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Posts by Lorenc  

Joined: 13 May 2008 / Male ♂
Last Post: 16 Nov 2011
Threads: 4
Posts: Total: 28 / Live: 19 / Archived: 9

Speaks Polish?: Not yet

Displayed posts: 23
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Lorenc   
16 Nov 2011
Language / A typical quality of book translation from English to Polish? [28]

I'll add a curiosity on the word ceber: it is the oldest recorded Polish word. It is recorded in the form czebri in a text from 1118. cz then changed to c.

Sources: Aleksander Brückner, Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego
Stanisław Westfal, The Polish Language
Lorenc   
13 Sep 2010
Real Estate / Polish system for flats/apartments. Owner have to pay a rent? [11]

1, 2.

Thank you, inkrakow. But surely you should also pay 5 , the "pure" rent, woudn't you?

I am perplexed because I was told that in "council" estates if you don't own the flat you pay so many złoty per month, and that, were you to purchase it, you would still have to pay that many złoty per month. My guess is that the bulk of what one's pays each month is made up mainly by 1-2, so that paying or not 5 to the council doesn't make much difference overall.

Does this make sense? Or am I missing something?
Lorenc   
13 Sep 2010
Real Estate / Polish system for flats/apartments. Owner have to pay a rent? [11]

Let me try to get this right. This how I see things. The following things may need to be paid:

1) Utility bills (water, gas, electricity, telephone...)

2) Ordinary maintenance of the block (cleaning of common areas, repairs, administration costs,...)

3) In the UK most flats are leaseholds. This (roughly!) means that, a), the landlord has "ownership" over the flat only for a limited, but possibly very long, period of time (e.g., 100 years) and, b), that he or she has to pay a "ground rent" to the "real" owner (the freeholder).

4) In the UK most people who are not students need to pay a tax to the town council the live in (Council Tax).

5) If you don't own the flat you live in you pay a rent to the landlord. The rent may automatically include some of the costs of points 1-4.

Which of these points apply to Polish flats? Is there something alike the ground rent of point 3?
Thanks!
Lorenc   
13 Sep 2010
Real Estate / Polish system for flats/apartments. Owner have to pay a rent? [11]

Hello,
I've been told that in Poland, if you live in a block of flats, you have to pay a rent even if you are the owner of the flat, and that owners and non-owners end up paying each month the same (for this "rent", bills, block expenses).

Is it true? If so, what's the rationale behind it?

Thanks!
Lorenc   
7 Feb 2010
Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

Every now and then this old tread comes back to life...
Saying that Polish is "the hardest language in the world" is nonsense for a whole variety of reasons. Just to name a few:

n.0 The thing that annoys me the most is the spirit underlying so many of the "Polish is the hardest language" comments. These comments seem to all come from people having little (or no) knowledge not of Polish but also of world languages in general, often including their own native language!

The line of reasoning I imagine is a follows. Someone has a quick look at Polish grammar and finds it difficult. Ergo, Polish must be the most difficult language in the world. An extreme case of hasty generalisation!

n.1 Hardest for whom? For speakers of slavic languages Polish is certainly not that hard. From a practical point of view "hardeness" is relative to the language(s) one already speaks. This objection is discussed at length for example by Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_difficult_language

n.2 It is true that from a theoretical (as opposed to practical) point of view it is possible to argue that some languages are structurally more complex than some others. For example, I do believe that in several objective ways Esperanto, say, is more straightforward than Polish. In this respect it is also reasonable to argue that written, non-literary English is "easier" than Polish. That said, this observation may be of relevance in a "easiest/ most consistent language in the world" but is irrelavant to the "hardest language" one.

Even confining ourselves to a specific language group for learners (say, English speakers, or speakers of other non-slavic European languages) in the world there are many, many, HARD languages to learn. As someone already mentioned, languages spoken by native Americans are considered very difficult. Languages spoken by few people and/or for which good teaching material is scarce are also more "difficult" from a practical point of view (e.g., the Somalian language). And even if we take into consideration only major languages there are many which are in all probability harder to learn for European speakers than Polish; just to name a few: Japanese, Arabic, Chinese, Hungarian, Korean, Vietnamese... I know little about them but certainly they aren't easy.

n.3 Slavic languages all have a similar structure. There's really no reason to single out Polish as definitely more difficult than, say, Czech or Ukrainian. On the other hand I can see several reasons why Polish could be (marginally) easier than some other slavic languages: uses the latin alphabet, there's a good deal of teaching material, there are little variations in accent, the position of the tonic accent is predictable... e.g., Slovene seems harder in this respect.

Finally, some people displaying a good deal of arrogance and ignorance had a pop at Polish orthography.
The Polish orthografic system, although not "perfect", is pretty consistent and predictable.
For example, some time ago, for fun, I wrote a computer program which translates Polish words into their phonetic transcription using the IPA. The program is entirely rule-based, without any built-in dictionary for transcriptions.

