Language / Use of A/An/The ...... Articles [186]

Interestingly, in Finnish they have a similar w/na situation. The difference is that they use locative suffixes instead of prepositions. Some places use 'ssa/in' while others use 'lla/on'. Joensuussa/in Joensuu, and Tamperella/on (in) Tampere. No Finnish person I've asked can explain why, you just have to memorise which places use which locative suffixes.

Happily in English we never say on with any town, city or country.

Language / Collection of learning resources for learning the Polish language [129]

Getionary, a very good Polish-English dictionary. An ad-blocker is recommended for visiting that site, otherwise the ads just get in the way and are quite annoying. The dictionary is very useful though, and gives example sentences in both languages.

sjp.pl - A Polish-only dictionary which lets you search using any variation of any Polish word, and it will give you the base word as well as all the other variations. For example, search for mógłbym and it will find móc, search dniach an it will find dzień. Useful for familiarising yourself with the conjugation of Polish verbs and declination of nouns and adjectives, and useful if you come across a variation of a word conjugated in an unpredictable way and you want to know its basic form.

Language / Use of A/An/The ...... Articles [186]

Some things in language are literally unpredictable. Why do you say 'w' with some things and places, and 'na' with others? How can you match a perfective Polish verb with its imperfective counterpart? How can you tell which words are feminine and masculine? There are general rules to help you most of the time, as there are with the English articles, but there are always exceptions and things you just have to learn as they are

Language / Use of A/An/The ...... Articles [186]


I've never heard of a castle with the definite case, so it's just Ujazdowski Castle.

Language / Polish Lessons Units [189]

I was watching these on youtube long before I found this forum. :-D

Good job!

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]


I certainly don't know more than 2000 Polish words, I'd be surprised if I know 1000. My grammar understanding is so-so as well. But I can hold a basic conversation in Polish and make myself understood. My main problem is understanding the other person. Despite having been leaning for a few years, I still sometimes have to say jeszcze raz or proszę mówić powoli if they speak too quickly or use a word I don't know. And even if they only use words I know, sometimes it takes a few seconds to put those words in context and understand the full sentence.

In short, memorising words and grammar rules is only the start. If that was all that's involved in learning a language it would be possible to 'learn' virtually any language in a month with enough material. The difficult part is being able to think in that language and usie it as a reliable communication medium.

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]


That's interesting. Is Norwegian spoken in the Shetlands? Is there much Scandinavian culture there? I'm teaching myself Norwegian (mainly from online material) and find it quite easy, despite having nearly no exposure to the language where I live. I suppose spoken Norwegian can be difficult since it has quite a different tone to English and a few new vowels sounds, but grammatically it's very similar to English.

I agree completely that it helps if it's a language you're interested in. That's likely why I find Norwegian easy. I have a small passion for Scandinavia as a whole. I tried learning French and couldn't get into it at all, simply because I had no interest in it. Is that why you found Polish easier than German, French and Italian, because you were interested in it?

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

I think it depends on the learner's mother tongue. An English speaker for example would likely find German, Dutch or Danish easier than a speaker of a Slavic language. And a Polish person would no doubt have an easier time with Czech or Russian.

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

The number of cases a language has doesn't necessarily indicate its difficulty. Finnish has 15 cases, but about half of them are locative and simply replace prepositions. As long as you can remember '-ssa' means 'in', '-lla' means 'on', etc. Hungarian and Estonian are related to Finnish, and I believe they have a similar system.

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

If Navajo is so difficult and unknown, hot did they train American soldiers in it in time to use it in battle? It would have surely taken years.

I read most of the wiki article on the language, and it looks pretty insane, reminiscent of Greenlandic.

I don't have much useful to contribute to this conversation, except that the level of difficulty of any language is extremely subjective according to who you ask, their native language, their experience with the language in question and their experience with foreign languages in general. When I first started learning Polish a few years ago, I couldn't imagine anything more complicated and harder to remember, but as I became familiar with more words and sentences and how they're formed, it became much easier to learn new words and expressions.

A few months ago I began trying to learn Turkish, just the basics. I'd still like to if I had the time and energy, but alas, peering too deeply into the complex verb conjugation put me off (although the cases system and consonant clusters in Polish had the same effect on me at first too).

My real passioin is Finnish, although sad to say I'm not as actively trying to learn it as I once was. Mutta suomi on maailman kaunein kieli! But it's the world's most beautiful language. Well, I think so. Complicated? Hell yeah, like a candy covered rubik's cube. It's just extremely pleasant to the eyes and ears, and that makes it enjoyable to learn.

Oh, and for those of you saying languages don't need genders, try Finnish and Turkish, no arbitrarily assigning genders to objects, no distinction even between he and she, and (like Polish) no definite or indefinite articles.