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Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D

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ozzzy_30Threads: 1 Posts: 3 Joined: Feb 21, 10 ♂	Feb 21, 10, 11:48 #451
I aggree with youuu.. I am a new learner of Polish.. I have been studying for 6 montsh.. And still I am not able to speak :D Incredible :D

mafketisThreads: 15 Posts: 1,830 Joined: Mar 31, 08 ♂	Feb 21, 10, 13:52 #452
Pibwl: The Polish "h" usually corresponds with the Russian "g" (like herb / gierb ) and Czech "h". Pibwl: The Polish "h" usually corresponds with the Russian "g" (like herb / gierb ) and Czech "h". Actually Czech 'h' usually corresponds with Polish 'g' hlavni = glowny, hlas = glos, kniha = ksiega etc

Jyzgo	Feb 21, 10, 16:04 #453
ozzzy_30: I have been studying for 6 montsh.. And still I am not able to speak :D Incredible :D It's absolutely normal. 88% of foreigners who start courses of learning polish, give up in the 1st month. Polish language is a crazy language, overcomplicated that makes you question the sanity of its creators.

WawelThreads: - Posts: 18 Joined: Feb 9, 10 ♂	Feb 21, 10, 20:08 #454
It is the hardest; as in twardy or trudny?

strzygaThreads: 4 Posts: 894 Joined: Apr 30, 08 ♀	Feb 21, 10, 20:43 #455
trudny, najtrudniejszy. Twardy is for rocks or week-old bread :)

PibwlThreads: - Posts: 69 Joined: Feb 18, 10 ♂	Feb 21, 10, 23:40 #456
mafketis: Actually Czech 'h' usually corresponds with Polish 'g' hlavni = glowny, hlas = glos, kniha = ksiega etc You're right!... I actually fought about apparently rare Czech words of foreign origin, like "halo" (same in Polish) It's worth mentioning, that Czech 'h' corresponds with Russian 'g' as well (glavnyi, golos, kniga).

♂

Edited by: mafketis Feb 22, 10, 09:25 #457

Lyzko:

I still maintain English is a harder language to acquire an educated level of usage.
Most people though, cannot or choose not to acquire it:-)

Some reasons for this:

1. most beginning courses don't spend any time on intonation (incredibly important in spoken English and knowing about it will help your writing too). It's hard so it's left out. Other nuances like the count/non-count distinction and the meaning of articles are also left out. After a few years of learning, it's too late - most learners have fossilized bad usage so they have to unlearn a lot of what they think they know (and unlearning is harder than learning).

2. a lot of what is included in basic courses isn't real ..... English (any variety). It's a made up artificial version of the language that doesn't match anyone's real usage.

3. many learners take a 'who cares? it's only English!' approach. this is a direct result of mass learning by fiat - many learners just don't care and think any words they string together are fine as long as they're understood. To an extent they're right, but they shouldn't call the dumbed down pidgin that they use 'English'.

Pibwl:

I actually fought about apparently rare Czech words of foreign origin, like "halo" (same in Polish)

Well the _sound_ of h in old Polish was probably the same (more or less) as the current Czech h, but I've never heard any speakers that distinguish ch and h. Also, Polish speakers tend to hear Czech h as Polish ch.

Supposedly there are some dialects in the east or southeast that still distinguish ch and h but again, I've never heard them.

This is different from the old ł cause I have heard some older or kresowy speakers with the old 'stage ł', although they tend to not use it 100 % of the time and alternate it with the modern, mainstream pronunciation.

Lyzko

Feb 22, 10, 17:17 #458

Once more, Mafketis, you and I find ourselves in total agreement on each of the several issues you raised in response to my message.

The sad part is, there has yet to be a significant wake-up call to alert people to the dangers as well as pitfalls of poor English usage. Perhaps if employers themselves were slowly but surely weened off of conformist thinking as to who fits in socially on the job, standards might again return to previous levels as they once were in the halcyon fifties, or to a certain extent, up through the early sixties! This is turn would begin closing more doors on more overly priviledged yet unqualified youth applicants out there, relying to an ever greater extent on cuteness and/or coolness, rather than actual good ol'fashioned skill level. Take away most of their Blackberries, smart (i.e. "stupid")phones ad nauseum, and what do you have??? Not much:-)

Put differently: The lights are on, but nobody's home.

