Language / The Polish language - it's bloody hard! [210]

In writing. Whether you would have understood it spoken is another story.

Language / rukes in if [8]

yes, that's correct

Genealogy / Missing/unknown letter in my great-grandmother's last name. Any ideas? [34]

Here's a site where you can check the frequency and distribution of Polish last names. Type the name in the box and click the Szukaj button.

moikrewni.pl/mapa/kompletny/kwiatkowski.html

I've tried some probable variants of Rypy?a, but unfortunately got no results.

How large is that white streak? Could it be that more than one letter is missing?

Genealogy / Missing/unknown letter in my great-grandmother's last name. Any ideas? [34]

IMO Rypała is the best guess so far. The name could have easily been messed up with one "a" changing into "y". Rypała is actually an existing name, see the map: mapa/kompletny/rypa%25C5%2582a.html

Most Rypałas live in Krapkowice and the neighbouring districts. The area used to be Galicia once.
If you are able to find any place names from where your grandfather originally came, you could check if it is the same area.

Genealogy / Paluch family from south Poland near the Czech frontier [25]

There are over 15 000 people with the name Paluch living in Poland now:

Life / POLISH DANCING (how to to this holding hands and such?) [11]


You really don't need to learn to dance krakowiak and polonez in order to do this kind of "holding hands,twirling round kind of dancing" which is danced at weddings and such. It's very very simple, just one step to the right, one to the left, and whirl around. Next time take your chance and ask one of the pretty ladies to teach you that, she should be delighted and you'll be a dancing master in some fifteen minutes :)

Genealogy / Missing/unknown letter in my great-grandmother's last name. Any ideas? [34]


Zosia (without the dot over Z) is a diminutive from Zofia. Susan in Polish is Zuzanna, shortened to Zuzia.

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]


I like the word wieśmak better.

TheOther:
Didn't you know that Poland was a British colony for a long time?
Maybe in the future....

;-)

for now it seems the other way around ;)

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]


And technical: śruba, wajcha, wichajster :)

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4501]

spławiać means to float. Maybe one of your ancestors was a raftsman?

Genealogy / Krupski name [36]

Might you by any chance be related to Nadieżda Krupska? ;)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadezhda_Krupskaya

Language / FULL WYPAS, WYPASIONY, ZAJEBISTY? [20]


It's an euphemism for zajebisty, which is still considered rough by most people.

I remember Agnieszka Chylińska using it on TV, but I'm not sure when exactly and what programme it was. I don't think she was the first one either, but then I'm not much of a TV viewer.

And I remember "wypas" used by Gulczas, a guy from the 1st edition of the Polish Big Brother, in some sort of a TV commercial - something to do with cars probably, as the exact quote was "Nysa to jest wypas". I've just checked and the 1st edition of BB in Poland was in 2001, so the commercial must have been on the air soon after that - end of 2001? The expression was quite new then.

Language / Can accidentally using the wrong gender form cause offence? [26]


Actually it happens in Polish, with family talking to small kids: "Mama jest na ciebie zła". "Nie pluj na babcię, babcia nie lubi, kiedy na nią plujesz". "Daj cioci buzi, to ciocia da ci lizaka", "Chodź, tata teraz zaprowadzi cię do przedszkola" etc.

Language / Polish and Hungarian, how similar? [53]

Not similar at all. Different language families. There are probably more similarities between Polish and English than between Polish and Hungarian.

As for the phrase book - well, I don't know, depends on how gifted linguistically she was.

Food / Good Polish "chrupki" recipe? [8]


what kind of chrupki do you have in mind?

Language / Polish and Hungarian, how similar? [53]


The father was probably conversing with the Czechs, then it rings true enough. Unless the Hungarians could also speak some Czech, which is possible, depending on which part of Hungary they came from. He definitely wouldn't have been able to talk with the Hungarians not having any common language with them.


It's possible to just memorize simple phrases, although with Hungarian you need to know the pronunciation rules.


why not?

Language / Polish and Hungarian, how similar? [53]


The country was named Czechosłovakia, still there were Czechs and Slovaks living there, both groups speaking their relative languages, out of which Czech was the country's official language.


You're right in that Czechoslovakian-Hungarian border was actually a Slovak-Hungarian border. Still, ethnicity issues in that area were a rather complicated affair for many years after the fall of the Habsburg Empire; they might have been Czechs as well as Slovaks.

