives we also use nominative form right? e.g.. "Ola jest piękna" 'Ola is beautiful' not "Ola jest piekną". We would use instrumental with the verb być, if for example it was something like "Ola jest dziewczyną". 'Ola is a girl'
Nightglade   
14 Apr 2012
Language / Polish case question (Mężczyzna jest zimno? or Dziewczyna jest zimno?) [71]

I occasionally get questions from my students that leave me dumbfounded, it happens :) Lyzko, I completely understand that point. It makes sense, though a more simple explanation would just be if there is the verb "być" and we define the original subject, that additional noun and it's accompanying adjectives must be instrumental too, right?

"On jest Mężczyźna" - He is a man (Not common presumably, but in case of questionable gender and for the sake of an example)

"Ten mężczyźna jest nauczyciel" - This man is a teacher
"Ten mężczyżna jest dobrym nauczycielem" - This man is a good teacher

At least I presume that's correct? Still doesn't answer the original OP's question though I think :) Maybe the OP's statement is an answer to a question, not just a statement about a man.
Nightglade   
14 Apr 2012
Language / Polish case question (Mężczyzna jest zimno? or Dziewczyna jest zimno?) [71]

is plural ("(the) men are cold")

Wouldn't that be "Mężczyźni są zimne" ?

this is like saying "the man it's cold", but you need to say "the man is cold" - "mężczyźna jest zimny"

Ok so that's an issue with the gender of the adj, not the case isn't it? So is zimny the masculine form of 'zimno'? Because zimne is neuter, so I would have thought zimno would be masculine.

'Chłopak jest zimno'
'Piwo jest zimne'
'Tamta kobieta jest zimna'

"Ola jest piękną" on its own would mean "Ola is a beautiful", which is incorrect; this requires you to explain what a beautiful (object) an Ola is, i.e., Ola jest piękną kobietą (Ola is a beautiful woman).

Yes I know this. This is why I gave the example to illustrate my point, but you're explanation is a little better. Sadly still doesn't answer OP's post.

Nightglade, correct would be "On jest mężczyzną." (Instr.) BUT "On mężczyzna." (Nom. without "być"!)

Ah yes, of course! I used a pronoun and a noun not an adjective. My mistake :( But the second and third part about 'teacher' and 'good teacher' is correct?

PS: I kind of hijacked the OP's post here, sorry!

PPS: And I was just linking a little more about your explanation NorthMancPolak. That's actually very helpful in understanding the case system a little more when you put it into the perspective of English
Nightglade   
14 Apr 2012
Language / Polish case question (Mężczyzna jest zimno? or Dziewczyna jest zimno?) [71]

To refresh my diplomma: lol
"Simple structure" is a key word in here. Simple is not always so simple as you use to think. Who feels cold? is in Polish: Komu jest zimno? Dziewczynie jest zimno. To make the sentence correct you have to use celownik (C). Musisz użyc: kogo czego (dopełniacz D) celownika. (celownik: C).
Polish grammar Polish peope and you will be hungry anymore . lol

:) That makes a bit more sense. But then it means that we don't have the full context of the original sentence, because the statement "Dziewczynie jest zimno" is then in response to a question or general concept, and not simply "That girl is cold", am I understanding that correctly? "Kocie jest zimno" And does that only apply to animate nouns, or do you have to use instrumental for inanimate objects too?
Nightglade   
14 Apr 2012
Language / Polish case question (Mężczyzna jest zimno? or Dziewczyna jest zimno?) [71]

Mężczyznie jest zimno - A man is cold. Thsi sentence says that mężczyzna feels a low temperature of his body. Zimno is an adverb in this sentence

Avast! It makes sense! You crazy Polish people and using adverbial forms with only an implied verb! I will go sit in a corner and cry now, thank you :)
Nightglade   
14 Apr 2012
Language / Polish case question (Mężczyzna jest zimno? or Dziewczyna jest zimno?) [71]

Unfortunately I only understand a few words from that :) As I mentioned, my Polish is atrocious! I have not studied it for around a year. That's not saying much when my previous "studying" was about a week spent reading "Colloquial polish: a complete beginners guide" doing the first two chapters, and the first two chapters of the University of Pittsburgh course. Since then, the small things I've learned have been a result of absorbing things from my life here in Poland.
Nightglade   
14 Apr 2012
Language / Polish case question (Mężczyzna jest zimno? or Dziewczyna jest zimno?) [71]

Mama jest zimno you can't say it because it means that your mother is cold.
So, you should change something to make the sentence understandable for your listener.

