Life / 3 reasons why you hate Poland. [1049]


It's not just Polish culture. Very few things are open in France on a Sunday to give but one of many examples.


The really serious ones will barely even lift a cup because that is considered to be work. Switching on a light or a toaster is strictly out of the question.

I'm "working" today, but would much rather be asleep. Should I change religion?

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

There are odd people who like dressing up in a wide variety of costumes. Some of them like to quaff mead too. It's easier than learning Polish.

Genealogy / Polish looks? [1410]

No-one has a symmetrical face. The only part of the body that is symmetrical is the pupil of the eye that beholds all the asymmetrical people of this world.

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

Shetland was historically a Norse society. The language known as Norn was spoken there, in Orkney and the very far north of Scotland. It was a direct descendent of Old Norse, just as the still-spoken Icelandic and Faeroese languages are. Some kind of deal was done between Norway (or possibly some sort of Norwegian-Danish monarchy) and Shetland was handed over to Scotland and settled by Scottish landlords. I'm not sure whether they spoke Gaelic or Scots (the English language's northern twin). As the English language came to prevail over Scotland generally, so it came to be spoken in these northern Islands too.

It is possible that Gaelic was never spoken here and that the language spoken by Shetlanders shifted from Norn to English with a heavy Norse-influence. I have heard it being spoken and it doesn't sound particularly Scottish. If anything, it resembles the English of the far north of England (where there was also a lot of Norse influence, only this time much further back in history).

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

Estonian looks very similar to Finnish but with shorter words. It seems that rather than having to learn endings and prepositions, you only have to learn endings. Maybe it's not entirely as straightforward as that, but somewhere in storage I have a load of books left over from some jumble sales a few years ago, and I think there might be a teach yourself Estonian book there. One day, when I've long since given up with Polish and even decided not to bother with Portuguese (I think that's supposed to be my second choice), I shall have a look.

Genealogy / Are all Poles blue eyed and blonde? [450]

I could go through a whole list of Poles I know or have known and give you their hair colours. One of the most common colours seems to be grey, but there might be another reason for this. Family A in Lomza all have dark hair unless they've gone grey. Family B in Slough, although from somewhere in eastern Poland, three have blond hair, one light brown and one dark brown hair and one who used to have dark hair.

Of these 11 people:
3 blond
1 light brown
7 dark brown

Even when I thought of more people, this kind of balance didn't shift dramatically, although definitely more of an increase in the count for light brown haired people.

Life / Famous Polish people (that we have actually heard of) [231]


To not know of at least two from this list, is a sign of ignorance and/or lack of education. I know three so I'm doing quite well.

Language / Polish Swear Words [1242]


Kurwa I'm not suprised at all.

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

I believe some of the Central American languages make a distinction between creaky and non-creaky vocal sounds, rather like the kind of affectation people often make when imitating the very old or like the aaarrgghh that one of the Eric Idle characters in the Holy Grail makes when he's deciphering something written on the wall of a cave.

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


I argumentatively said what I said about the vocative because I hear kids using it. That tells me that it has plenty of life left in it. But when people use it wrongly, it is either a case of altering irregularities into regular forms or, as is less likely, vice versa. The old English word bōc (book) had a plural bōces (pronounced like the word bookies). As fōt and fōtes (footies) developed into foot and feet, bōces developed into beek, but for some odd linguistic reason, during the early Middle English period, it was corrected to the more logical plural of books, although feet never became foots. This could be an example of hypercorrection, although maybe not so hyper.

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

I'm not saying any genders should be dropped and I'm not saying we should speak an artificial language. Just look at what is essential in communication and what isn't. Look out - Polish has lost of few of its old features - you're down to only three tenses and two numbers and allegedly the vocative is slipping away. Something else will be next.

I can't imagine gender disappearing in Polish either but based on the IE derived three gender system being whittled down to two in most European languages and in some cases only one, this kind of thing is possible.

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

I think the goat may have been saying there is no inherant need in language for there to be any grammatical gender. Not only is a table being masculine and a spoon being feminine nonsensical, but even with actual gender, it is not essential for there to be a difference with words and or grammar when talking about him or her.

