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

Is there something wrong with having a heavy nonAmerican or nonEnglish accent? Collin Farrel has very heavy Irish accent and yet is a very popular actor.

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

Magdalena, are you Polish or Czech?

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

But it's the correct form. Pronounce it "Dżonego Depa" or "Dżoniego Depa", it's up to your preferences.

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

Johnny'ego Deppa is obviously the right one for the reason gumishu gave. I wouldn't say that grammar is better or worse among any particular generation, one of my jobs involved reading letters from (mostly unhappy) customers and spelling, grammar and stylistic mistakes could be hillarious among people of all ages.

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


Wait, you know people in Poland who say "przeprowadzam projekt odnowy łazienki" or do they say it all in English? I am confused.

Language / Super fast Polish language learning strategies from internet polyglots [29]

That's true, especially if you know English, you could safely read scientific texts in French and understand pretty much everything. But these things can be quite different in every language - let's take the previous example of "angular momentum" in some languages:

-French - angulaire moment - similar enough, but 'moment' doesn't mean momentum, it's the mathetical meaning of the word "moment" (refers to vectors)

-Polish - moment pędu - again moment doesn't mean momentum, it's pęd that means momentum
-German - Drehimpuls - compleletely different word and if you see it for the first time (or at least I didn't and was dumbfounded when I encountered it at one point), you might not guess it's meaning. It derives from Impuls - momentum and drehen - to turn

I just wanted to show that relying on educated guesses might be sometimes misleading and it's better to actually study a lot of different topics individually, but it takes time, waaay more than 3 months, to cover the amount sufficient to claim oneself fluent.

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


It's usually more complicated than repainting as the walls are tiled. So the word "remont" is used appropriately.


What's the alternative to marketing? "Promowanie/promocja" doesn't have exactly the same meaning and something like "celowanie w rynek" would sound awkward, so the loan word doesn't replace any old one in this case. I have more problems with using "HR" instead of "dział kadr" etc. But in general it's the corporate language that degrates way faster than the normal language, my mother once called as she was asked for "fidbek" after a training (szkolenie) and she had no idea what it was. Entirely ridiculous.

Language / Super fast Polish language learning strategies from internet polyglots [29]

You exaggerate your results and strongly abuse the word "fluent". If you were more honest about what you actually achieve after 3 months of hard work, people wouldn't react so rejectively towards your work.

Language / Polish versions for English words? ! [34]

I think there are very few (relatively) natively Polish words in Polish language, most of them were borrowed at some point. Which is not a bigdeal, the world around us evolves, so should the language and the simplest way for that is to import words along with technologies/phenomena that they are described with.

Language / Super fast Polish language learning strategies from internet polyglots [29]


Of course you're not an expert in all of these subjects, but at least you have basic vocabulary in most/all of them (let's ignore biochemistry as it's a specialised branch of science). I mean, if you graduate high school, you have at least a vague idea what following words mean:

- physics - angular momentum
- religion - ascension
- movies - movie release
- politics - election or supremacy
- travelling - flight delay

If a polyglote can immediately give translation to all of the above pretty basic concepts in all his/her 8 languages, then I can say he is fluent in all of them. Otherwise he should probably focus on 2 or 3 as he's actual skill in these languages is very limited.

Language / Super fast Polish language learning strategies from internet polyglots [29]

So first you claim you did not devote any meaningful time to study Polish, then you let yourself judge the language's difficulty based on your experience with it. That makes no sense at all.

I still don't believe people can speak 8 languages and be actually fluent. I watched a youtube video where you were interviewed after months of being in Germany and you were not fluent at all. Then comes the


In a social environment you not only discuss weather, but also science, religion, politics, sports, mythology, travelling, movies etc. basically anything of human interest. If you can't pick up a conversation on any random topic you should be familiar with having graduated high school, you should not claim you speak the language.

Language / Super fast Polish language learning strategies from internet polyglots [29]

Benny, while I do believe you that you learn a lot within those 3 months and are able to hold conversation on some topics, you still only scratch the surface of the knowledge/skills you should possess to claim fluency. Besides, I don't know what's the point of studying a language for 3 months only to drop it and move on to the next one. Unless your brain doesn't work like a human brain, you are bound to forget what you learned in the previous period as all the vocabulary gradually disappears from your head or takes forever to recall. Most people study languages to learn them and use them afterwards and that requires a lot more than said three months.

I'd be very interested to talk with you via Skype in Polish, if only to see if you remember anything at all.

Language / 'Ciężko powiedzieć' (anglicism?) - is it a copy of the English 'hard to say'? [51]


And yet pretty much everyone in Poland does.

Haha, I was waching a Polish TV series when a peculiar "on ma teraz ciężki czas" appeared. Now that's an anglicism (the correct and traditional Polish phrase would be "przechodzi ciężki okres").

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


It's not about being lazy at all!

It's completely unnatural not to use cases in Polish, so they are never dropped out of laziness, no one would say for instance Przejechałem się rower pięć kilometry. The problem at hand is that when a foreign word is borrowed, no one knows how to declinate it properly (I hope declinate is the proper verb of declension). Some borrowed words tend themselves well for Polish declension (e.g. menedżer), others - not so much (traditional examples would be menu and jury).

