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Posts by Koala  

Joined: 4 May 2011 / Male ♂
Last Post: 12 Jan 2012
Threads: 1
Posts: 332

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Koala   
22 May 2011
News / Ustroń: Another giant religious statue in Poland [26]

Świebodzin is my hometown and I'd like to add that the Christ's monument is entirely one man's initiative - a local priest here is kind of megalomaniac, he bought the ground and gathered all the funds. And honestly, no one cares about the old Church buildings and others structures, what's the big deal with the new ones? They'll become standard elements of landscape soon enough.

(BTW I'm not a catholic)
Koala   
21 May 2011
Language / The usage and future of the special Polish letters: ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ż, ź (Polish language) [203]

"Eye kant reed inglish tu wel."

Would the equivalent of the above disconnect between sound and script be possible in any language OTHER than Mod. En.??

Ńe moge trzytadź po polskó zbyd dopsze.
That's as far as one could go trying to misspell the sentence "Nie mogę czytać po polsku zbyt dobrze" (but would be misspelled and badly pronounced).

. Is it because they are loser? Brighter?

You argumentation here is very shady. Venus has its unique diameter, mass, spectral lines and their intensities that made this planet uniquely Venus. Classification of sounds in languages is by default a lot more arbitrary, given the criteria that are assumed. Our discussion wasn't "does Venus exist", but "is Pluto a planet" (is the sound in 'także' a 'g'?), which is arbitrary as some consider it a planet, some don't.

That caused a blow back effect, as it turns out living in Poland doesn't ensure someone knows it all about the Polish language.

I did none of those things.

That you hear /k/

I never claimed to hear /k/

An example a little closer to linguistics, and specifically within the sphere of psycholinguistics, is one where a few words are misspelled, such as:

Cna yuo raed tihs?

I can, but it takes significantly longer to read such text. I can also read all you wrote below and it also takes significantly longer.

Which leads us to a little factual trivia.

It'd be nice to understand light interference before mentioning it as an example.

I heard about thousands of people who were reporting strange, lit objects on the sky.

Our senses work on a logarithmic scale, ie. the background noise is the base of the logarithm, we don't notice anything below its intensity. It's not the experience that makes you not see star light (or similar noise), it's your brain that physiologically shuts off signals to keep you sane (ignoring also the fact that your eyes' lenses change diameters in various light conditions).

Meanwhile, trying to analyze "także", there's nothing that was automatically shut off - in an arbitrarty classification I considered it a different sound, apparently in established classifications it's the same sound.

Mathematics, logic and statistical analysis is in fact of curriculum in some linguistics departments.

"Some" being the key word. My sister studied etnolinguistics and had only one semester of logic (if we classify it as part of mathematics and not the reverse), which is laughable!
Koala   
21 May 2011
Language / The usage and future of the special Polish letters: ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ż, ź (Polish language) [203]

You mean "no more phonetic", don't you? :)
There's no 1 to 1 correspondence between phonemes and graphemes, but if a native language speaker sees a Polish word for the first time, he'll pronounce it correctly, something that's impossible in English. If a native Polish speaker hears a word for the first time, he might spell it incorrectly (ignoring u/ó, ch/h, rz/ż).
Koala   
21 May 2011
Language / The differences between these words: Oni plywaja / plyna / biegaja /biegna /chodza /ida [18]

Lyzko, I don't think it's as clear cut as you seem to indicate. Let's take your example with the opera:
"Wczorajsza opera podobała mi się" means "I liked the opera yesterday", while "Wczorajsza opera spodobała mi się" indicates that you liked the opera but you probably hadn't expected to like it, therefore your state of mind was changed during the opera. I'd say tryb dokonany (perfective?) usually describes change of state of something (of the subject or the object or the implied object), tryb niedokonany (imperfective?) describes activity.

However, the distinction between tryb dokonany/niedokonany are only in past and future tenses, there's no such distinction in present tense (as it wouldn't make logical sense). In polish many activities are described by a set of two separate verbs, one that describes the action happening at the moment, the other describes the action occurring regularly (kind of like differences between present continuous and present simple in English).
Koala   
21 May 2011
Language / The usage and future of the special Polish letters: ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ż, ź (Polish language) [203]

I asked for an articulate post and when I finally got one, I didn't respond immediately. Sorry about that, I actually did write one before but Firefox crashed and didn't feel like write it down all over again. Since you great post deserve at least some appreciation, I'm writing it down again.