After some tweaking with the voicing/devoicing rules the program works pretty well in almost all cases. The only cases where it can get confused is when the -dzi- cluster occurs in words such as podziemny where it should be d+ź and not dź. A similar situation occurs also for the cluster -dż- which can be either the affricate sound dż or d+ż. However I believe dż is found only in verbal forms and in semi-assimilated foreign nouns so that the ambiguity can be resolved with a little thought.
Lorenc   
27 Jan 2010
Language / Google translate thinks a Polish car is a baby? Bing example. [12]

Google Translate generally does a pretty decent job at translating Polish->English. Generally, but not always!
Try: Auto jest teraz u mojego taty.
Google: Baby is now at my dad.

On the other hand
Auto jest teraz w serwisie.
becomes a more reasonable
Car is now on the site.

I guess the translation auto=baby in induced by the context of the 1st sentence, notably because of the word "dad". But... can autoever mean baby in Polish???? Where does google take it from?
Lorenc   
26 Jan 2010
Language / Polish locative and case declensions [16]

Hi Darevon,
What you've put together is a truly impressive and comprehensive piece of work!
However, if I make make a comment (not a criticism!), some of the feature you listed are the consequences of some general Polish rules, which are not specific to the locative case.

Of course what you've done is not wrong, and it's always nice to write down things in full, but it also renders the discussion more complicated than it might otherwise be...

I'll quote some of the features you listed, making a few comments.
Again, this is not a criticism. I hope these remarks may be of use in rationalising the rules.
I'll use these acronyms: H=hard; S=soft; HNV=hard non-velar; HV= hard velar [i.e., k,g,ch]; PS=phonetic ["true"] soft; HS=historical soft

Adjectives in the male and neuter locative singular take "-ym"/"-im"-ending.

FEMALE-SPECIFIC DECLENSIONS ("-Y"/"-I"-ENDING):

The alternation i/y is regular and always present: HNV and HS want -y, HV and PS want -i.
This means that in Polish the sounds (say) ń+y, c+i cannot occur, ever. It's always ń+i, c+y (and so on).

SNA: sosna -> sośnie [sna -> śnie]

This kind of behaviour, and similar ones like miasto->mieście, are necessary to respect the Polish phonotactic rule which says consonants in the same sillable must be all soft or all hard.

Softening of the final n to ń induces the softening of the preceding consonant to respect the rule... there's really no other possibility...

Ę: zwierzę -> zwierzęciu [ę -> ęciu]
IĘ: imię -> imieniu [ię -> ieniu]
UM*: muzeum -> muzeum [um -> um] (no change)

Neuter nouns ending in ę (and often referring to the young of animals etc.) acquire a further syllable in all cases different from nominative. Latin names in -um are invariable in the singular. So there's no irregularity of any kind here.

Nouns ending in Ć, Ń, Ś and - have their respective final letter lose their
accent and have "-iach" attached at the end, e.g. ćwierć -> ćwierciach

Of course this a general orthographic rule: the sound ć+vowel is spelled ci+vowel, always.
I won't comment here on the vowel alternation but them too are (to an extent) predictable: e.g. ó in closed syllables, o in open syllables; e.g. take gwóźdź->gwoździu (nail). The nominative is a single-syllable word and hence a closed syllable. The locative is gwo-ździu: open syllable and alternation to o. The same occurs e.g. in the genitive sing. (Kraków->Krakowa), genitive pl. (słowo->słów) etc.

If it is possible to assume that general phototactic/orthographic rules like the ones above have been acquired, the locative case rules can be stated in a much more compact way:

MASC,NEU, FEMM -HNV => '-e
MASC,NEU -HV or -S => -u
FEMM, -HV => '-e
FEMM, -S => -i/-y
Where the apostrophe ' indicates softening/vowel alternation (if relevant). The rest are details :)

Anyway, congratulations again on the job you've done :-)
Lorenc   
17 Jan 2010
Language / Etymologia łuny [8]

Thank you Ania :-) What dictionary is it you are using?
I also found out what "Losna" probably is... apparently it was the Moon godness in Etruscan mythology (is this dictionary made for cryptic crosswords aficionados?!)

The next question that springs to mind is if the word "luna" used in other slavic languages (Russian, etc) is cognate with łuna or a late Latin import...
Lorenc   
17 Jan 2010
Language / Etymologia łuny [8]

Thanks a lot Ania! Very prompt answer! Only, I have some problems with the meaning of some of the text, it's a bit cryptic to me... These things are clear:

prus.=Prussian language
staro-baktr.=old Bactrian language
łac.=Latin language
grec=Greek language
psałterz= the Book of Psalms (bible), salter
Bartosz Paprocki (1543-1614)=Polish writer

What do "w narzeczach losna" and "przed n wypadło ch z ks" mean...?