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

Somebody mentioned Esperanto, but didn't put it at the top of easiness to learn. It is far simpler than English because the spelling system is entirely straightforward. In the language, there are 16 rules to learn and no irregularities. For someone who speaks English or one of the Romance languages, it is so easy it is actually almost boring. For speakers of other Latin-influenced languages, it is also quite simple.

It was invented by a man in Białystok whose day-to-day life called for him to speak Polish, Russian and Yiddish, and as a doctor he needed an understanding of Latin, and it was also in the latter days of dominance of the French language and the rise of English. I suppose he just needed one more language to complete the set and no-one had published any Navaho, Nahuatl or Fang grammars that were readily available.

My father took an interest in Esperanto, and when I was about 10 years old, we went to the annual international Esperanto conference which was in Brighton that year. I spent most of my time at the ice rink, on the beach or strolling around the interesting streets there, but it was interesting to see people of almost every nationality, speaking to eachother in a language which was nobody's first langauge, a language with no government or army or other possible serious negative connotations.

Of course, Esperanto speakers are just a bunch of rope-sandal wearing vegetarian dreamers. Are those things negative connotiations? A more serious problem Esperanto has is the myth that it means to supplant national languages or mother tongues. It's original concept is good, but these days people seem to communicate the world over with "lol", "lmao", "fail" and "brb".

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

Not only do children have to be corrected with the mistakes they make in language, adults also make mistakes. A lot of children find th sounds difficult. Some perpetuate these mistakes into adulthood. My Polish ladyfriend sometimes corrects her children when they get something wrong, usually in one of those curious dark corners of the Polish language such as collective numbers. Then she texts me with spelling mistakes that even I can spot. Actually, I don't see any text messages coming this way any more.

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

But Hausmeerschweinchen is umlautless, so I wouldn't know if it's masculine, feminine or neuter. Świnka morska is quite clearly feminine. Guinea pig is quite clearly genderless because it's English, so it will either be it or have gender based on its actual biological gender. I'm never really sure what to do when talking about a male guinea pig in Polish.


Do you mean when się, for example, is nowhere near the verb it's qualifying or is there something even more difficult and awkward going on?

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


Is that madchen that's neuter? Where's the logic in that?

Grammatical gender, especially for an English speaker, is all nonsensical other than when talking about actual gender. Even then, I don't suppose it is a necessity in language, just as some languages (I am led to believe) don't have different forms for plurals.

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

and Krankenwagen, Bahnhof, Schmetterling or Fussborden?

The examples you gave are all the same gender as they would be in Polish! (Shock! Horror!)

Having said that, I have read about the word dziewczę, meaning girl. It is neuter, apparently, but I've been told that no-one uses it these days.

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

BB, how easily can you tell the gender of a noun in German? In Polish, it's not usually too difficult to know whether a noun is masculine, feminine or neuter. There are exceptions (the masculine -a, the feminine non -a nouns for example) but by and large this is a relatively easy part of the language.

I've never tried learning German, but a mate of mine who's married to a German has not got very far with his learning in the last six or seven years, whereas I've learnt a lot more Polish in the last three years, and that's supposed to be more difficult.

I'm still tempted to give up Polish and learn Portuguese, Swedish or Fang instead.

Language / Your perception of the Polish accent [145]

For a language to lose it's dialects and accents, along the way, people have to feel bad about the forms of speech that have developed naturally over generations in favour of another one that just has the power of authority behind it. I much prefer mutually intelligible accents rather than just one common accent.

Those here who have more ability to speak more than one language would possibly have the understanding that different languages involve thinking differently. Different accents, although obviously much closer than different languages, still go hand in hand with other differences in manner, perception and thought and these are differences the world needs.

Barney, I would most definitely not use the word advanced.

Language / Your perception of the Polish accent [145]

Why is it that modern British accents tend to centre on cities rather than rural areas, whereas Polish accents seem to be the other way around? Is there an assumption there that accents are somehow uneducated or even wrong? I worry about the idea of everyone speaking "with one voice".

I've spent plenty of time with people from £omża, plenty more time with people from some little place east of Warsaw called Mokobody, and had to endure sharing my flat with someone from close to the Lithuanian border. Most differences I have heard I put down to personal differences in choice of words or sound of voice, although some of these differences may be to do with accent or regionalisms.

