Poles speaking English - examples

The US was soooo lucky...Without these two, the position would be open and the country would not be able to function...

Here is an idea...Putin for US President! Or at least as the Secretary of State and Stasi as the Wall manager and Border Guards. They sure would be better than our diaper service.

He strongly implied that he was an immediate family member a very famous person with the same surname. It certainly opened doors for him.


Yes. Giants of their day.

We are however drifting away from the topic.

Phew! It must be a sight to behold!
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I hate to be seen as a disagreeable fellow but I disagree. He is one of the most harmful people in Polish politics. It would be more visible if not for a very stiff competition in that regard.

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Why do you think so?

Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky, founder of the Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, was a Russian.

People at Oxford are especial idiots, if they believed such a lie.

From Wikipedia:

"His father, Ivan Alexeevich Sikorsky, was a professor of psychology in St. Vladimir University (now Taras Shevchenko National University), a psychiatrist with an international reputation, and an ardent Russian nationalist.

Igor Sikorsky was an Orthodox Christian. When questioned regarding his roots, he would answer: "My family is of Russian origin. My grandfather and other ancestors from the time of Peter the Great were Orthodox priests." "

Someone far more famous than that, as well you know...

I am most familiar with General Władysław Sikorski, Prime Minister of the Polish government in exile.

Not a possible Polish name... ky is Czech not Polish which only allows ki, so Sikorski


How were Brits in 1981 to know that Sikorski is a pretty common name, not like Nowak or Kaczmarek or Kowalski but not remotely rare or distinctive....

Especially 19 year-old Old Etonians at Oxford who were far less likely to have known Poles than people from an industrial place.

They'd all have learnt military history though.

Russian Wikipedia says even Russian Sikorskys have Polish origins.

Again, according to Russian wiki, the Sikorsky surname has its origins in a place called Sikor, which is located near a town called Szreńsk, in the powiat mławski, Województwo mazowieckie.

An alternative origin is from the Polish word sikora, which is a type of bird (called tit or chickadee in English).

Learned something new today.

What has this thread fit to do with a state to the east?


A tiny place and Sikor which barely exists is certainly named after the bird.

He should have changed his last name to McTit or Titson when he became a British citizen.

At the very least - Titsky.

Not a name. There's Tittensor and Titmuss.

Both rather nice names.

Unlike the very unfortunate r*SSian with three balls called Eugene Ikabolokoff

He's a good guy; one of the pre-eminent figures in European politics and absolutely spot on about the danger of a certain pariah state. His wife is a very good analyst of the situation too.

russian 9and Ukrainian) transliteration/transcription into the Latin alphabet is a mess... the official systems seem to be English based and ends up being incredibly ugly. I would prefer a fused IOS system based on Czech with haceks (maybe reversed for Щ ) and for Я , I would use ja (like Polish, Czech) at the beginning of a word or after a vowel and â after a vowel.... (similar process for Ю

ja govorû looks much nicer, I think, than ya govoryu or ja govorju or â govorû

Had you been there, Ironside, you would have been on my side.

Rafał Trzaskowski - his interview for CNN

Sikorski definitely has a much more profound knowledge of the language than this guy. Much more sophisticated/nuanced.

This guy has a less affected accent, but it's pretty "generic/sterile", whereas Sikorski's has a lot of character to it.

Amasing coz you both seem not to realise what fluent actually means: :):):)

Fluency in a language means speaking easily, reasonably quickly and without having to stop and pause a lot.

The toxic man poisoned all the fish in the river.

That's a language teacher definition but again, Trzaskowski sounds like a really good student but his avoidance of normal filler words makes it sound a bit artificial.

And he's doing a fluff piece interview, so speaking fast isn't a big problem.

In talking about important topics where every word is important (Sikorski's element, he's at the UN after all) it's normal to speak a bit more slowly, weighing words, and to not be shy about filler words. You want the audience to understand and have time for details to soak in.

Again both men represent the country very well in English but I prefer to listen to Sikorski in English (if I had to choose).

What about their Polish? Which do you prefer to listen to?

I remember always enjoying listening to Dariusz Rosati. Leaving aside issues of policy he had great diction and was eloquent, a very good public speaker.

Marek Borowski also had a certain eloquence but could put out a lot of confusing word salad too... I remember having to translate something with a quote from him in it. It was (barely) understandable in Polish* but resisted being translated with all its might....

*I consulted a couple of highly qualified Polish translators and a Pole with a PhD (in a non-language field) and they all had trouble understanding it.

That`s what fluency consists in. :):):) To my ears, filler words sound awful.

You're a language teacher who bought the old line that they're a sign of disfluency. All speakers in all languages use filler words and removing them from speech makes a person sound unnatural.

Overuse is very annoying and some learners do overuse them but I'm sure if someone recorded you speaking Polish naturally they'd hear lots of filler words.

No, it doesn`t. :):):) Filler words are a clear sign of sb`s inaptitude.


Not really. I do my best to avoid filler words coz they imply incompetence and that`s what I can`t afford as an intelligent ape. Ha!!!

They aren't. They're a natural part of coherent speech.


Or perhaps we do and you don't.

Fluency involves appropriate pausing, grouping words together, appropriate repetition, appropriate rate, repairs, intonation and coherence.

:):):) Amasing!
You`d better check the meaning of fluency again. :):):)

It's in the post you replied to.

Fluency is such a word flow. It is a sign of language knowledge at the level of the native language. The left hemisphere of the brain is usually responsible for this. However, there are cases (I had one in my family) that after a brain embolism the function of the native language is lost and the function of the language later learned remains. This would suggest that different centers in the brain are responsible for them

More a continuum than a specific level. It also involves cultural factors and individual speech habits.


As the word suggests.

It has different meanings in different sub-fields of language study.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluency

You're used to judging fluency in the context of a language classroom and/or oral exams where rapid speech with no fillers is valued. But that type of speech sounds awkward and off-putting outside of those contexts.

Sikorski's use of filler words is more or less naturally acquired from his long experience in English speaking intellectual environments. Words are measured and native and second language user alike will pause and (judiciously) use fillers while choosing words carefully.

or to quote from wiki again:

"Spoken language is typically characterized by seemingly non-fluent qualities (e.g., fragmentation, pauses, false starts, hesitation, repetition) because of 'task stress.' How orally fluent one is can therefore be understood in terms of perception, and whether these qualities of speech can be perceived as expected and natural (i.e., fluent) or unusual and problematic (i.e., non-fluent)"

Sikorski's seemingly non-fluent qualities are, in the opinions here of three different native speakers of three different varieties of English, very much in line with native norms.

Again, Trzaskowski's English is perfectly fine and he represents the country in English far better than say.... Duda but he doesn't sound like he's spent a lot of time in native environemnts (no reason he should). I might advise him to slow down a bit because at times he verges on the glib.

Yes. Sensibly, the CEFR scales don't stress rapidity, not least because that can vary naturally between individuals and between cultures. Appropriate/inappropriate hesitancy is a metric but not speed unless it distorts communication which of course it can also do if too rapid.


This is the key. His English is both fluent and natural.

The CEFR metrics also of course distinguish between speaking to an audience, giving an announcement, taking part in a discussion, explaining a point of view and a few other functions of speech.