Anyway the answer seems to be yes, Polish łuna and Latin luna are cognates. In fact, as you mentioned, Latin luna comes from the same root of lux (light) , so in this sense Polish łuna seems very close to the most ancient meaning.
Lorenc   
17 Jan 2010
Language / Etymologia łuny [8]

I wondered if any of you knows the ethymology of the word łuna, meaning "glow" (= blask/poświata). Il also the Polish traslation for the Russian space probes of the "Luna" series.

I was wondering if łuna is a slavic word cognate with Latin luna or if there's a more direct link between the two. I had a look here:

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:List_of_Proto-Indo-European_nouns

but I couldn'd find anything relevant about the root "luna"
Lorenc   
10 Jan 2010
Language / Why in the world there are three ways to write simple U ?!?! [54]

in world pół I myself hear only "puu"

they do sound very similar but they are different. E.g. go to ivona.com, select Jacek and try "za pół roku" vs "za pu roku"

Actualy if you say puu or pół is the same

yes, I'd imagine you'd be understood, because it's a small mispronunciation

in G£ÓWNY if you are honest with yourselfm you hear very clearly GUUVNY

if you are honest maybe, but if you have Polish-tuned ears you hear główny /gwuvnI/. It's about the same difference as in English "swoop" vs "soup"

So if instead of useless £ and Ó you just write u, you will make polish language a big big favour

even if you were right it would hardly be a simplification. It'd make the ł:l and ó:o alternation unpredictable.
Lorenc   
10 Jan 2010
Language / Which is the BEST, EASIEST to learn & most helpful"POLISH FOR FOREIGNERS"course? [32]

There are 2 very good courses available:

I too bought Polish in 4 Weeks and I think it's a very good course, particularly oriented towards self-study. However, as SzwedwPolsce said, unless you have an outstanding determination and willpower it'll take much more than a month to assimilate it!

The book tells two intertwining story in a soap-opera-like manner. The dialogues and situations seem to be practical and "realistic", that is not as contrived as textbook dialogues often are.

The audio recordings are of high quality; a funny thing is that, as the number of the voice actors is limited (about 6 I think) sometimes the same voice is given to different characters. Nothing wrong with that of course, only one woman of the series, Basia, has a very characteristic, cracked voice and it is funny to hear her turning up from time to time as estate agent, cashier, random pedestrian etc. :-)

I must also say that, at times, I was surprised by some twists of the story itself. Thinking about it, I found them slightly politically-incorrect for a textbook. This is not a criticisms, only I was left wondering if the book reflects a slightly different perception of some things or if it is just all due to the soap-opera quality of the story. Or maybe it's just me...

I'll give some examples (don't read if you don't want spoilers!).
The main characters at the beginning of the story are:
-Alice, about 25, American journalism student living in Warsaw. [she speaks perfect Polish, being American is a pretext to allow some kinds of questions]. She has got a boyfriend called Andrzej.

-Basia, about 25, Alice's best friend and co-tenant.
-Waldek, about 30, radio journalist and new acquaintance of Alice's who's trying to win her heart.
-John Brown, half-Scottish/half-Polish 40-year-old entrepreneur who grew up in the UK and has now gone back to live in Poland.

Here are some of the surprising bits:

-When Alice tell Basia of having met Waldek, Basia asks what kind of car had he got, because "ma dobry samochód, to znaczy że ma pieniądze!"

-Waldek begins a relentless (and ultimately successful) courtship on Alice: restaurants, theatre shows, trips to Kraków etc, all this behind Andrzej's back. Alice complains with Waldek that Andrzej works a lot and doesn't always have time to take her to discos. Big mistake! Waldek is all to happy to seize the opportunity...

-After a row Andrzej tries to make up with Alice with some surprise cinema tickets but Alice coldly dismisses him on the phone saying she can't go bacause she's going away with a "friend" (Waldek). Andrzej asks who it is but she just hangs the phone on him! This is the last we hear from Andrzej.

-That old fox of John Brown tries to hit on Basia at a local bar. Basia understands the situation immediately and is all to happy to be picked up by the (presumably) wealthy businessman. To justify the 15 year gap with Alice she says that after all "zrozumiałam, że najbardziej podobają mi się dojrzali mężczyźni"!

Comments? Personally I found the story line entertaining, better than the usual dull "The pen is on the table" texts for beginners.
Lorenc   
25 Dec 2009
Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]

-l: /faul, disel/ and
-cz: /tucz/ are masculine,
so these are mistakes.

Thank you for your corrections Ziemowit. As I said I based my list on the PWN-Oxford dictionary which isn't as accurate as one may wish. I guess some feminine words may be missing from my list because they are listed as masculine in the dictionary!

Is it surprising because "myśl" is feminine and so should be "Prze-myśl"?

Well, yes :-)
Given that myśleć=to think, przemyśleć=to think over, myśl=thought then surely przemyśl has got to mean reflection and be the same gender as myśl... but neither supposition is true :-)

Another proper name which is a tricky one is Ostrów. Do you vote for it being of masculine or feminine gender?

