The Polish language - it's bloody hard!

Ślicznie podziękuję za miłe słowa, GAB! No, także jesteś tłumaczką tu w Nowym Jorku? Jestem tłumaczem i nauczycielem języków niemieckich i angielskich dla cudzoziemców.

Where inPoland are you from? Was only there once, in Sczcecin years ago, and found it lovely.

I agree with your experiences, by the way-:)

Pozdrawiam!

I guess Polish is not your native language?

How could you tell?-:) LOL

Can see English isn't yours. --:)

been to Scotland and Ireland and they say YOUS on a regular basis there

Just out of curiosity :) LOL

Gab,

I'm a German speaker, it's true. My Polish, while fluent, is still subject to considerable error, more aspectual than idiomatic, as I rarely use idioms, except in German.

English I find useful in the Anglo-American orbit. Outside that realm, it tends to become slowly more and more unrecognizable. Why, I met a Pole who'd never heard of Mark Twain. Most Americans, at least on the surface, have at least a passing familiarity with Adam Mickiewicz. -:)

Not the ones that I know.

On the contrary, most of my friends and acquaintances know of M.T.

I have never met a non-Pole that would speak Polish at your level of fluency. That's actually pretty impressive :) Congrats! Where and how did you learn?

Definitely, I am from Dublin, but it is more of a youz, in Dublin anyway. But it makes sence, singular "you" plural "youz", like in Polish...em, i a not comfortable writing in Polish.

Thou and thee were the original singular forms. They correspond quite nicely with the Polish ty-style pronouns. You and ye were only plural, but you took over the singular form for every day usage. That's why you is followed by are, which in every other case, is a plural form of to be.

Youse - that would sound the same as youz. Just a matter of spelling.

youz, yous, yoos, sounds the same! none of my English mates use that though.

in Polish you (plural) or yous is WY

In Ireland we also say "yez", a sort of extra-pluraly form of youz, for example:
Are yez commin out fer a drink...?
(The singular of yez is of course ya)
youz can be singular or plural.

i heard that the Irish use the word "situation" quite a lot... lol

While we're doing Irish words, what's Polish for feck? Is it kurna?

kurda

no :)
it's kurde (kurna too, but it's rare)

soz for the confusion. just i always hear kurde in Krakow:)

GAB,

Kind of you to say so.-:) Well, I spent less than two days total in Poland, regrettably, was on my way from Berlin with a companion/friend from that city who spoke no Polish, so I was, oh, sort of her 'interpreter'. She was German, so probably the Poles would not have understood her English too easily. LOL

I originally studied Polish years ago for almost five years with a private tutor who grew up in Poland after the Second World War. I found it practical to know Slavic languages, since English is NOT the universal lingua franca when it comes to accuracy, most only think they speak it.

Dzięki.:) Pierwsza nauczycielka także podziwiała ludzie, którzy uczyli się tego języka. Ona mówiła raz, 'No, nigdy nie uczyłabym się języka polskiego, jeśli nie byłabym Polką. Za trudny jest!'

Ona jest urodzoną Warszawiaką a przeżyła czasu Gomułkiego w Niemczech, potem tu w Ameryce.

Witam Marecki :)

Ja niestety tez chyba jednak nie bylabym w stanie nauczyc sie polskiego, nie ma bata :) Jak sie tak nad polskim dobrze zastanowic, to praktycznie w jez. polskim wszystko jest takie strasznie zawile, wiecej wyjatkow niz regul.

Ja czasy gomulkowskie pamietam niemalze z kolyski, bylam malutka. W sumie to mam moze pare przeblyskow, ale doslowne jak przez mgle. Tak naprawde to z opowiadan rodzicow wiem wiecej. Moja siora wiecej pamieta, bo miedzy nami jest 12 lat roznicy, wiec ona w sumie te czasy przezyla. Ja bylam berbeciem :)

Z kolei moja mama za mlodu plynnie mowila po niemiecku. Moj dziadek ja nauczyl (WWII). Moj dziadek "szprechal", bo musial. Takie to pokomplikowane losy historii Polski.

No, to na razie :)

'Witam, Marecki!'....

Nawzajem. LOL-:)

Wiem, że czasy gomułkowskie są chętnie zapomnione od wielu dzisiajszych Polaków, ale jednak ważny jest, mówić o tyck tematach, nie prawda?

Pozdrawiam!

or kurczaki ;)

It seems to depend on the speaker to some extent, I've heard a handful of people for whom kurna is almost more used than kurwa. Mid to late twenty-somethings mostly. The older chaps seem to stick more with kurwa, whereas the youngsters embellish their kurwa with various other words to highlight it. Kurde makes me laugh when it obviously involves a level of deliberate self-censorship. I haven't heard anyone say kużwa. (Or is it kuźwa?)

This is only people working in one small company somewhere in a quiet corner of the the Untied Klingon.

Marek,

Jasne, to sa wrecz bardzo ciekawe czasy (dobrze, ze juz byle) dla Polski :) Ciekawe w zlym slowa tego znaczeniu. No ale cuz, nie tylko Polska i Europa ma za soba ciezkie przejscia. Ale nie powiedzialabym, ze Polacy o nich zapomnieli, jakze by mogli. Po prostu wyciagneli z nich wnioski na przyszlosc, mam nadzieje. My Polacy jestesmy narodem dosc pamietliwym, co ma swoje plusy i minusy. Taka juz nasza natura. I cale szczescie, ze nasze pololenia zyja w tak innych czasach niz np. nasi rodzice, dziadkowie, czy pradziadkowie.

G.

Serwus, Gab!

Twój odpowiedź jest podobny jak kiedy byłem przed kilkoma latami na urlopie w Niemczech, a pytałem starszy ludzie o Hitler. Nikt nie pamiętał, nikt wśród młodnych nie chciał wiedzieć o te czasy.

You are probably more typical of your generation than most contemporary Germans are of theirs. -:)

Marek you were drunk, when you've been writing it or your not Pole?

It's hard to speak it fluently. That really takes a lot of practice and a bucketload of luck

Tak, jestem pijakiem a też nie jestem Polakiem--:)-:)!!!

Na zdrowie

Europa da się lubić gives non-Poles hope. There are some on the forum who just assume that non-Poles cannot understand Poland or Polish. How wrong they are.

Right on, Seanus!! UWAŻA WSZYSTCY POLACY

Polski jest jednym z najtrudniejszych języków na świecie.

I'm not sure if the above is correct, cases get me. My instinct tells me it's ok, maybe missing a mark or 2, LOL.

no cheating? then congrats, this sentence is 100% correct (also stylistically)