I was on the tube (for those of you who don't know, that's the London Underground - a system of railways, many of which are situated underground, especially within the more central parts of London). As the train rolled along, two women and a man were standing by the doors talking and joking noisily. I don't really know what they were talking about, I wasn't eavesdropping. I could tell, though, that they were from the southeast but weren't Londoners.

Then one of the women started to laugh. It was a very loud laugh, punctuated by snorting sounds which gradually, as she laughed more and more, happened more and more. They were all laughing, but this one woman was particularly loud, and funny with the way she laughed.

Nearby sat a family with two little girls. The woman's laugh made me smile and chuckle to myself. I looked up just after a break in the laughter and suddenly, just as my eye caught one of the little girls, the laughing woman suddenly made another very loud snorting sound, then the little girl burst out laughing as well. Then I couldn't help laughing out loud too.

Anyway, as the family started talking, I could tell instantly that it was some kind of Slavic language, but I couldn't tell which. Judging by their appearance, almost definitely somewhere in the Balkans. The laughter had quietened down for a while, when suddenly the laughing woman said in a loud voice "v****al w**k" and started laughing again. Luckily, these words in particular didn't seem to register as anything to the family with young children. The one woman who sat nearby and who paid absolutely no attention to any of this was probably a Londoner. Londoners on tube trains are normally the ones who manage to remain completely blank and expressionless.

Later on, I was sat on another train, now much closer to home. I noticed, just as the man who had sat opposite me for the last half an hour stood up to leave the train, that he'd been reading a book with the words on the cover reading "Język portugalskiego" with something that suggested that this was Brazilian-style Portuguese.

Now that would be an accent to hear. But sometimes the best sound a voice can make is just laughter, even if some people's laughs would be unbearable in anything other than small doses. I'm sure I could only have taken her sense of humour in small doses.

Food / Bigos Recipe [183]

Wiem, wiem. I'm glad this old thread has re-emerged. I'd like to have a go at cooking bigos. I'm not sure about the bit someone said about lamb shank though. That looks very un-Polish.

Food / Bigos Recipe [183]

Not entirely true...

Food / Bigos Recipe [183]


I think bigos is a better name.

Life / How far apart do Poles stand when they talk? [46]

Perhaps because America is bigger and there's more space available! Live somewhere small and crowded and there's little option. I think I've met about two Americans in my entire life, so I wouldn't know. Perhaps there were more but they just preferred to stand so far away I never got to meet them personally.

Life / How far apart do Poles stand when they talk? [46]

That might be a bit weird, but if someone does stand uncomfortably close to you, you could get a tape measure out of your pocket, just as a subtle hint.

Life / How far apart do Poles stand when they talk? [46]

I hope everyone who has commented on this thread has actually tried carrying a tape measure or ruler around with them so that they can check the distances they have given here are correct.

Life / How far apart do Poles stand when they talk? [46]


I knew there was a term for what I was talking about, a term of American origin (thanks, Yanks) without which we are left floundering with difficult terms like "how far apart from each other people stand during conversation or social interraction". As long as people aren't emoting, it's fine by me. That definitely makes me a northern European.

Life / How would you describe the Polish sense of humour? [66]

If I invented a French cartoon character called Mademoiselle Dupont, would Poles find the basic concept amusing, or is that too British a form of word-play.

I don't want to have to explain it, but -ont at the end of a French word is pronounced -ą.

I find a lot of laughter with the Polish people I know and spend time with, and that's without being able to use the kind of word-play that I like to use in English.

Life / How would you describe the Polish sense of humour? [66]


I like the "Embedding disabled by request" bit. Is that Polish humour?

Life / How far apart do Poles stand when they talk? [46]

I once asked a question about Poles, whether they are culturally northern Europeans or southern Europeans. Typically from some, the answer came back that they are eastern, even from people who in an east west argument, prefer to say that Poles are central European. Others said Slavdom doesn't appear in such a discussion, but we get the same kind of "us and them" seperation when British people talk about European identity.

Standing further apart in conversation is a northern European thing, although maybe not exclusively.

I'd quite like to get Crow into this room. He likes talking about Serbia, and I'd like to know whether Serbia is closer in this respect, to Poland or to the Mediterranean thing.