Language / Ukrainian language similar to Polish? [236]


Interesting opinion even if it doesn't always entirely make sense.


Get southern talking about girls then for comparison.

I think Slovakian sounds a bit more "Goodbye Mister Bond" than Polish. There is always something of a dialect continuum in the Slavic family, with some linguistic borders stronger than others. Even Slovenian and Czech are supposed to have similarities that can seperate them from all the others despite being seperated by German and Hungarian speaking areas and the fact that they are in seperate groups - West and South Slavic.

There is something called the Balkans linguistical gubbins (my name for it because I've forgotten the real one) where even Romanian and Albanian share similar features to their neighbouring langauges due to developing in close proximity to eachother.

Ukrainian? I dunno.

Language / Ukrainian language similar to Polish? [236]

Is there really anything to challenge the conventional model of the early split between South Slavic and North Slavic, which then split into East and West Slavic, which then split into Russian, Belorussion and Ukrainian in the east and Polish, Czech and Slovak in the west? Certainly there have been borrowings between these languages, but the mass of Latin-derived words in English doesn't stop English being a Germanic language.

History / Poles in the Napoleonic era [224]

I mentioned before that Beethoven didn't like him. I don't know how well the rule applies, but people who speak German and have long scruffy-looking hair tend to be much more agreeable than German speakers with very short hair or no hair at all.


There would also have been no Eurovision 1974 winning entry from ABBA. Go on - admit that you like it.

But ever-so-slightly more seriously, are these things amongst Napoleon's legacy:

The metric system is almost the only system of measurements used in Europe and consequently it is used throughout much of the known world.
Small man syndrome has a famous figurehead.
Napoleon Brandy.
La code de la route - Most of Europe's traffic passes on the right.

That second one is far less reliably associated with Boney as many countries changed sides long after he'd snuffed it.

History / Poles in the Napoleonic era [224]

Does it say "This Napoleon is not available?" like it does on a lot of these videos?

History / Poles in the Napoleonic era [224]


It started to fall down with Napoleon when he decided to style himself as Emperor, thus losing the respect of many people in his day, including Beethoven.

Hello Crow. I'm going to set my muja friends on you. We're going to divide and rule you with our margarine. It was actually under Napoleon III that the French invented margarine, but surely a few facts like that are not important. Like the fact that not everyone of one nationality think the same way.

So either you like Napoleon and everything he did for Europe or you don't. If you want to complain about the British counterbalance of Napoleon's empirical plans, then you may be saying that Napoleon using Poles as cannon-fodder and the Poles' farm animals as sexual playthings must be okay.


Now there's a subject about which I know slightly more. Plant breeding, including that of Roses, occurs in many parts of the world, including Britain (although not amongst royalty - they either talk to their plants or just wave at them and ask them what they do for a living), France (where all roses believe in liberty, egality and fraternity - especially fraternity as we are talking about the old gene pool), the Netherlands where Napoleon insisted that everyone had a silly surname and now they also give their plants silly names, Rosa "Golden Showers" being a great example.

Didn't Napoleon once seek asylum in Britain? Not when he was caught and exiled, but earlier in his interesting career. They used different terminology back then - for plants and self-styled despotic warmongering emperors. I'm not saying the British back then were much better - one of the countries that still lives with the anachronism of monarchy and is the country guilty of naming a Himalayan bramble Rubus cockburnianus. Hmmmm.

Still, you had fun in Moscow?

Language / Present tense, past tense, past participle in polish [34]


I refuse to ignore it. When people talk about things in language no longer being used, there is always someone still using it. Transposition of endings: this would be like when one of my colleagues asked me "zdrowyś?" I also hear the vocative in use. Do people assume that the only Polish to learn is the Polish of young urban people? Plenty of Poles working in the UK are old and come from small villages in the east of Poland, where I imagine the continuity of Polish habitation is much stronger and longer than in the west of the country.

It's useful to know linguistic features that are no longer in common usage because although they're not in common usage, they are still in some usage, and even if they are not going to feature in the kind of language I attempt to speak, I'd rather not get tripped up by them. In any case, my English is not always up to the minute. I even have quite a good handle on thee, thou, ye and you, older English word endings like -st and -th, and these are normally only found in old texts such as Shakespeare and the Bible, but may still be heard in English dialects, even if this usage is now extremely limited.

In other words, I have a thirst for knowledge and believe that we should all know more than we seem to need to know.


I have read the book from cover to cover. I think the conditional -by- element is mentioned once, but not explained. It deserves at least a chapter, if not more. They are not mentioned in any of the index or in the contents. I almost think there's a missing volume 2.