I'll have to give in and say that if phonetics experts say that's the same sound, I'll have to rely on it. But that's one big problems for me in general - it describes qualitatively, not quantitatively, which makes everything rely on blurry statements and authority, not on empirical data like normal exact science.

That's understandable, although I'd say it would take an average learner no more than a couple of weeks to study it and achieve a near expert understanding of what these signs mean and how they are to be used, along with some associated, practical examples. Not a rocket science at all.

I know what many of those symbols correspond to (it was useful learning French), I don't know what the terms like "velar" or "pharyngelar" mean. And I certainly don't a have a couple of weeks of time to learn it LOL.

He may be satisfying this requirement in his field of expertise, but Polish phonology is not that field.

It's not hard to admit defeat as there's no battle in the first place, unless you treat a discussion as such, which tells more about you than anything else. Another thing I don't understand is why linguistics don't have several semesters of mathematics. It'd make much sense in that even a book like "A Hundred Years of Solitude" could be analyzed quantitatively (statistically) if you knew what data could be useful for your goals and how to extract it.
Koala   
21 May 2011
Off-Topic / How do Polish people operate? what makes them tick? [103]

*looks at message boards all over the world*
No, that's just a common human trait.

My biggest problem with Poles is the work ethics. Not that we don't work hard, but we often don't put our hearts into it and want to get things done quickly, not right, which often results in having to redo the same work again.
Koala   
20 May 2011
Po polsku / Oda do Marysi [54]

Bo Polska jest szufladą pełną dzienciolow, i jak wam the denko odpadnie od stukania za dużo to wszyscy na pysk spadniecie.

Nie chcę wypominać, którego narodu rzetelność i niepazerność doprowadziła świat do światowego kryzysu gospodarczego, a który cwaniacki i leniwy naród przez ten kryzys przeszedł co najwyżej z lekką zadyszką.
Koala   
20 May 2011
Love / Goal: Meet a nice Polish girl! [62]

Is this true?How are these strange preferences explained?I mean in a sea of decent white men going for the colored disadvantaged?

There are so few foreigners in Poland being non-caucasian is actually a big advantage. It's rare and exotic, therefore attractive for girls here.
Koala   
20 May 2011
Po polsku / Oda do Marysi [54]

Mysle ze ludzie wiedza dlaczego. Nie warto juz na ten temat dyskutowac.

No właśnie nie wiem dlaczego.

W dodatku:

Po prostu ciężko mi być życzliwym dla ludzi którzy łatwe życie mieli

Jak mamy łatwe życie, po co je zmieniać?
Koala   
20 May 2011
Po polsku / Oda do Marysi [54]

I told one guy that I’ll break his fucking nose if he doesn't stop calling me dumb Polack. Everyone thought it was funny until I broke that guy’s nose. I don’t do that anymore.

Jak to miało brzmieć badassowo, to powinieneś zakończyć to zdaniem "he doesn't do that anymore"

Ogólnie Havok to problem z mentalnością jest u Ciebie. Po co wszyscy z Polski mają wyjeżdżać? Trawa tak samo zielona, a niebo tak samo niebieskie jak wszędzie indziej. Ludzie obierają sobie różne cele w życiu - założenie rodziny i wychowanie dzieci, osiągnięcie wybitnych dokonań w jakiejś dziedzinie, dorobienie się majątku itp itd. - jak do realizacji któregoś emigracja jest potrzebna, to OK. Jak kogoś po świecie ciągnie i chce zobaczyć inne kraje, też OK. Tylko emigracja sama w sobie ma być celem każdego człowieka, to już nie jest tak ciekawie. Bo czemu to ma tak naprawdę służyć? Temu, że człowiek nie będzie się czuł do końca u siebie? A w Polsce też da się realizować marzenia.

Już nie wspominając o tym, że emigracja do najbogatszych krajów świata w celach zarobkowych to też nie jest jakieś wybitne wyzwanie. Zostań miliarderem w Erytrei, to zafunduję Ci jeszcze pomnik w Polsce.
Koala   
20 May 2011
Language / Is Polish amongst the best-sounding languages in the world? [123]

Polish has a lot of As especially at the endings, also "ka" it's pretty much pronounced like it's written like Spanish.