Well, Kraków and Rzeszów are masculine are masculine so that's what I'd guess at first.
Also, in my list above all feminine words in -ew and not in -ów... so I'd again guess Ostrów to be masculine.

I then turned to Święty Google i Święta Wikipedia... The latter says there are more then 40 cities/towns/hamlets/islands called Ostrów... do they all have the same gender?

A brutal search effort gives:
"do Ostrowa" vs "do Ostrowi" vs "do Ostrowii" 12,900 vs 9,110 vs 4,040 mmmm!
Let's try something more unambiguous
"jechać do Ostrowa" vs "jechać do Ostrowi" vs "jechać do Ostrowii" 29,100 vs 8 vs 3 ... that's more decisive but the numbers don't add up with the previous search!

One more go:
"z Ostrowem" vs "z Ostrową" vs "z Ostrowią" 53,100 vs 0 ??? vs 11,500 mmmmmm again! google seems to consider ą=a at least at times, which is very bad for this. However many hits do correspond to "z Ostrowią" !

Okay, that's enough, let me look at this huge
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasta_w_Polsce_(statystyki)
Wikipedia page in detail...
Ooh, I get it now! Some Ostrow's are masculine and some feminine! There are 3 Ostrów's which make it be be miasta: Ostrów Wielkopolski (72,368), Ostrów Mazowiecka (22,517) and Ostrów Lubelski (2,224). As the accompanying adjective testifies Ostrów Mazowiecka is unmistakably FEMININE! That also explains the random results with Google.

Wikipedia again says
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historia_Ostrowi_Mazowieckiej

Zaczynając od wieku XV kiedy to nazwa brzmiała Ostrowo, w akcie lokacyjnym Ostrowya 1434, poprzez Ostrowia, wieku XIX miasto zwano Ostrów Mazowiecki, Ostrów £omżyński lub Ostrów w ziemi łomżyńskiej, w okresie międzywojennym używano dwóch nazw mianowicie: Ostrowia Mazowiecka i Ostrów Mazowiecki. W grudniu 1926 Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnętrznych przyjęło nazwę zaproponowaną przez językoznawcę - profesora doktora Kazimierza Nitscha - Ostrów Mazowiecka.

Posterity is left wondering how much beer the excellent professor had had before taking the historic decision...

That was an evil tricky question Ziemowit :-)

Hi,
I re-wrote the list of feminine zero-ending nouns adding a translation and grouping words in categories.
I put some words which seem to me to stand out for importance in bold. Of course, there's some abritrariety in this. I hope it helps.

ANIMALS, PLANTS,FOOD (30 words)
sólsalt
myszmouse
gęśgoose
marchewcarrot
gałąźbranch (of tree)
płećsex (=gender, for people and animals)
pleśń mould (fungi)
wesz louse
smycz leash
uwięź tether
rzodkiew radish
jabłoń apple tree
pieczeń roast (food)
latorośl vine; offspring
winorośl vine
paproć fern (plant)
zdobycz quarry (prey)
uprząż harness (horses)
klacz mare
spadź honeydew (from flowers etc)
barć hollow in a tree where bees live
twardziel hardwood (duramen)
brukiew swede (cabbage)
żagiew firebrand; kind of mushroom
trzebież forest thinning, extermination
płoć roach (fish)
nać top (of carrot or vegetables)
odrośl offshoot; sucker (of plant, eg ivy)
troć sea trout
wić twig

ABSTRACT OR GENERAL THINGS(26 words)
rzeczthing
mocpower
wszechmoc omnipotence
niemoc impotence
przemocviolence
pomochelp
samopomoc self-help
myślthought
kradzieżtheft
chęćwillingness
przyjaźńfriendship
więźbond (of love, friendship)
rozpaczdespair
dal distance
słodycz sweetness
gorycz bitterness
bojaźń fear, awe
odsiecz relief
wilgoć dampness
rozkosz bliss
woń fragrance
kaźń torment
piędź span
straż guard (to be on -)
rzeź slaughter
podaż supply (economics)

PHYSICAL SIZE, GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES (17 words)
przestrzeńspace
czasoprzestrzeń spacetime
wieśvillage, countryside
podróżtrip, journey
darń turf
krawędź edge (of coin, table..)
przełęcz pass (of a mountain)
grań ridge (mountain)
perć mountain path
płacheć patch (land etc.)
połać stretch (of land, etc)
przystań harbour
kipiel surf (waves breaking)
otchłań abyss
topiel deep waters; whirpool
toń the depths (sea), abyss
rubież frontier (esp. in military jargon)

ANATOMICAL PARTS, MEDICINE(16 words)
twarzface
krewblood
półkrew half-blood
dłońpalm (of hand)
pierśbreast, chest
breweyebrow
skroń temple (head)
zgorzel gangrene
narośl growth (of flesh etc.)
torbiel cyst (medicine)
kibić waist
żołądź glans (anatomy)
gardziel throat; narrow passage
goleń tibia (bone)
piszczel tibia (bone)
krtań larynx