Language / Present tense, past tense, past participle in polish [34]


I thought you were quoting me when I saw these words on the latest threads page. This is the exact book I have, published some time in the 1960s. But I haven't seen any reference to adjectival or adverbial participles. Another thing not found within this book is conditionals. Consequently, these are two of the subjects I struggle with.


Having written all that, you would most likely be a bit tired.

Language / Present tense, past tense, past participle in polish [34]

Thanks SO much for all that, Mr. Mafketis. It will take me a little while to digest all of that.

The problem I have is that the book I've been using seems to run out before it mentions any of this stuff. There are a few other important things it doesn't cover. But what this book does have, is a good way of explaining grammatical things chapter-by-chapter, with a reference section at the end, so you know where to find various words or grammatical constructions where they are introduced in the main body of the book.

I have another book that probably does explain all of this, but has no reference section. In the key to the chapters, it doesn't even mention what grammar is mentioned in each chapter. I just decided to swap books to see if this other book is any good, started from the very last page (the best place to start with many books) and the first thing I saw (the last thing in the entire book) was the word

będąc

I still don't know what it means, but with your explanation, I should be a step closer to finding out. Thanks again.

Love / What are Polish Women like? Just started to date one. [256]

The more people who really know you who are linked to you on social websites, the harder it is to create a facade. Almost no-one knows me on myspace, so I'm an intergallactic travelling troubadour of space and time and inventor of the multi-galactic banjo, a giant musical instrument constructed out of a cluster of galaxies which have been altered by high-powered beams of energy of their own making, deflected and reflected off eachother to create a harmonic pandimensional twangiverse (TM). On facebook, I have to be content with just being me.

Language / Present tense, past tense, past participle in polish [34]


I've just gathered a little collection of questions.

What is an active verb?
What is a transitive verb?
Are verbs either active or transitive or are some neither?
What is an adjective present participle?
What is an adverbial present participle?
What is a passive participle?
Can anyone give me two of three examples of each of these, in sentence form rather than single words?

Love / Are 98% of young Polish girls emotionally unstable and mood changing? [191]

Polish women just fall at my feet.

I should stop tripping them up, I suppose.

Food / Bigos Recipe [151]

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 [151]

Not entirely true...

Food / Bigos Recipe [151]


I think bigos is a better name.

Genealogy / Red Hair - recessive gene from Poland? [108]

Isn't hair colour caused by the interplay of more than one gene? There are so many shades of hair colour and a limited range of things that one gene can actually do. Redness occurs in all parts of Europe to some extent and that doesn't just mean Scottish or Irish people spilt some genes there at some point in history.

Life / Polish stereotypes of other nationalities!? [472]


But Swedes know that their country is guilty of the crime of Ikea.

Love / What are Polish Women like? Just started to date one. [256]


This will be a first for me. I don't use internet abbreviations, but there's a first time for everything:

lol

Life / Polish stereotypes of other nationalities!? [472]

Most countries have both positive and negative stereotypes. The lucky ones have no stereotypes at all.

Love / What are Polish Women like? Just started to date one. [256]

I like the bit about Polish men not looking at English women. People's personal experiences, along with the stereotypes come into play, but a man not looking at an attractive woman because she's from a country with a high divorce rate! Oh my gosh! Where do we begin? My girlfriend's Polish and she's a divorcee, just as her mother was before her (it's quite complicated and doesn't fit the vision Poles often have of their family units). They still have a strong family though, but I see a lot of strong families in this country, even after things have gone wrong.

Sapphire: remember to dance on the pub table and be sick outside afterwards. You don't want to let the side down.

Life / Russian rap vs Polish rap [87]

Mysterious things happen sometimes. Russian and Polish rap isn't as mysterious as black Americans suddenly playing balalaikas and eating barszcz. I'm not sure that that has happened ever though.

I couldn't really comment on this subject. I've heard some fairly good Polish rap and some that's pretty awful. I haven't knowingly heard any Russian rap, but imagine that it's probably not very different. I'll have to scroll back to page 1.

USA, Canada / Why no Polish stuff in Chicago? [41]

... and what is wrong with toothless banjo-playing retards?

Ah! I see. They're toothless banjo-playing retards.


What would be 2nd?

Off-Topic / PF - The Omnibus Edition [1502]


I only got one poem in my postbag.

polishforums.com/write_poem-41_33437_0.html

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.

Off-Topic / PF - The Omnibus Edition [1502]


In English or Polish?

Billygoat and angel are the first two that spring to mind.

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.