♂

Feb 22, 10, 17:42 #459

mafketis:

Supposedly there are some dialects in the east or southeast that still distinguish ch and h but again, I've never heard them.

The Borderland regional accent preserved H(voiced)/CH(unvoiced) distinction. I've heard it from my grandfather in HERBATA - CHERLAK. In H the larynx vibrated clearly.

In many Polish words H was borrowed from Czech for example:
HAŃBA (dishonor) was till XIV century GAŃBA in Old Polish.

Polish used to have G where Russian has G and Czech H:
GRÓD - GOROD - HRAD (castle, city)
GŁĘBOKI - GŁUBOKIJ - HLUBOKI (deep)
GĘŚ - GUŚ - HUS' (goose)

H is present in borrowings from Czech, Germanic, Greek...

Lyzko	Feb 22, 10, 22:40 #460
Ukrainian then shares with Czech, but not with Polish or with Russian, the 'h' instead of the 'g'-consonant in words such as Pol. "gołąb" vs. Uk. "holub" etc...

♂

Feb 23, 10, 08:18 #461

Actually the Ukrainian sound in question (Which does show up where Polish has 'g') is more like the gamma in Modern Greek before a, o or u (or g between vowels in Spanish as in hago). It's more of a voiced velar fricative.

Depending on the transliteration/transcription used, it's romanized as h or g.

see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_transliteration

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Latin_alphabet

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro-Ukrainian_alphabet

Kopakc	Feb 23, 10, 09:44 #462
Really interesting discussion. It adds so much. What is your opinion guys on the reason why dizortografia is a modern pandemic "disease" only in Poland and nowhere else in this world?

♂

Feb 23, 10, 09:56 #463

Well, if you are talking about counters then it's one of the harder ones but by no means the hardest. Try Japanese counters, the ending changes most times, e.g ippon (one bottle of beer), nihon (2 bottles), sambon (3 bottles) and yonhon (4 bottles) etc etc. Poland generally has the ów or, to a lesser extent, the ek ending for 5 upwards to 20 I think. Jedna butelka, dwie butelki and sześć butelek. Jeden widelec, dwa widelce i sześć widelców etc etc. You don't need to think about the endings all the time like in Japanese.

♂

Edited by: FUZZYWICKETS Feb 23, 10, 13:01 #464

Mafketis wrote:

After a few years of learning, it's too late - most learners have fossilized bad usage so they have to unlearn a lot of what they think they know (and unlearning is harder than learning).

for 99% of all people who claim to speak some polish, this is exactly the case. they learn polish and disregard all declensions, proper usage of the polish numerical sytem, gender, miejscownik, which verbs require which case, etc. etc. and in the end, their Polish is crap. my first year in Poland i did nothing other than study basic words and grammar grammar grammar till I puked from grammar. in the end though, what it gave me was a grammatical basis for all new words I learned thereafter. After 3+ years in Poland, my vocab is still small but my grammar allows me to adopt new words and use them rather quickly. The hard part is mostly over and now I mainly study vocabulary for the grammar comes quite naturally now, aside from maybe counters of words I haven't heard yet.

Seanus wrote:

Poland generally has the ów or, to a lesser extent, the ek ending for 5 upwards to 20 I think. Jedna butelka, dwie butelki and sześć butelek. Jeden widelec, dwa widelce i sześć widelców etc etc. You don't need to think about the endings all the time like in Japanese.

saying "you don't need to think about the endings all the time" and "Polish" in the same sentence is an outrage.

I don't know a lick of Japanese, but if I had to guess, I doubt that when you say "with nihon" or "on nihon", or "i don't have "nihon", it's still "nihon", every time. not the case with good ole' Polish.

2 bottles = dwie butelki
with 2 bottles = z dwoma butelkami
on 2 bottles = na dwóch butelkach
I don't have 2 bottles = Nie mam dwóch butelek

You can never take a number for granted because at any moment while in context, it can change which not only makes speaking properly difficult, but comprehension tough because you need to get used to hearing someone say the exact same damn word but in several different forms.