Oh no! I thought I could get back to cleaning but then you brought me back. There is no ambiguity in just saying "Moja mama jest zimno" surely? I suppose this is simply a different between our languages that cannot be explained very well because our language shapes our thought patterns too. In English there would be no ambiguity like this because of articles.

Zazulka, those examples are fantastic! Even though rather odd, it just entirely omits the needed verb and alters the noun to compensate.
Nightglade   
14 Apr 2012
Language / Polish case question (Mężczyzna jest zimno? or Dziewczyna jest zimno?) [71]

English in no picnic either

Is, unless you don't like English at your picnics! :) Sorry, now I'm just being pedantic!

And yes! English pronunciation is a total mess, often times you simply have to learn word-by-word rather than following some strict guidelines.
Nightglade   
14 Apr 2012
Language / Polish case question (Mężczyzna jest zimno? or Dziewczyna jest zimno?) [71]

?? NoreenB! Przepraszam, ale czy może znaczysz "...candidate for STUDYING Polish...." [or..... TEACHING..?], since, if I'm not totally mistaken, depending upon the context, "nauczyć"/"nauczyć się" can mean both "learn" as well as "teach", yes?

Uczę się [języka] polskiego. - I'm learning Polish
Uczę [języka] angielskiego - I'm teaching English
Jestem nauczycielem języka angielskiego - I am a teacher of English

Muszę nauczyć się języka angielskiego - I must learn English
Muszę uczyć się języka angielskiego - I must teach English

Not sure if it helps, but I think these are correct.
Nightglade   
14 Apr 2012
Language / Polish case question (Mężczyzna jest zimno? or Dziewczyna jest zimno?) [71]

pgtx

Yes sorry, I didn't mean to add the reflexive 'się' to "Muszę uczyć języka angislskiego" for I must teach ENglish
But it's not correct to say "Muszę nauczyć się języka angielskiego" for "I must learn English" ? It needs to also be "Muszę uczyć się angielskiego"? In this case 'nauczyć' is always 'learn' and never 'teach'?
Nightglade   
17 Jul 2012
Language / How to pronounce "y" in Polish? [28]

'i' as in 'bin', 'myriad'. At final position it seems to take a bit more of a route towards 'e' as in 'me' if they are stressing it (like dzień dobryyy)
Nightglade   
9 Aug 2012
Work / Hi, I am Indian and will be shifting to Poland (diploma in Mechanical engineering) [47]

have 2yrs experience in the automobile industry and transport industry as a service engineer.

To be precise...

Javed: If I am honest, your chances are not so great. Your history and qualifications are not really that relevant to the types of jobs on offer by international companies. I suggest persevering and taking a Polish language course to increase your odds.
Nightglade   
12 Sep 2012
History / The Bar Mleczny / Milk Bar (memories) [15]

We have an Asian milk bar in Poznań called Ojisan's. Brilliant food, brilliant service and brilliant prices.

I've also been to a more 'traditional' milk bar, but the amount of tattooed, drunken chavs, homeless and virulently sick, put me off a bit.
Nightglade   
2 Nov 2012
Life / I hate Warsaw. The worst part about living here is the people who move here from small towns, villages.. [124]

It's interesting that you said Poznań was your favourite city and yet many of the things you listed are quite prevalent here, too. Staring, certainly, is high on my list of things that irritate me here, but I've learned that if you stare back for long enough, they'll break the contact. Continue to stare and you'll make them uncomfortable :) I have found that actually most people seem to be very 'accepting' of trying to speak Polish to them (although, in very 'busy' places, I tend to avoid it). That said, I've had terrible experiences with PKS drivers, apparently being unable to understand simple phrases (when I know for an absolute fact that what I say is understandable).

Dodging drunks is an all too familiar thing here also. Though I don't live in the best neighborhood, I experience it a lot in more affluent areas too. Ye olde drunken chavs with their hoods up in the doorway whether it's +30 or -30. Case in point: I was taking the trash out this morning. It was 4c and raining, yet four of them were blocking the entrance to my apartment building. So what did I do? I pushed the door open, pushed right through them with two ponging bags and laughed as they muttered a few comments. On the way back I smiled at them as I pushed through them again to get into the building. Most here tend to be all bark and no bite, show them you're not intimidated and they'll typically ignore you.

But hey, what can I say. We are the outsiders here, so we accept it or bugger off (that isn't to say we can't disagree or even hate some aspects, though).
Nightglade   
8 Oct 2013
Law / Which is the best city in Poland to open a kebab shop? [56]

Slightly OT, but we had a kebab stall here in Poznań by the music theatre. They made the most amazing kebabs, they were very cheap and the guy inside was always good fun (he spoke English, too). Sadly they vanished some time ago :(