Why in the world there are three ways to write simple U ?!?!

In the beginning (when you learn a new language) a lot of sounds seem to be the same.

The only way to differentiate them is to get experience. After some time you are surprised that you once thought they sounded the same.

I think the original poster is just looking for a flame war. His "arguments" are preposterous. As it has been discussed not long ago in another thread, the Polish spelling system is really not to bad, especially in the "written word -> sound" direction where it's almost always unambiguous. I wonder where the original poster is from to be in a position to criticize... he doesn't seem to be a native English speaker.


This is just not true, English is a hell but certainly not Polish. It is pretty straightforward to read.


but... shouldn't people be nice at Christmas time? Do you really believe what you say?

And yet there is some truth in his post. Many Polish pupils have similar problems at school learning "ż-rz" or "ó-u". It is best to look for a related word where possible:

morze - morski; podróż - droga etc.
[I'm sorry but I couldn't find a related word explaining the ó in "gówno".]

the same as with hitler: at first all germans thought about him that he is CRAZY,.. but in the end, they all believed him and he led all germans...

the same with polish language... first when you start learning,
you see it is crazy and for the exact same REAL sound you write in many many ways

for example in "Alicja" : both i and j are the EXACT same sound, only for phoneticians and grammar heads is different of course...

so after you get used to it and you learn it after many years,
people take pleasure from seeing other hurt by the insanity of the grammar rules in polish and the ways in which I fully agree with the starter of this thread

[I'm sorry but I couldn't find a related word explaining the ó in "gówno".]
kał

kidding :-)

yes - 'u' (like in Australia or Author) sounds very similar to ł - even for native folks they sound similar - but non of them (of those who finished primary school) would write 'ałtor' 'Ałstralia' :)

same with 'rz' after 'p' (like in 'przepraszam')- it sounds really similar to 'sz' - but most people will write it down correctly

ch and h - they use to sound differently, but they sound in the same way now (i never spot the difference :o)

rz and ż - they sound the same- but it is really useful to know the difference (in writing system- in declination 'ż' and 'rz' are changing into different consonants)


hi girl


thats for everyone who wants to speak polish correctly


that it true. most people don't care about the historical reasons for it- but it doesn't matter that we should not see (and use) it.


1. easyness is not always the best key-word
2. easy- for whom?


try english- it is a nightmare!


its not such bad


why, instead of writing 'are not normal' you simple haven't wrote 'are different than in <put_your_mother_tongue_here>'?


??


polish isn't too old. and yes- it is changing alot, its adaption abilities are quite good.


as i wrote earlier- compare it to english. and no, 'sz' and 'rz' are not the same- they sound really similar, but not in the same way.

I think there are more important things in life than torturing yourself with the differences that DON'T REALLY EXIST between the 6 different types of SH and 4 different types of U

Maybe it is time to accept that polish are masochists and they enjoy wasting
most of their lives trying to follow some absurd grammar rules

Let's just remember:

english language: two

polish language (depending on crazy case, crazy gender, crazy plural, etc):

dwa, dwie, dwoje, drugi, blablablabla and so on , total : 29 forms of "two"

That's a measure of insanity of Polish language

Bearing in mind that you barely know your own language Mark (yes, I'm reading your blog - you write like a 7 year old!) - how can you comment on any others?


Have you talked to an English grammarian lately?


I can find insanity in any language in the world. You might want to ask yourself why English has so many silent letters - what's the point in them?!

sz is the basic spelling and ż and rz occur as morphonemic variants (when the underlying sound is considered voiced for etymological or morphological reasons) in specific environments that aren't hard to learn.

but ś and s (as in się) are very different from sz to Polish ears. Just because _you_ can't hear the difference between Kasia and kasza doesn't mean Polish people don't. They do as hard as that may be for you to believe. But don't feel bad; I don't hear the difference either even after living in Poland for over 10 years. I still understand all of the evening news I just hear fewer sounds than Polish people do.

Similarly, the vowel sounds in bad and bed or bod and bud can be very difficult for Poles to distinguish when they come in the middle of a sentence. You can hear them fine, speakers of lots of other languages can't.

To all of u who are critisizing the polish language u have to know one thing The Polish Language is original. It hasn't changed much for many centuries whereas our English language comes from many other languages and started out as a slang. It's a language that evolves and keeps on evolving cause it's now being spoken in many parts of the world. It's probably the only language i know that has a complex vocabulary (just check out the new oxford dictionary how many words do we now have and how many do we use [i][/i]) if you are to put into mind that we aslo have American English which is somewhat different to The original British English. And as to 'OUGH' and the sounds it has yes to a none native speaker it might be difficult but try spelling the same words in American English and do the pronunciation for them and somehow it might make sense.

Remember that languages at once were only spoken and not written so as to the polish phonetic alphabet i can understand that it's difficult to write the different sounds.

To Microwac there is no magic formula to learning a second language especially as an Adult it's either u get on with it or just step aside.

But as u get to learn it gets better and better every day like me.
Ja uczę się codziennie

I am sure there is a difference between dying by lightning at 6am in the morning and dying by lightning at 6:30am in the morning, but who really should waste his life caring about this?