I'm sure you've seen the web page discussing how Polish is the hardest language in the world where the author displays the "17 ways of saying the number two" in Polish. The kicker is there are 17, not including case changes, meaning he doesn't list drugiego, drugiej, drugim, drugich, drugą, etc. etc. putting you well over twenty forms.

Pasionella

Feb 23, 10, 14:48 #465

FUZZYWICKETS:

not the case with good ole' Polish. 2 bottles = dwie butelkiwith 2 bottles = z dwoma butelkamion 2 bottles = na dwóch butelkachI don't have 2 bottles = Nie mam dwóch butelekYou can never take a number for granted because at any moment while in context, it can change which not only makes speaking properly difficult, but comprehension tough because you need to get used to hearing someone say the exact same damn word but in several different forms.I'm sure you've seen the web page discussing how Polish is the hardest language in the world where the author displays the "17 ways of saying the number two" in Polish. The kicker is there are 17, not including case changes, meaning he doesn't list drugiego, drugiej, drugim, drugich, drugą, etc. etc. putting you well over twenty forms.

that is eye opening post.

How can we award the creator of this post, he really makes a great point here.

Thanks!

MagdalenaThreads: 5 Posts: 1,365 Joined: Aug 15, 07 ♀	Feb 23, 10, 15:35 #466
FUZZYWICKETS: 2 bottles = dwie butelki with 2 bottles = z dwoma butelkami on 2 bottles = na dwóch butelkach I don't have 2 bottles = Nie mam dwóch bute And how is that different from other Slavonic languages?

delphiandomineThreads: 40 Posts: 9,587 Joined: Nov 25, 08 ♂	Feb 23, 10, 16:18 #467
Kopakc: What is your opinion guys on the reason why dizortografia is a modern pandemic "disease" only in Poland and nowhere else in this world? Hardly. It's being abused in the Western world thoroughly. If it was a real disease, why did no-one suffer from it in the 1980's?

Foreigner4Threads: 21 Posts: 1,747 Joined: Nov 18, 07 ♂	Feb 23, 10, 16:28 #468
FUZZYWICKETS: After 3+ years in Poland, FUZZYWICKETS: not the case with good ole' Polish. 2 bottles = dwie butelki with 2 bottles = z dwoma butelkami on 2 bottles = na dwóch butelkach I don't have 2 bottles = Nie mam dwóch butelek begins slow clap

z_dariusThreads: 22 Posts: 5,091 Joined: Oct 18, 07 ♂	Feb 23, 10, 17:27 #469
FUZZYWICKETS: with 2 bottles = z dwoma butelkami Magdalena: And how is that different from other Slavonic languages? Just using the examples given, the difference is that in Polish there are two forms for Feminine Singular. The other is dwiema?

FUZZYWICKETSThreads: 12 Posts: 1,821 Joined: Nov 3, 09 ♂	Feb 23, 10, 18:26 #470
The other is dwiema? excellent. i stand corrected, i forgot there's a feminine forum. i guess you further proved my point. it's THAT easy to make a grammatically incorrect sentence in Polish, especially with numbers.

♂

Feb 23, 10, 20:12 #471

Kopakc:

What is your opinion guys on the reason why dizortografia is a modern pandemic
"disease" only in Poland and nowhere else in this world?

It's bureaucratic disease. Some kind of fashion or fad. There were no dysortography 20 years ago. It was a trick to make better exam results (as the dyslectics or as you say dysortographers have more time to resolve tests and write essays), so some lazy or unproductive teachers can be proud of better learning effects.

♂

Edited by: Olaf Feb 24, 10, 09:34 #472

I agree with the above - this "disease" is somewhat make-believe or rather overused. You have problems with orthography or with putting neat letters in your handwriting (disgraphia) or with numbers (discalculia)? - Then you must study more! That is how it used to be back in the days and now every child can go with their parents to get such a 'cerificate'. It is too common! Sure, there are such people who have this impairment, but these terms are abused.

♀

Edited by: Magdalena Feb 24, 10, 11:02 #473

FUZZYWICKETS:

it's THAT easy to make a grammatically incorrect sentence in Polish, especially with numbers.

