Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Jan Movie, I'm still curious as to whether you think Polish is harder than English, that is, to learn to speak/write CORRECTLY, not just acceptably:-) Is your Spanish on the same "level" as your English, or can only a native Spanish speaker be the judgeLOL

Polish does have more morphological permutations and exceptions than many other Slavic language, except perhaps for Czech (I'm told).

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Right on, jon! As I've said umpteen times on PF, language difficulty's completely relative. Sooooo many folks out there claim English is "the easiest language", for instance. Those are usually the ones whose English is the WORST:-) Having taken a closer look at Lithuanian, I can safely say that Polish is comparatively transparent by contrast. The former remains proverbially archaic and has definite vs. indefinite noun declensions, something Polish doesn't have.

Albanian also has "noun clitics", article endings tacked onto nouns (as with Bulgarian, Romanian and various Balkan languages). Almost every language, it appears, has it's share of seemingly impenetrable obstacles:-)

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

I can say the German with ease! Even after many years though, the Polish still bedevils the tongue:-)

News / Germany returns WW2 loot to Poland [14]

A German acquaintance of mine once remarked that the way in which German troops ("allegedly") treated Russian prisoners of war was nothing compared with how cruelly the Germans themselves were treated while incarcerated in Russia during the last years of the war:-)

Apropos "booty art" (Raubkunst), this issue cuts both ways and obviously continues to stir up strong feelings almost sixty-five after the war's end! It also entails all sorts of side issues such as confiscated property of Germans who lived for generations in what is today Poland.

Language / Variations of the verb Chodzić [11]

"chodzić" is always "iterative", "iść" indeterminate and "pójść" determinate in Polish!

Chodzę do szkoły. (codziennie = every day), Idę do szkoły. (teraz = now) and Pójdę do szkoły. (jutro, później, w przyszłości = tomorrow, later [on], in future)

News / Germany returns WW2 loot to Poland [14]

In the case of post-war Germany, much of the looted art was in fact looted from both German-born Jews living in Germany at the time, as well as art from Polish collections (public as well as private) which were plundered by the Nazis (especially one Nazi, the "art lover" Field Marshall Goering!) during the war.

News / Germany returns WW2 loot to Poland [14]

I know that. I also know that his reputation was severely tarnished after the war. Though only a quarter Jewish, this nevertheless didn't prevent him from playing both sides of the fence!

News / Germany returns WW2 loot to Poland [14]

Hildebrandt Gurlitt played footsies with the Nazis!! Don't tell me all that stuff's legit.

Language / Variations of the verb Chodzić [11]

Obchodzić święto = to celebrate a holday/festival (among those definitions)

"przybyć" means "to arrive"/"come", inspecific, but probably on foot in formal Polish. Otherwise "przyjść" (perfective)/"przychodzić" (imperfective). Polish is pretty specific in this way (like Russian) compared with English:

"I CAME by air." "I CAME by car." etc... In Polish "przylecieć" (perfective - dokonany)/przylatać (imperfective - niedokonany) = to arrive by flight, "przyjechać" (perfective)/przyjeżdzić (imperfective) = to arrive by car, train etc..

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

Polish though DOES have the charactaristic of beginning hard, but gradually becoming more transparent. The same CANNOT be said for English:---)

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

I've often compared the case endings of German with the "prehensile tail" (Uebrigbleibsel) of O.E. (Old English), long since dropped from our language. For that reason, German speakers can handle Polish grammar a bit more easily than native English speakers with only a basic or working knowledge of high school Spanish or French, both Romance tongues!

Polish, with its frequent changes and shifts in spelling as well as case morphology usually prove overwhelming for American learners in particular. While at the same time, English orthographic exceptions and wildly flexible word usage can doubtless drive Polish learners to distraction, except of course if they've been exposed to the language very young:-)

News / Germany returns WW2 loot to Poland [14]

There's probably enough looted art in this fellow Gurlitt's Munich flat to fill an entire museum, much of it doubtless taken from Poland:-)

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

See my above post (...for whatever it's worth). Just my two złoty worth:-)

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Lolku,

It's a common misconception that certain nationalities believe the difficulty of their language to be evidence of some "cultural superiority", i.e. in order to protect their nation from lesser invaders who might take over their society, they somehow created a language so difficult that the average outsider could never possibly learn it! Language difficulty is therefore worn almost as a "badge of pride". Not sure about the Poles, Balts, Hungarians or others, but I know for a fact that the Icelanders regard their tiny language in this way (....hence will fight tooth and nail in order to preserve it, much like with the Irish and the Welsh).

News / Priest from Poland claims Lego is "a tool of Satan" [35]

Believe only half of what you hear and even LESS of what you read:-)

News / Priest from Poland claims Lego is "a tool of Satan" [35]

Is this by chance the same dude who also claimed on "reliable authority" (I'm quoting directly!) that the Jews are taking over the world, etc.???

What'll he think of next. The things people will say just to get attention:-)

Excuse me, but it sounds like an April Fool's gag to me.

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

English has no diacritical marks, as have German, Polish, French, Spanish and a number of others. The fairly consistent spelling of Polish therefore makes it far easier to read as well as to pronounce than either English or French. In fact, Polish has many consonant combinations which are quite similar to American English, such as "-je" compared with North American "Missya" (Miss you) etc..

