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Posts by OMorgan  

Joined: 19 Dec 2012 / Male ♂
Last Post: 8 Apr 2013
Threads: 1
Posts: 4
From: Norwich
Speaks Polish?: Not really
Interests: Music, Food, Languages

Displayed posts: 5
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OMorgan   
19 Dec 2012
Language / Quick question on Polish language fundamental [40]

Hi guys,

Firstly, thanks for all the info to date, I have been reading threads lots in the last few months and many useful facts have been learned! I'm sure I will bother you all more with silly questions but later but something came up in my study tonight that I thought I'd like to get a speakers advice on.

I'm teaching myself Polish, and its slow going but I am making progress!

Basically, I'm currently trying to get a handle on endings for plurals and nom/gen cases at the moment so I can recognise them in dialogs and start to piece together a bit of understanding on structuring my own sentences properly.

My question is really a simple one, I was thinking about 'Przyczytałem książki' and 'Czytałem książkek', 'I read a book' (once, done ;) ) and 'I read books' (in the past in general) if I am correct. I was wondering if genetive is the right case to use here. If not, and it's nominative, then how is the differentiation made between 'książki' as nom plural and 'książki' as singular in the genetive?

This language is confusing me in a lot of ways, but the way some singular nouns look identical to plurals in a different case I'm finding really confusing! Is it just a case of once you are comfortable with the cases its easy to understand each other as the case is so clear from the context?
OMorgan   
19 Dec 2012
Language / Quick question on Polish language fundamental [40]

Thanks very much for the help!

That clears up a lot, TommyG yes you are probably right, I do have a tendency to wan't to learn all the rules first then start to put them into practice but I know all too well thats not really the quickest way to learn a language!

And thanks Ziemowit and Zibi, long way to go but it starting to make a bit of sense!
OMorgan   
1 Feb 2013
Language / Collection of learning resources for learning the Polish language [129]

Merged: List of Very Useful Websites for Polish Language Learners

I have been trying to learn Polish on my own and have come across a few websites that might be of use to those in a similar situation, I'm sure there are errors/shortcomings in all of them but I have found them really useful for checking errors and padding out my Anki deck with declinations etc.

poltran.com/ Seems to translate slightly more accurately than google translate. Though it does throw up weird things from time to time!

xlingua.co.uk/en is great as it will translate single words and give you full declinations for all cases for them as well as all forms (as an adjective/noun etc), (generally, seems best at adjectives as some nouns don't have all the declinations).

learnpolishfeelgood.com/polish-verb-tenses.html has loads of online quick tests to check things like which verb to use when there are two choices (IŚĆ and CHODZIĆ for example)

tastingpoland.com/language/verb/verb_forms_ek.html is an amazing site with conjugations of loads of verbs all written out in a table including all genders, past, future, imperitiva and conditional as well as perfective/imperfective, all viewable in one table. Really good and great for checking your sentences and conjugations.

polishconjugation.com/pol is another amazing site that shows all verb conjuugations together with perfective/imperfective for a given verb. complete with exceptions, and important changes, in red.

ankisrs.net / and I've already mentioned Anki but if you don't know of it you are missing out! Free intelligent flashcards where you can create your own deck (recommended) or use huge decks downloadable online. Devote ten minutes twice a day to anki and memorising words and sentences seems almost too easy.

Anyway, hope that helps someone, I'm finding it tough and all these tools are helping massively!

Owen
OMorgan   
1 Feb 2013
Language / Quick question on Polish language fundamental [40]

Wow! After I posted this question I read the first few replies until things went quiet but now on returning I see a whole, fantastic, conversation has ensued! Thanks very much guys, especially kcharlie, I'm going to go go back and re-read all of this slowly and make sure I have covered all the info. I have started to form an understanding along the same lines, as in translating Polish words to phrases in English and memorising them as such, but so far its all a little too vague to really be useful. My Polish friends visited this weekend and although I know a fair bit of vocab along with conjugations etc I found it hard to really speak to them with any substance. Your advice, Kcharlie, will help no end, I'm sure I will come back to this thread with questions once I have started to get my teeth into it!

Thanks again,

Owen