Common mistakes made by foreigners in Polish

As my first language is slavic, there are no problems for me to read Polish, however it is tricky to repeat something when someone says it to me. When it is on paper it makes much more sence rather then spoken Polish - because most slavic languages are very similar on paper but may differ in pronouncuation. So I suppose, if I would read it I would have a slight accent.

As a slavic person, I find it confusing when it comes to Ą ą Ć ć Ę ę Ł ł Ń ń Ó ó Ś ś Ź ź as I often mistake them for one another hehe. As for a westerner, I think it is difficult to use all cases for nouns (7 cases, arent they?) and the verbs endings. "W" may be tricky for English people as they tend to pronounce it more like "U"


+1

There are 6 cases formally from about 2000. Another common mistake as a foreigner has been differentiating the sounds ś and sz. I also have a problem with 'y' and'e'. There is a clear difference but I don't always hear it. Here in Silesia, I don't get caught out as the vowels sound different from that in Warsaw or Poznan etc. I saw a difference when I was in Cieszyn. My girlfriend said kompot in a much more compressed way than the guy we met from Warsaw. He had a very elongated/open O when pronouncing that word.

Matyjasz!

When former President Carter visited Poland to meet with that-time Party Secretary Gierek, Carter's interpreter came out with: "I lust after the Polish people!" instead of "I yearn to (tęsknię) visit with the Polish people...."! Carter's people back home in the State Dept. thought it hilarious.

Secretary Gierek and company were decidedly NOT amused by the gaff, believing it to have been done on purpose! Guess we'll never know. LOL - - :):)

lol I suppose a Polish person wouldnt be too offended by a disasterous mispronunciation once they hear the accent and realise you dont speak too much Polish? Some of the mistakes I've heard in this thread remind me of 'Borat' on TV.... He does it in English but I suppose a lot of English speakers must sound the same or worse trying Polish?

FYI Borat uses Jak szie masz and Dzienkuje quite often :) I think he has a slight acccent though

dolar-u(wrong) dolar-a but when we think as a rule it should be u in dopełniacz or goździk-a etc.. tata(męski) poeta, mężczyzna, artysta, kolega,...looks like źeński but act as męski..bardzo trudne:Sand also liczba mnoga dobry kolega=dobrzy koledzy but to me it should be dobre koledzy:D bogaty artysta=bogaci artyści to me bogate artysci...but it can't be..when we ask why to our polish teacher they say they are exception...almost everything exception:D:D:D or in narzędnik oni są dobrymi ludźmi why it cant be ludzimi? anyway it makes me stressed as a foreign learner....

But - the criticism I got when I called the word 'Przerwa!' to signal break-time at work from one particular Polish colleague/flatmate of mine (fast becoming the stuff of legend I fear).

- What was wrong with that?
- Przerwa, he repeated back to me.
- That's what I said.
- You said 'Przerwa' and it should be 'Przerwa'!

I get the p at the beginning, I like to think I get the rz right, I even rolled my r properly, so what was wrong?
I spent the next five minutes whilst walking back, taking the p!ss out of everything he said in English.

most of the masculine nouns ending in -a are hardly exceptions, it's a common heritage of the Latin:
poeta, artysta/artista, komunista/comunista etc. are all masculine gender in Polish, Italian, Spanish, despite the -a ending.

hmm rozumiem dzieki krzysztof....

Vocative still exists, there are still 7 cases, it is just not used as much anymore.

Osiol,

Here's what worked for me P- CH - AIRRR - VAH, accent on the first syllable, of course!

-ish!

I think the problem may have been the vowel rather than any of the consonants, which is silly because Polish people are notoriously bad in the English vowel department - English has a huge number of vowels, but most of them are the neutral schwa sound.

Extra note: I'm not saying all Polish people speaking English, just all of them I've heard.

For me, I'd say a common mistake I do make is with y and i. Sometimes I accidentally say the wrong one. In my mind, I can hear the right one but it just comes out wrong.


Someone give me an example - I'm not sure what any of the cases are called.

12 + diphtongs and triphtongs.

Indeed, I find English vowels the hardest to learn. After all these years my daughter smiles at me once in a while and suggestes that I should decide whether I should pretend I am from Baltimore, NYC, Canada or Germany.


You'll hear it often in Polish:
O Matko Boska!!! (ŁO Matko Boska in some dialects :)
On a daily basis also: mamo, tato, panie [proper name here].

Vocative: Ośle, podaj mi sól.

Are you about to take something with a pinch of salt?


Is it used when swearing at people? If so, I've probably used it (not in a serious way though).
edit: Yes, I have used this case quite a lot but with a limited number of (offensive) words.


Or you could try to learn Cockney or so-called Estuary English.

To my ear Cockney doesn't make use of any vowels at all :)

I made the mistake of learning too much swearing.


I'd have said that Cockney has a few things missing in the consonant department. It's got the same number of vowels as other accents. They're just a bit more contorted. In fact, sometimes there are more. To illustrate this, I shall use Polish spelling.

Where 'where' in typical British English of the Southeast has a long monopthong (łee), Cockney has a tripthong (łeja). I hope neither of those examples are rare but rude Polish words. Actually, that wouldn't bother me.

Am I right in saying 'Ty chuju' or just 'Chuju' (I could have thought of something less rude) is vocative?

yes, the ch** word you used is in Vocative case (Wołacz), and calling names makes really a great use of the vocative case, which is logical, but I never realized it before, thanks, osiołku :)

True, and yet somehow it sounds to me as if Cockney speakers were often gasping for air, as if speaking was such a huge effort to them :)


I dunno. Just for my expressing statements about Cockney phonology these might be a little excessive ;)

f4 LOL

Yeah, the endings drive me crazy! I know the 3 possibles, just don't know when!!

J

to jest watfi

Good point by plg, we often forget about the ł/w difference. I love the marks in Polish, e.g łóżku, 3 marks in a short word. It takes me forever to write in Polish

The tounge to the top of the back of your mouth "sh" sound that the "Sz" makes, like in my last name.

Gets butchered all the time... :[

Differences between ś and sz, or ć and cz are hard for foreigners to grasp I think. Also when ę is at the end of the word, I don't think most foreigners will add the nasal sound.

THERE ARE SOME???? OMG I am so dumb...

Is Ć a "soft" letter while CZ is a "hard" one e.g. like N is softened here Dzień and hardened like in Pan???

I never new that ;)

These are a part of phonemic contunuum from soft to hard:

Ć --> CZ --> DŻ

(DŹ is voiced Ć)

all these are post-alveolar affricates with the space between the hard palate and the tongue increasing left to righ, respectively.

Only the stupid ones. Having an identical-sounding 'V' (and sometimes 'F') helps.

The ones on YouTube I meant, who read the text off the paper and have no clue what it is on about :)

Constantly saying the slang word noh as to meaning NO. However polish hear noh as slang for yes. This is the hardest thing in two years for me to stop doing. Then I normally panic and say ya, which of course they understand. All when what I'm really trying to say is nie.

hehehe...
my girlfriend says that often and i always ask "polish 'no' or english 'no'?"... ;-)
but yes. that is quite confusing...