Language / Speaking with wrong Polish case endings? [94]

Polish, like many other European languages, still tends to "go by the book" in terms of generally correct usage, again, especially on television and/or radio. American English nowadays in particular is all over the place, so to speak, regarding both style, grammar AND usage! Frankly, except in perhaps the hallowed halls of Harvard or some such places, most Yanks here at home wouldn't know a conditional (subjunctive) from a bloody hole in the ground, nor would they care!

Language / Should I learn Polish or she learn English? [83]

I agree one hundred percent! It'll certainly give you a leg up [einen Vorsprung]:-)

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Furthermore, Lithuanian (like Slovene!), I believe, also has a vestigial "dual" form in the plural. Polish is morphologically more complex than Russian, this is true, and perhaps only Croatian is the "simplest" of the Slavic group in terms of her inflections.

It's a similar situation with German vs. Dutch. The latter is more structurally related to German than it is to English, yet German case morphology is far more intricate than Dutch, which essentially has no cases any longer.

Jan Movie, not only do I concur with your statement regarding Magdalena, I agree that Cyrillic is what presents the biggest hurdle for foreign learners, furthermore, that the Cyrillic alphabet follows a different "order" than ours, e.g. A, B,C,D etc.. don't apply in learning Russian. Therefore, the order of the letters must also be committed to memory in order to spell and look up Russian words easily.

We are discussing the POLISH language, please stick to the topic

Life / Is it common for Polish people to speak English in Poland? [122]

Once more, it's all a matter of expectation. The majority of my fellow citizens (myself the exception, of course!) are indeed woefully ignorant of foreign languages, much less their own. This doesn't however mean that because some random Dutchman, German, Austrian, Pole, whoever, can manage a "F****k you, man!" as though they were born in the San Fernando Valley or some other colloquially Inappropriate vulgarism, that they know the English language on even a comfortably "communicative" level (unless one is communicating with ignoramuses).

By the same token, does my knowing how to pronounce, e.g. "Dupa!" etc.. in perfect Polish, necessarily make me a "fluent" Polish speaker????

Life / Is it common for Polish people to speak English in Poland? [122]

As to the latter observation, Poles could understand my Polish, as could Spaniards understand my Spanish and German speakers my German. Each of the latter invariably had the sense to respond in their respective languages, rather than English. The simple truth is that the Poles whom we met flat out refused to do so, owing to, what I call, "the Homer Simpson effect"; Americans are SUPPOSED to be ignorant of foreign languages, therefore, they are! And so, once again, (mis-)perception becomes reality:-)

Admittedly too, your experiences with English-speaking Poles has been more positive than mine. To that, I can only add, more power to you!

History / What Was Happening in Poland around 1905? [73]

Right, sofijufka. Prussia was at the time, just prior to the turn of the last century, still the largest German "territory", not to mention to most powerful and influential. Russian, i.e. Czarist, dominance did indeed extend across much of the present-day

Slavic lands.

History / What Was Happening in Poland around 1905? [73]

Poland belonged technically to the Austro-Hungarian hegemony. My grandfather for instance was born in Przemyśl, Austria round about 1893, whereas now, the same city is in Poland:-)

Language / How hard is it to learn Polish? [178]

Trust some out there will remember the old quip by Mark Twain: "To learn English takes thirty days, French, thirty weeks, and German.....thirty years!" Add to that, "...Polish, thirty lifetimes."

LOL

I'm only kidding, folks. Then again, as I've repeated ad nauseum, language ease vs. difficulty is such a relative matter.

Life / Is it common for Polish people to speak English in Poland? [122]

Hate to disappoint you, but Wlodz isn't "trying to convince us" of either! Not only did I never ONCE profess to speaking Polish perfectly, but I already stated that I've always been pleased to practice my Polish with native speakers in as far as they also desired to (seriously!!!) practice their English with yours truly. When it ceases being the proverbial "two-way" street, they and I soon part company.

Kindly don't paraphrase or second guess what you supposedly understood that I meant:-)

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Jan Movie,

I too have had my daliances with Lithuanian:-) It is considered to be not only the most conservative of the extant Baltic languages, its cases rival even Icelandic for unpredictable stem changes (Stammvokalaenderung) and intricacy of case usage. It also has about seven active cases, much like Polish.

While I've never actually studied the language, I taught myself some beginning Latvian several years back and became quite fascinated with Baltic languages:-)

Life / Is it common for Polish people to speak English in Poland? [122]

As literally ANYTHING is possible, folks, it's just possible in this case that my Polish acquaintances were purposely caricaturing their native accent(s) speaking English, that's all. There remains nonetheless the issue of intelligibility. Sans voice simulcast on PF, I'm quite certain that my Polish pronunciation was clear and that the people whom we met were merely having a little harmless jest.

Again, there was and isn't a thing wrong with my hearing:-)

Life / Is it common for Polish people to speak English in Poland? [122]

I will concede that "typically" Polish is a tendency to soften the "l" sound at the end of certain words, making English words such as "cool" sound like "kuł" etc...

Apart from that, friends, I know what I heard and I can assure everyone reading this post that the people whose phonetics I mimicked were Poles and NOT Russians!!

We had incidentally a most pleasant encounter, those people and ourselves, albeit a bit frustrating in the beginning:-)

Language / A little Polish grammar. Masculine, animate objects. [64]

Excellent (ri-)post(e), AdamKadmon:-)

In fact I know the Comrie text quite well. How closely the above mirrors German, a case-driven language like Polish and Russian, yet UNLIKE English in this regard!