You have nothing better to do in life than searching for some differences that may exist, and that only poles "feel".

There is waste of time and life and I feel really sorry if you really search to convince yourself that there is a good reaosn why H is sometimes CH,

why SZ is sometimes SI, sometimes S, sometimes Ś, sometimes RZ and so on...

you are sad and so is your empty grammarian lives...

Microwac to Mafketis:



Why do you think that explaining grammar and pronounciation is boring? Drinking beer and talking rubbish is boring ...

microwac - You're wrong. Only rz and ż, ch and h, u and ó are the same in pronunciation.

And polish words are easy to pronunce when you learn how each letter of alphabet is pronunced. You just put the pronunciation of letters together, and you get the whole word pronunciation. It's so easy, because each letter is always pronunced the same, in every word. You just have to remember that ch makes h, rz makes ż, and ó is the same as u. And you say that this is stupid? LAME.

Seanus
I'm affraid he is RIGHT sometimes (quite often in fact) rz sounds like sz and you made mistake if you say ż instead.

that's because you forgot about one other source where to look for explanations - Proto-Slavonic (and in fact PIE). There are more traces of it in lanu=guages such as Russian where "gówno" is "govьno". The word is very old and it is a semantic root surviving also in languages such as Russian (гoвнo), Spanish (guano) or English (goo)


It would follow that Polish £ and U are as similar as English W and U. Crazy huh?
Well, in Polish £ is not the same as U, unless you insist that the second largest city in Poland, £ódź (also meaning a boat) be Uć instead.

Most of the spelling that puzzles you so much has roots in the history of the ever changing language. Much like the English I: sound - as in ee, ,or ie, or ea.

Still, that is less confusing than spellings such as oo. Whence the differences in flood, floor, bloom? Now, that's crazy!

it is so because Polish words tend to change pretty dramatically when they are declined, conjugated, given diminutive aspect etc etc - then you figure out that all these three cases of a u sound act completely differently

sód - sodu (genitive) (natrium, of natrium/natrium's)
lód - lodu
lud - ludu
cud - cudu
kół - kołu (a pillar, a stomp and it's genitive

ł - is not a proper vowel by the way and it does not create sylables
genetically it comes from l - much more l like pronounciation of ł was still common before the WW2 as can be heard in the pre war Polish movies (and some post war too like 'Zakazane piosenki') - the pronounciation was like hard l like in say 'ball'

quote=RubasznyRumcajs]rz and ż - they sound the same- but it is really useful to know the difference (in writing system- in declination 'ż' and 'rz' are changing into different consonants)[/quote]

very true -

harcerz gives and adjective harcerski

while papież gives and papieski adjective

so keeping the genetically correct spelling helps very often

even the words like gówno should retain their genetic spelling because of their relatives in other Slavic languages

you have Polish rzeka but you have Russian rieka

gumishu

harcerz gives and adjective harcerski

while papież gives and papieski (and not papierski) adjective

in world pół I myself hear only "puu"

Actualy if you say puu or pół is the same

in G£ÓWNY if you are honest with yourselfm you hear very clearly GUUVNY

So if instead of useless £ and Ó you just write u, you will make polish language a big big favour

that's a matter of precision of Polish language - some forms of two in Polish would be only precisely translated into English using a couple of English words (at two people of different gender - for example - in Polish - dwojgu ludziom)

simplicity and precision are a difficult balance two reach in a language


I pronounce pół and puu differently - maybe it is just me - of course the difference is subtle


well maybe this is what you hear (which is all right if you are a foreigner) - but they are (by me at least) pronounced/rendered differently - the difference is in the shape of lips etc.

they do sound very similar but they are different. E.g. go to ivona.com, select Jacek and try "za pół roku" vs "za pu roku"


yes, I'd imagine you'd be understood, because it's a small mispronunciation


if you are honest maybe, but if you have Polish-tuned ears you hear główny /gwuvnI/. It's about the same difference as in English "swoop" vs "soup"


even if you were right it would hardly be a simplification. It'd make the ł:l and ó:o alternation unpredictable.

I don't know if you are a foreigner but as you can see from my previous post (the one before yours) there is a good reason u and ó and most definitely ł retain there presence in Polish ortography

Even if there is no difference in pronunciation right now there is reason why we still use f.e. "rz" and "ż"-there're words that means different things just because of orthography:

morze-sea
moze-maybe
So don't tell me this is meaningless.

The ' ł ' is the phonetic equivalent of the English ' w '

Whereas the Polish 'w' is the ' v ' equivalent in English.

There aren't 3 ways of writing u in Polish

i am an english native, while we are on the subject how can we critisize. seanus! that sounds like see--nus, what kind of name is that. we have all kinds of stupid words too as have been discribed, if you want to learn it do so, dont waste your time on the critique. there are none more stupid words then those used in names,cybil,cibil, sybil, charley charlie,psycho, where the hell does the 'p' fit or come from. its the way it is. live with it.

chaza

It's phonetics, not grammar.