"HOSTILE" WORDS (8 words)
brońweapon
pogoń pursuit, chase
swołocz scoundrel
waśń feud, quarrel
chorągiew flag
dzicz savage, barbarian
potwarz slander, calumny
grabież pillage, plunder

HOUSE-RELATED (8 words)
kąpielbath
poręcz railing, handrail
sień entrace hall
pościel bedclothes; bed
czeladź household servants
warząchew large wooden spoon
staroć antique
krokiew rafter (large sloping piece of wood which supporting a roof)

MATHS, SCIENCE, METALS (8 words)
ćwierćquarter (1/4)
miedźcopper (metal)
stalsteel
rtęćmercury (metal)
axis (maths)
macierz matrix (maths)
jaźń ego (psychology)
śniedź patina (eg on oxidated copper)

COLOURS (6 words)
czerńblack
bielwhite
zieleńgreen
czerwieńred
podczerwień infra-red
żółćyellow; bile (anatomy)

TIME PERIODS (6 words)
jesieńautumn
nocnight
dobranocgood-night
północmidnight, north
WielkanocEaster
równonoc equinox

VESSELS & LIQUIDS (7 words)
łódźboat
siećnet
cieczliquid
kadź vat, tub
stągiew vat, tub
konew large can (tin)
maź gunge, goo

WEATHER-RELATED (7 words)
powódź flood
zamieć snowstorm
sadź hoarfrost
szadź hoarfrost
gołoledź black ice (ice on roads)
szreń snow crust
odwilż thaw, melt (snow, ice)

DERIVATIVES OF THE VERB SPRZEDAĆ (5 words)
sprzedażsale, selling
wyprzedażsales (promocja)
przedsprzedaż advance booking
odsprzedaż resale
rozprzedaż selling

DERIVATIVES OF THE VERB POWIEDZIEĆ ETC (5 words)
odpowiedźanswer
wypowiedź statement
zapowiedź announcement
podpowiedź hint
spowiedź confession

TEXTILE WORLD (5 words)
odzieżpiece of clothing
kieszeńpocket (trousers, jacket...)
nić thread
pilśń felt (hat etc.)
kądziel distaff (tool used in the past in the textile industry)

MISCELLANEOUS (14 words)
kolejrailway
baśńfairy tale
pieśń solemn song
pieczęć seal (on document)
żerdź perch, pole (for birds,drilling tools...)
dań gift
gładź smooth surface
obręcz hoop
mać mother (obsolete. Used only in curse words)
młodzież young people
gawiedź rout (crowd)
chuć sexual urge
Białoruś Belarus
cerkiew the Orthodox Church
Lorenc   
24 Dec 2009
Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]

Re: masculine place name endings, for example, into which paradigm does "Przemyśł" fit?? Obviously it follows a declension pattern!

I must say when I put together my list I didn't make any effort in trying to take into account proper names (cities and countries). Wikisłownik says that the town you mention, Przemyśl (65238 citizens according to wikipedia) is, surprisingly, of MASCULINE gender! Looking at the Polish wikipedia article about it I inferred the following (regular) declension pattern:

NOM Przemyśl
GEN Przemyśla
DAT Przemyślowi
ACC Przemyśl
INST Przemyślem
LOC Przemyślu

I was wondering if Polish people not accustomed with the city could use the wrong gender... googling "w Przemyślu", the correct form, returns 263,000 hits while "w Przemyśli" 1,540, a ratio of 1:170 (not much). "do Przemyśla" vs "do Przemyśli" yields 22,600 vs 9... then no, they don't get it wrong :-)

Side note: Przemyśl has a final l and not ł; I think there exist a phonotactic rule which in some contexts (word final seems to be one of these) forces consonants in the same syllable to be all soft or all hard (=> śł isn't an allowed cluster in Polish).
Lorenc   
23 Dec 2009
Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]

It's the CD-ROM version of the PWN-OXFORD Wielki słownik angielsko-polski i polsko-angielski which is advertised as The most comprehensive Polish and English dictionary available

pwn-oxford.pwn.pl
ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/academic/language/reference/dictionaries/bilingual/polish/9780198610755.do

It should be the biggest Polish<->English dictionary, perhaps together with the Kościuszko Foundation's one, but I'm not particularly impressed with it. Despite it's bulk it is certainly below par when compared with the best English<->Italian dictionaries. I was talking with a Polish NS and she didn't know many of the Polish proverbs and idioms listed, so I suppose they were either very old-fashioned or perhaps regional.
Lorenc   
23 Dec 2009
Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]

Spurred by our previous discussion and having some free time in my hands I persused my PWN-Oxford dictionary with the aim of drawing up a definite list of feminine nouns ending with a consonant. For your joy, here's a detailed summary of my findings :-)

PRELIMINARY NOTE
Polish consonant sounds are customary labelled as hard or soft. Soft sounds are further classified as historical soft (also known as hardened or functionally soft) and phonetically (or "true") soft. "Softness" is the name traditional used in the Slavic grammatical tradition for "palatalisation".