What do you mean by that? General ortography rules are kinda similar to Spanish, but a lot of other lanugages are pronounced like they are written - it's only English when pronunciation and spelling don't have much in common LOL

My name is MAGDALENA. Thank you.

Madziusia?
Koala   
20 May 2011
Language / Is Polish amongst the best-sounding languages in the world? [123]

BTW isn't it just a myth that there are that many "sz" "rz" sounds in Polish? I think foreigners get that impression as on the very first lesson they learn some elementary words in Polish that happen to have a lot difficult to pronounce sounds eg. "przepraszam", "dziękuję", but overall I'd say it's not that bad. Germans have a lot of "sch" (sz) and "ch" (ś) and similar and no one ever complains.

I like the melody of Polish anyway, it's much more melodic for songs than English IMO, which is sadly dominating worldwide music market (it should be more diversified IMO). :(

youtube.com/watch?v=f0PVkrW62Dw
youtube.com/watch?v=Ts7p8Y6QOsI
Koala   
20 May 2011
Language / Is Polish amongst the best-sounding languages in the world? [123]

French is overrated. It's a wonderful language to sing, but doesn't sound so great in normal conversations IMO.
I like Italian (and Italians). Get 5 Italians together and you'll be given a wonderful spectacle of everyone screaming over each other and making a ton of incomprehensible gestures. My Italian friend always laughs that there are so little vowels in Polish. Teaching her to pronounce "Jestem Włoszką" was a hillarious experience.
Koala   
19 May 2011
Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

Add to that, the advent of printing. When Caxton introduced the printing press to England, most of the English could neither read nor write!! the clergy, as elsewhere, were the only ones who could. Therefore, English had zero standards of uniformity in pronunciation, orthography or grammar until at least the end of the 18th century, when she started to develop a middle class.

It's a shame that a better spelling system wasn't worked out at that time, it's extremely convoluted and there's no logic to it - ie. you have to separately learn spelling and pronunciation of every word!

I'm listening to this lecture to learn why is that LOL
pages.towson.edu/duncan/orthography1/orthography1.htm
Koala   
18 May 2011
Language / Polish idioms involving colour [37]

I'm not sure if you're trolling me or you're simply unfamiliar with the convention. I'm assuming you're not so malicious, so let me rephrase that sentence:

"Phrasemes on the other hand are any commonly used phrases comprising at least two words. A single word cannot be classified as a phraseme"

"x+" where x may be any number is a convention to quickly type "at least x" or "x or more" (>= in mathematics).
Koala   
18 May 2011
Language / Polish idioms involving colour [37]

2+ simply means plural. There's no upper limit for a phraseme, but I don't think there are any consisting of a million words.
Koala   
18 May 2011
Language / Polish idioms involving colour [37]

I'd say that in simplest terms, idioms are phrasemes typical of a culture.

I'd say in simplest terms idioms are phrases that typically used do not convey literal meaning. Phrasemes on the other hand are any commonly used phrases comprising 2+ words.
Koala   
18 May 2011
Language / Polish idioms involving colour [37]

is rare.

Is wrong, not rare. Widzieć świat w różowych kolorach is rare and I kinda mixed the two. :)

that's why it is a phraseme

Any idiom is a phraseme. And "złote serce" is an idiom since it has a nonliteral meaning.

not always
Hint -> North American Indians.

Elaborate.
Koala   
18 May 2011
Language / Polish idioms involving colour [37]

And while "zlote serce" is a phraseme, "niebieskie serce" is not.

"Złote serce" describes a person, not an organ. "Biały niedźwiedź" still describes a bear.
Koala   
18 May 2011
Language / Polish idioms involving colour [37]

it can also be a book where you list your enemies, anything to do with malice, planned or future, that you prefer to keep secret

That'd be czarna lista. I don't know, maybe "czarna księga" is used in some regions, but to me it looks like an outdated or artificial phrase.

The translation of the "weird" word is: zwiazki frazeologiczne

I know what "związek frazeologiczny" means. However, if we start listing stuff like "biały niedźwiedź", then pretty much anything will count as such.

Like I'm sure you use the expression Green-thumb when talking about Jack of all trades or master of none (in your case). Don't be stupid, of course you'll use the expression that suits the situation.

The original request was to list idioms, ie. expressions that might have a meaning different than literal. You'd have to stretch the term really strongly to count "złota młodzież" as such.