Before you carry on in this vein, please be advised that BOTH these forms are acceptable in Polish - "dwoma" + Fem is archaic, but not wrong.
Also, Polish is not the only Slavonic language to use different forms in this case - Slovak springs to mind (check the Wiki entry on dual forms for more info).
Additionally, Czech has both
dvema lahvema (informal) and
dvemi lahvemi (formal), and that's just an example, as the formal / informal divide goes right through the language, on the level of vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammatical forms - how easy do you think that is for a learner?

Ty haranty jsou spatne vychovany, potrebujou dostat facku
Tyto deti jsou spatne vychovane, potrebuji dostat pohlavek

To make things worse, the choice of formal vs informal is not always clear, as e.g. a highly educated person might use informal words or forms in their formal speech to lighten the mood, or someone might, while speaking in full informal mode, use a formal phrase or form to create a comic effect, or to inform the listener that they are being serious at that precise moment, etc. etc.

Plus other fun extras like the imperfective verb forms:
Kdyz jsem tam sel, zastekal na mne pes (perfective)
Kdyz jsem tam chodil, stekal na mne pes (in the past, each time)
Kdyz jsem tam chodival, stekaval na mne pes (repeatedly, and some time ago)
Kdyz jsem tam chodivaval, stekavaval na mne pes (a long time ago, several times)

which is the equivalent of roughly "When I went there, a dog used to bark at me".

I agree that Polish is one of the more complicated languages. But I insist it is one of many, and definitely not the most difficult one. Please read up on other Slavonic languages. And that's just for starters.

♂

Feb 24, 10, 11:15 #474

Olaf:

There is a school of thought in English that dyslexia doesn't actually exist - the problem is that the dyslexia lobby is quite powerful - combined with many schools pushing the 'dyslexia' label onto virtually any person who has poor spelling abilities and you have one big mess. I believe it exists, but nowhere near on the scale that apparently exists.

Polish is no different - it's being used as an excuse to cover up failings in children. After all, if you don't meet the norms, then something must be wrong with you - and this is where the attitude problem lies.

Apparently one of the biggest social problems in schools in the UK nowadays is the fact that many "dys-something" children are in the bottom classes in school. Fine - but these children take up all the attention of the educators, meaning that genuinely poor learners are being ignored and left to rot - which is wrong!

OlafThreads: 8 Posts: 1,348 Joined: Oct 29, 09 ♂	Feb 24, 10, 11:48 #475
Very accurate insight, Delphiandomine. What schools did you mean? A linguistic approach or just schools where children learn?

poenThreads: - Posts: 3 Joined: Feb 24, 10 ♂	Feb 24, 10, 12:01 #476
Polish people think Polish is difficult too?

LenkaThreads: - Posts: 235 Joined: Nov 17, 09 ♀	Feb 24, 10, 12:10 #477
poen: Polish people think Polish is difficult too? Yes.

♂

Feb 24, 10, 12:15 #478

Lenka:

poen:
Polish people think Polish is difficult too?

Yes.

I would say no. It doesn't matter which language you speak - mother tongue is mastered by two processes: learning (e.g. at school, from grammar books, like foreign languages) but also acquired (from the very begining babies listen to the language and acquire it later by being exposed to it and are naturally immensed in language). You rather don't have to think which case or gender or tense to use, you do it naturally.

Spirals90	Feb 24, 10, 12:22 #479
I would say yes, polish is very very hard even for polish natives. The fact that there are 2 other insanely hard languages estonian and hungarian (alltogether they have about 8 million native speakers only though), doesn't destroy or cover the fact that 99.5% of world languages are much easier, normal and clearer and more joyful to speak than polish language.

♂

Feb 24, 10, 12:30 #480

Olaf:

What schools did you mean?

Schools in general, particularly those in wealthier areas.

I had a discusson once with someone involved with student support in a university - who told me that she personally detested all the dyslexia claims, but because they were backed with medical 'evidence' (which just so happened to be provided by a specialist dyslexia unit that had a vested interest in diagnosing as many people as possible) - she could do nothing but give them what they were entitled to.

(our favourite spammer is back, I see - wonder why he bothered to learn Polish and has a Polish wife if it's so dreadful?)

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