The other one is that once you learn the foreign spelling of the word, it's difficult to change your habit of spelling it that way - e.g. I tend to write billboard in the English way of spelling instead of bilbord as bilbord looks very unnatural to me. However, for the sake of our children, I think we should introduce Polish way of spelling those words as soon as possible so that they don't have to learn several thousand of exception of Polish spelling. When I was a kid, I only had to learn a handful of such words - "menu", "jury", "pointa", "status quo" etc. It'd be a nightmare if there was more of them!

Language / Super fast Polish language learning strategies from internet polyglots [29]

You got it wrong if you think learning Germanic languages is easy for us Poles. Something as theoretically as the concept of articles simple took me long years to comprehend and properly apply both in written and spoken language - we completely don't think about that stuff! I think now Iuse them properly and rarely forget or misuse them, but boy did I see many red "a/the" words written by my English teach in my essays and other homework!

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

I think importing words is OK as long as we use Polish rules of spelling and properly conjugate/declinate all of them. Example - 'feature'. Proposed way of spelling - 'ficzer'. Ostatnia wersja oprogramowania wprowadziła pięc nowych ficzerów.

Germans are much worse when it comes to imporitng words. For example, they say "spin up" or "spin down", whereas Poles would say "spin w górę" lub "spin w dół".

Language / 'Ciężko powiedzieć' (anglicism?) - is it a copy of the English 'hard to say'? [51]

I don't know, depending on the particular item I'd call it kita, frędzel, wisior or dzyndzel. Kutas is not used in that sense anymore.

Life / Uptight Poles [262]


I wasn't serious. You Scots are better at detecting sarcasm in real life conversations...

Life / Uptight Poles [262]

This thread is a trap anyway. If we deny that we are uptight, it means that we are uptight because if we weren't, we wouldn't bother denying. If we don't deny, it means we're admitting the truth.

Life / Uptight Poles [262]


I usually don't approach people who are smoking, so that's a hipotetical situation. And yes, I'm always polite to people even when I'm very pissed (unless someone deliberately ) so I ask in a polite way.


Shouting through megaphone would contribute to (noise) pollution, so obviously I wouldn't do that.

Now seriously, I lived in Germany before smoking in public places was banned in Poland and at first it was amazing that no one was smokingin pubs and no one complained about it, even when they had to go outside to smoke. Majority of people are not smokers so those who do smoke should adjust to the will of the majority. I'd like to be able to fart whenever I want to, but I don't do it out of respect for people accompanying me. Do smokers have to be different?

Life / Uptight Poles [262]

I am not uptight usually, but public smoking is extremely douchebaggey. I f*cking hate the scent and would compare it to shitting someone in the face. So I ask people who smoke in my presence to put out their cigarettes.

Law / The right to own guns: would you support such legislation in Poland? [2808]


The "bad" guys have to belong to some organized crime organizations (mafia or at least a small gang). Because the access to guns is somewhat more difficult, you don't have any psycho waving a gun. Isn't it funny that all these famous mass shotouts in public places (schools etc) were either in the US or Germany?

I'd feel a lot LESS safe if I knew anyone on the street could have a gun. Besides, I'd have a very difficult time shooting someone, even if in self- or relative's defense.

News / Kaczyński wants a people-friendly Poland [64]


It's nice to want things.

Language / Państwo macie ..., pan masz ... [5]

Expressions "panie/pani/państwo + verb in second person" are usually meant to express annoyance at the addressed person and also show disrespect while being somewhat formal. Gramatically they are correct though, as long as they're in the wołacz case.

At least that's how I used it several times and heard it used.

Language / Super fast Polish language learning strategies from internet polyglots [29]

You want to speak Polish in 3 months? Just move to Poland and completely stop using any other language - don't even contact your family if possible. That way, your brain will be forced to switch to Polish thinking and will be bombarded by Polish, in conversations, TV, press, books, etc. Probably unfeasible in yhour life, though. :P Either way there are no quick ways, you have to practice a lot, read Polish books, watch some Polish movies, possibly talk with someone on Skype in Polish. If you can commit a couple of hours every afternoon, you could still learn it relatively quickly I reckon.

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

I think we Poles like to use idioms a lot, also in our own language they're very frequently spoken. But maybe your Polish acquaintances indeed overuse them.

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

Out of curiosity, could you list some of those corny expressions?

Po polsku / W co inwestowac w Polsce? [34]

Mieszkasz w Polsce? Dysponujesz już jakimś kapitałem (wypracowanym bądź odziedziczonym)? Jako nauczyciel, ciężko będzie odłożyć na inwestycje nieruchomościowe.:)

Language / Polish slang phrases - most popular. [606]

Literally "zaprzyjaźnij się z moimi wargami sromowymi", but it would sound off and break the mood most likely. Or maybe not, depending how you say it. Generally though such naughty phrases should be made on the fly rather than be memorised.

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


That's a rather embarassing mistake I made correcting someone else!

Slavic languages wouldn't be different languages if they were all the same. They are still easier to learn for other Slavic language speakers than for Germanic or Roman language speakers, since the grammar concepts and a lot of vocabulary are similar. That doesn't matter that the student can or should slack off, it just means he might have easier time memorizing grammar structures and vocabulary.