I'll use this classification (slightly different ones are also in use, especially for l,j and ł, but for our purposes let's stick to this one):

Hard sounds are m, b, p, w, f, n, d, t, z, s, r, k, g, ch/h, ł
Historical soft sounds are c, dz, sz, rz/ż, cz, dż
True soft sounds are ź, ś, ć, dź, ń, j, l

Hard sounds (a part from ł) automatically soften if followed by "i". For s, z, n this gives the sounds ś,ź,ń. For the hard sounds m, b, p, w, f, d, t, r, k, g, ch/h there's no single symbol to write their corresponding soft sound and they cannot occur in word-final position. For our purposes we can write them as m', b' etc.

MAIN RULE 1
The final consonant of feminine, zero-ending words is ALWAYS a soft consonant, either historical or true soft (see note 1 and 2 below for some minor qualifications).

MAIN RULE 2
By far, the largest group of zero-ending feminine word is constituted by those ending in -ość, as already discussed. There are probably more than 3000 feminine words of this kind.

LIST OF WORDS
Excluding words ending in -ość, the total number of zero-ending feminine nouns I found is 171. Of these, I estimate only some 30-40 are actually worth remembering. All the others look very obscure and are probably hardly-ever used in most normal contexts.

Warning: there may be mistakes!

: 34 / przestrzeń, broń, pieśń, kieszeń, zieleń, pieczeń, dłoń, przyjaźń, czerń, jesień, jabłoń, otchłań, pogoń, przystań, bojaźń, pilśń, pleśń, czerwień, grań, podczerwień, woń, baśń, czasoprzestrzeń, dań, darń, goleń, jaźń, kaźń, krtań, sień, skroń, szreń, toń, waśń

: 23 (excluding those ending in -ść) sieć, nić, płeć, chęć, ćwierć, pieczęć, mać, kibić, żółć, płacheć [can also be masculine], połać, barć, chuć, nać, paproć, perć, płoć, rtęć, staroć, troć, wilgoć, zamieć, wić

-l : 21 / myśl, stal, sól, kąpiel, biel, dal, faul, zgorzel, latorośl, narośl, odrośl, piszczel [can also be masculine], pościel, torbiel, twardziel, diesel, gardziel, kądziel, kipiel, topiel, winorośl

-dź : 21 / The 10 listed by Derevon [BTW it's miedź, not międź and żołądź can also be masculine] + gładź, gołoledź, kadź, podpowiedź, czeladź, gawiedź, sadź, szadź, spadź, śniedź, żerdź

-ść : 20 (excluding those ending in -ość) / I won't list them as it makes more sense to cosider the -ść ending as feminine, as discussed in my previous post

: 16 / The 6 listed by Derevon + kradzież, młodzież, odwilż, podaż, uprząż, grabież, odsprzedaż, przedsprzedaż, rozprzedaż, trzebież
-cz : 15 / rzecz, słodycz, obręcz, ciecz, gorycz, odsiecz, zdobycz, klacz, dzicz, poręcz, rozpacz, smycz, tucz, przełęcz, swołocz
-w' : 13 (see note1) / krew, półkrew, brew, marchew, konew, chorągiew, brukiew, cerkiew, krokiew, rzodkiew, stągiew, warząchew, żagiew
-c : 11 / moc, noc, pomoc + 8 compound words of these: dobranoc, północ, równoc, Wielkanoc; samopomoc; niemoc, przemoc, wszechmoc
: 5 / maź, rzeź, gałąź, uwięź, więź
: 5 / pierś, oś, gęś, wieś, Białoruś
-sz : 3 / mysz, wesz, rozkosz
-rz: 3 / twarz, potwarz, macierz
-j: 1 / kolej

There are no feminine words ending in either -dz or -dż, which are the only soft consonant endings not represented in the list.

NOTE 1
In my list there appear 13 words ending in -ew, and w is apparently a hard consonant. This seems to contradict MAIN RULE 1 above. However, there's a way out. This kind of situation is rationalised in Ron F. Feldstein's free Polish grammar (he's talking about the masculine word "paw" =peacock):

QUOTE
Notice that the stem-final of paw is structurally soft, palatalized [w'], but that it hardens in final position, which happens to be the dictionary and usual citation form. It would be more accurate to represent the stem as paw'-.

UNQUOTE

I find though, that the paradigms are so irregular, not every single Polish noun could possibly fit into any single category, e.g. feminine 'krew' (blood) vs. masculine 'zalew' (drainage pipe) ad infinitum.

This discussion also helps in making some sense of the different behaviour of the words you quote. Krew is feminine and thus must ends in -w' and we expect -wi- to appear in other cases, -wi- being the only way to write w'. On the other hand zalew is masculine and ends in a hard w, so no "intrusive" i ever appears.