Language / Can accidentally using the wrong gender form cause offence? [26]

oh, but is something else - talking about oneself in the 3rd person vs. talking to somebody in the 3rd person instead of 2nd.
The latter also happens in families, it's slightly archaic but still used sometimes: niech mama pójdzie, niech babcia powie. It's considered to be more respectful than the ordinary "mamo, idź".

As a matter of fact, it's the same form as in "niech pan/pani pójdzie".

Language / Nice Polish phrases to say to men [76]

Kocham Cię i do końca życia będę za Tobą tęsknić. Proszę, wróć tu, gdzie jest Twoje miejsce albo zabierz nas ze sobą, bo umieram z tęsknoty.

News / Poland's fidelity to support wars and its limits. [46]


and rightly so. All the names that end in -ska in Polish get -aya in Russian (think Krupska - Krupskaya). Preserving the -aya ending would mean unecessarily retaining the English transcription. There's no need to transcribe Russian names into Polish via English.

Love / Is she genuine? - I would like some advice please re a Polish girl. [130]

is she from Poland, born and brought up here?
if so, ask her what her favourite cartoons were when she was a kid or sth along these lines... and then come back here and check up on it :)

Language / Polish Swear Words [1242]

it would be either "o kurwa!" or "o Jezu!", take your pick

Language / 'ucha' [23]


It's correct when meaning not human or animal ears but e.g. pot handles, in the same way as "oka" is correct for the fat floating on the surface of broth.

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

The word robot was introduced to the public by Czech writer Karel Čapek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), published in 1920.

However, Karel Čapek himself did not coin the word. He wrote a short letter in reference to an etymology in the Oxford English Dictionary in which he named his brother, the painter and writer Josef Čapek, as its actual originator.[14] In an article in the Czech journal Lidové noviny in 1933, he explained that he had originally wanted to call the creatures laboři (from Latin labor, work). However, he did not like the word, and sought advice from his brother Josef, who suggested "roboti". The word robota means literally work, labor or serf labor, and figuratively "drudgery" or "hard work" in Czech and many Slavic languages. Traditionally the robota was the work period a serf had to give for his lord, typically 6 months of the year.[15] Serfdom was outlawed in 1848 in Bohemia, so at the time Čapek wrote R.U.R., usage of the term robota had broadened to include various types of work, but the obsolete sense of "serfdom" would still have been known.[16][17]

The word robotics, used to describe this field of study, was coined by the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot

Language / When do you use 'się'? And what does it mean? [37]

there was a very good explanation on "się" already posted in one of the threads, but I can't find it now.

Anyway, I'll try to summarize it:
- basically, there are two types of verbs which take "się":

one is verbs needing an object - e.g. myć - myję ręce, matka myje dziecko, on myje się - you always wash something or somebody and when the thing washed is oneself, then you use "się". It's the same for every grammatical person - ja myję się, on myje się, wy myjecie się. This is your example with killing - ona zabije się.

The other group is verbs which take "się" for no apparent reason, you just need to remember which ones they are and treat "się" as a part of the verb itself. Examples:

stać się - to happen
okazać się - turn out
podobać się
Notice that some of these verbs take on different meaning when devoid of "się", as with "stać się" and "stać", which means just "to stand".

IMO you should just accept that some verbs are like that and memorize them, complete with "się".

Language / When do you use 'się'? And what does it mean? [37]


That's probably true. But what you say further on doesn't explain verbs like śmiać się, stać się or wydawać się, where "się" doesn't mark any reflexive action, still it's necessary to use it.

Language / When do you use 'się'? And what does it mean? [37]


True. But that was the original question in this thread - Turtleonfire didn't have any problem with the reflexive use, which is quite logical; he was asking about the other, seemingly illogical "się" words.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4501]

sounds like Ukrainian version of Długopolak/Długopolski, meaning "a long Pole" or "coming from Long Poland". There is no such thing as Długa Polska - Long Poland, but the name is a real, existing one, so maybe somebody will be able to tell you more about it.

Language / 'ucha' [23]


are you sure? this came to my mind too, but Chaza asked about endings and not ending, so...


I think you meant parsley

Language / że & iż [16]


It's perfectly OK in speech, but in writing one of the "że"-s would need to be replaced with "iż". It's a matter of good style really. Check in any novel.

Usually the first one remains "że" and the second changes into "iż", but it depends on the sentence, can be the other way around.