Compare:
NOM SING/PLUR krew/krwie | zalew/zalewy
GEN SING/PLUR krwi/krwi | zalwu/zalewów
DAT SING/PLUR krwi/krwiom | zalwowi/zalewom
ACC SING/PLUR krew/krwie | zalew/zalewy
INST SING/PLUR krwią/krwiami | zalewem/zalewami
LOC SING/PLUR krwi/krwiach | zalewie/zalewach
VOC SING/PLUR krwi/krwie | zalewie/zalewy

There doesn't seem to be any femine word ending in other softened hard sounds like m', b', p' etc.
I do not know if there are masculine nouns ending in softened sounds like -w'.

NOTE 2
It may be possible to come across semi-assimilated feminine foreign words which may end in a hard consonant: e.g., Wenus (planet and goddess), biznesswoman, call girl. These are invariable for all cases, so they arise no problems.

Okay, this is all. I guess many hoped the situation to be a bit simpler, but that's the way it is... Anyway, all in all, it's not too bad. In other languages such as French or Italian for many words there's just no way to tell if they're feminine or masculine, so Polish isn't doing too bad after all.

I guess it would make sense to create a compact list containing only useful words and excluding derivate words (if noc is feminine, so should be północ, ect.)

Lorenc

P.S.
The PWN dictionary reports "defekt", "tapir (fryzura)","babiniec" as feminine but I think they're mistakes (I cross-checked on wikisłownik). Who knows how many other mistakes there are in this dictionary...
Lorenc   
21 Dec 2009
Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]

I had written a very detailed reply yesterday but, *very* irritatingly, it seems to have been lost in transit :-(
Here's a condensed version.

We stated that words ending in -ść are FEMININE, with (essentially) only 3 exceptions: gość, liść, teść.

Words ending in -ć (excluding those in -ść) can be either feminine or masculine.
I counted on the PWN dictionary 23 feminine words ending in -ć and 21 masculine.

In particular, of the 21 masculine 18 end in -eć (also feminine nouns can end in -eć so there's no rule here).
The three that don't are:
zięć -> son-in-law
papuć -> (colloquial) slipper
turkuć [podjadek] -> mole cricket
I think in most contexts we can forget about the last one.

Here are the remaining -eć ending ones I found, more or less in order of google hits on google.pl (I did a quick search to see if these words are used at all):

kapeć ->slipper; flat tyre
łapeć /albo/ papeć /albo/ papuć -> slipper
pypeć [np., na języku] -> pip (medicine) ; also: (colloquial) ->blotch/mole;
śmieć -> scum; piece of rubbish
cieć (colloquial,offensive) ->caretaker, janitor
paznokieć ->nail
wiecheć -> bunch (e.g., of flowers) [can also be a family name]
dziegieć -> wood tar [can also be a family name]
rupieć -> piece of junk
kmieć (dated) ->peasant/yeoman [can also be a family name]
berbeć (colloquial) ->toddler
kłykieć /lub/ knykieć -> knuckle
kopeć -> soot,lampblack [can also be a family name]
urwipołeć (colloquial,humorous) -> imp
spłacheć (dated) ->piece
płacheć (dated or dialectal) ->patch

If I have time I'll make a list of the corresponding -ć ending feminine nouns.
Anyhow, even if it can be fun to make such lists (yes, some people have a very special idea of fun :) I don't think anyone should make an effort to remember these mostly rarely-used words...

...and then there's feminine 'kość' (bone), declined like masculine 'gość', so far as I can recall:-)

you're right, kość is indeed a feminine noun, but it does not decline as gość, which is masculine (and virile). Kość declines near-regularly (*) following the pattern of feminine words ending in a consonant cluster with a final soft consonant (admittedly, a very specific pattern :-).

(*) It's only irregularity is that its instrumental plural is kośćmi and not the expected (wrong) "kościami" (gość does the same, as does a small group of soft-ending words).

BTW, I'll also mention that some online Polish dictionary also provide a full declensor/verb conjugator which is often a real godsend! See e.g.:

Oscar Swan's Polish dictionary polish.slavic.pitt.edu/~swan/beta/
Wiksłownik
pl.wiktionary.org/wiki

Słownik języka polskiego
sjp.pl
I'll also seize the opportunity to ask a related question... Do *all* zero-ending feminine words have the nominative plural in -i (instead of the regular -e)?

Lorenc
Lorenc   
21 Dec 2009
Language / Why in the world there are three ways to write simple U ?!?! [54]

I think the original poster is just looking for a flame war. His "arguments" are preposterous. As it has been discussed not long ago in another thread, the Polish spelling system is really not to bad, especially in the "written word -> sound" direction where it's almost always unambiguous. I wonder where the original poster is from to be in a position to criticize... he doesn't seem to be a native English speaker.

In polish it is a pure hell to read and write things

This is just not true, English is a hell but certainly not Polish. It is pretty straightforward to read.

Przepraszam you read sz and rz the same... the first sign that something is REALLY WRONG with polish language!

but... shouldn't people be nice at Christmas time? Do you really believe what you say?
Lorenc   
20 Dec 2009
Language / Polish nouns of unpredictable gender [50]

Hi Derevon,
as far as I know (or as little as I do) your rules are essentially correct, but some further qualifications can be given...

MASCULINE vs FEMININE
1) Words ending in a hard consonant are always masculine. All the female nouns ending with a consonant end in a soft or functionally soft (aka hardened) consonant (BTW you can add myśl to your list).

2) There are many words ending with the -ść cluster [which corresponds to English -ness], often indicating abstract things: miłość, jasność, wolność and many others. As a rule they are FEMININE. I did a search on the electronic version of the PWN dictionary and I found only 4 masculine nouns ending in -ść, + 3 more which are honorific titles and can be either masculine or feminine (presumably hardly ever used). These are:

gość (guest), liść (leaf), teść (father-in-law), ekspansywność (expansiveness, probably rarely used)
Honorific titles:
mość (~Lordship or something)
jegomość (~Lordship/reverend or something)
przewielebność (most reverend, for bishops etc)

I don't think you can state any rule for the simple ending -ć (/=-ść). Always using the electronic PWN dictionary I counted 23 feminine words with this ending and 21 masculine, so in this case it seems to be a 50% thing.

NEUTER
The regular ending for neuter nouns is -o and this is also the only possible one if the consonant before the final vowel is hard.

There are only ~48 neuter words ending in ę, of which ~25 indicate the youngs of animals and many others are otherwise agriculture-related: e.g. cielę (calf), prosię (piglet), jagnię (lamb/kid), pisklę (chick), źrebię (foal)...

These neuter -ę ending words are notable because they acquire a further syllable in all cases different from nominative. The extra syllable is -eń- (singular) / -on- (plural) for names in -mię, otherwise it's -ęć-/-ęt- (possibly there are exceptions).

e.g.
imię NOM SING
imienia GEN SING
imieniu DAT SING
imię ACC SING
imieniem INST SING
imieniu LOC SING
imię VOC SING

imiona NOM PLUR
imion GEN PLUR
imionom DAT PLUR
imiona ACC PLUR
imionami INST PLUR
imionach LOC PLUR
imiona VOC PLUR

I hope it helps.
Lorenc   
22 Aug 2009
Language / Funny/strange/deviant words in the Polish language [35]

I'd like to make some side remarks prompted by the etymologies quoted by tomekcatkins in the first message. First, according to Polish Wikipedia pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasol the Polish word "parasol" comes from Italian "parasole":

"Słowo parasol pochodzi od włoskiego parasole co dosłownie znaczy słońcochron."
In turn, the Italian word "parasole" is composed by "para-", a common prefix meaning "to shelter" and "sole" (sun).

I don't know if Italian "parasole" is truly an Italian invention or if it was taken by some other (necessarily romance) language. In any case, as far as I know, the common words for it in Spanish are quitasol or sombrilla.

About "doccia", according to the Garzanti dictionary, it comes from Latin "ductione(m)", in meaning (water) duct/pipe [naturally, ductionem does ultimately come from "ducere"=to conduct/lead, so the quoted etymology is not incorrect].

Turning to Polish, something a noticed in my little experience with it is that it sometimes (often?) uses different words than most other European languages, including slavic ones.

Take, for example, the word "moon"/księżyc; its name in other slavic languages is (looking at wikipedia):

Polish: Księżyc
Czech: Měsíc
Slovak:Mesiac
Croatian: Mjesec
Slovene: Luna
Bulgarian: Луна
Russian: Луна
Ukrainian: Місяць
Belorussian: Месяц
Macedonian: Месечина

A part from Polish, we can see in all these languages the occurrence of the Latin (and modern Italian, Spanish, French etc.) root "Luna" or of a slavic root exemplified by e.g. Czech Měsíc. Why not in Polish? What's the etymology of księżyc ?
Lorenc   
5 Apr 2009
Language / Polite forms in Polish vs English [49]

Suppose, in a very casual context, you'd like to ask someone (e.g. a close friend, your girlfriend etc) to buy something for you, say some milk. In English I'd in all probability say something along the lines (NB I'm not an English native speaker):

[We've run out of milk!]
-Do you mind popping down to the shop and get some?
-Could you (please) go and buy me some?
while I'd instinctively avoid giving a direct order instead of asking a question, such as:
We've run out of milk! Go and buy some.
Saying something like this sounds excessively peremptory to me, all the more so if the sentence is not capped by a "please".

Now, I've been told by a Polish speaker that in Polish it is normal to give, in informal situations, such "orders" and that the use of gramatically polite forms ("could you...", "do you mind...", "...please?" ) would be seen as either mush or even as a sign of stiffness and aloofness.

What do you think? Is it true that Polish is generally more direct then English in such things?

Lorenc