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Why is the Polish language so difficult?


JollyRomek 7 | 475
4 Jun 2015 #211
I tend to always think in German FIRST:-)

And yet you can not get it right. After I have blocked you, you keep sending me emails through this forum. Your last explanation via email of "Gestohlen bleiben" did not make any sense in the context you were trying to say it.

If you actually think in German, you must live in a very confused world.

Everybody please get back to the topic about Polish language
Lyzko 45 | 9,346
4 Jun 2015 #212
More to the point, is it perhaps, only perhaps, you're threatened by an "outsider"/foreigner who knows your native language even better than you know English, and simply can't accept it?:-)

I've encountered this time and time again (even where I teach German, though often from Americans, oddly)

Polish is more challenging than German, though for other reasons. Polish has a quirky counting system, along with a tricky consonant-heavy pronuncation, yet a more or less predictable word order.

German word order can be nearly dizzying for many foreigners, yet pronunciation is straightforward. The inflections however, can seem both repetitive and perplexing!
Polonius3 994 | 12,367
4 Jun 2015 #213
Ingweon

What does ingweon mean? First time I've encountered it.
gumishu 13 | 6,134
4 Jun 2015 #214
Ingweon

What does ingweon mean? First time I've encountered it.

well Ingveon means sort of West West Germanic - I was actually wrong when I said Plattdeutsch and Dutch are Ingveon - only English and Frisian are - the name presumably comes from the old Germanic god Yngvi

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingaevones
Lyzko 45 | 9,346
4 Jun 2015 #215
Polish is perhaps more phonologically complex than Croatian or Bulgarian, yet not as much as Czech or Russian. Polish "soft-stem" 'dź' and 'zń' nouns somehow trip more easily off my tongue than either Russian or Czech palatalized consonants, particularly the "rz" ('z' with an upside down hat) combinations of the latter, such as in "Brno", "Hrdlicka" etc...

I missposted before, folks! I meant certain feminine "dź"-nouns (odpowiedź) and "źn"-nouns (przyjaźn).
gumishu 13 | 6,134
4 Jun 2015 #216
('z' with an upside down hat)

the hat is officialy called hacek even in English linguistics (it's a borrowing from Czech language)
Lyzko 45 | 9,346
4 Jun 2015 #217
Thanks, gumishu! Never would've guessed:-)

Numbers used to dog the pants off me! Now, I'm much more confident.

"Seven people were shot and killed." = Siedmioro osób zginęło po zastrzelaniu./Siedmioro osób było zastrzelone.
"I saw three Poles on the street the other day." = Widziałem wczoraj trzech Polaków na ulice.
"Two Poles were watching TV." = Dwoje Polaków oglądało telewizję.
NocyMrok
5 Jun 2015 #218
"źn"-nouns (przyjaźn).

Ń"-nouns (przyjaźŃ)

- When talking about a group of children then use troje. Widziałem wczoraj troje dzieci na ulicy. You can also use trójkę instead of troje if not used in a very formal document/speech because it sounds somewhat colloquial.

:)
Wulkan - | 3,203
5 Jun 2015 #219
the hat is officialy called hacek even in English linguistics (it's a borrowing from Czech language)

In Polish would be haczyk
Polonius3 994 | 12,367
5 Jun 2015 #220
Czech language

The Polish word ogonek (the little tail or squiggle beneath the nasal vowels ą and ę) has also entered the English language. Thta diacritic (˛) is also found in Lithuanian and, believe it or not, in Apache, Navajo and other Amerindian languages.
gumishu 13 | 6,134
5 Jun 2015 #221
The Polish word ogonek (the little tail or squiggle beneath the nasal vowels ą and ę)

French and a couple of other languages (Portuguese, Turkish, Romanian) also have ogonki (under consonants in this case) and they were long called the French term cedille
Polonius3 994 | 12,367
5 Jun 2015 #222
French term cedille

The cedilla's hook turns to the left, whilst the ogonek to the right (Poles are always right, rigtheous and rightist - ha-ha!)
Seriously though, I once typed on my Polish-keyboard typewriter an ogonek (Polish hook) under garçon instead of the cedilla and a French teacher immediatley called my attention to the "misspelling". To speakers of non-diacritised lingos like English all those dots, accents and squiggles may seem meaningless trifles, but Romanians balked at the cedilla under the letters ţ and ş insisting there must be a comma ibstead. The IT geeks setting this all up (mapping, coding, configuring or whatever else they do?!) figured "what's the difference?", triggering a minor backlash in Romania.
Lyzko 45 | 9,346
5 Jun 2015 #223
NocyMrok,

"Pięciu panów dziś rano przyjechało do Nowego Jorku." = Five gentlemen arrived this morning in New York.
"Siedmiu śpiewaczów zaśpiewało koncert w Madrycie." = Seven (male) singers gave a concert in Madrid.
"Dwie Polki zginęły we wypadku samochodowym." = Two Polish women died in an automobile accident.
"Dwoje Polaków oraz troje dzieci zginęli w pożaru." = Two Poles (men!!) as well as three children died in the blaze."

...and, guys, even if not perfect, NO google translate, and NO EDIT either:-)
LOL
Polonius3 994 | 12,367
5 Jun 2015 #224
Dwoje Polaków = a man and a woman; dwóch Polaków if they were both male.
Lyzko 45 | 9,346
5 Jun 2015 #225
But "DWAJ przyjaciele pozostali u nas w domu." = Two (male) friends were staying at our house.
"DWÓCH mężczyźn siedziało w kawiarnii." = Two men were sitting in the coffee shop.
"DWA koty, psy i hippopotamy leżało w ogrodzie." = Two cats, dogs and hippos were lying in the garden.
"Prosiłem kelnarkę o DWA rachunki." = I asked the waitress for two (separate) checks/bills.
etc....
Polonius3 994 | 12,367
5 Jun 2015 #226
Yes indeed, for maculine persons you've got a choice; it can be: Dwaj przyjaciele nas odwiedzili or dwóch przyjaciół nas odwiedziło.
NocyMrok
5 Jun 2015 #227
Dwoje Polaków oraz troje dzieci zginęli w pożaru." = Two Poles (men!!) as well as three children died in the blaze.

Like I wrote before "Dwoje" indicates that the group is mixed. Dwóch Polaków[males] as in Polonius' reply.
Also:

Pożar(Locative) = Pożarze

Sounds funny :)
Polonius3 994 | 12,367
5 Jun 2015 #228
not "ode domu".

How about "ale zbaw nas ode złego" in the Lord's prayer? Yes, I know it's archaic.
Lyzko 45 | 9,346
5 Jun 2015 #229
Well, I just saw a sentence from a present-day Polish women's journal "...uroczystość TWEMU.....".
Obviously, purposely archaic diction:-)
Polonius3 994 | 12,367
5 Jun 2015 #230
uroczystość TWEMU.

Doesn't make any sense. It's clipped, where's the rest of it?
xerxes2
6 Jun 2015 #231
Russian is full of that nondescript shwa (uh sound) we also find in English but not in Polish, Spanish or Italian.'

Polish should have the schwa sound and should be pronounced phonetically. But when spoken quickly vowels are shortened and something akin to schwa creeps in. ę and ą lose their long sound and become shortened ... się becomes sze ... Watch cabaret or comedy programmes and you will see the language in it's spoken form. I like watching old films from the 30s or listening to old songs; the pronunciation is much clearer and I can understand it.
Ziemowit 14 | 4,278
6 Jun 2015 #232
Well, I just saw a sentence from a present-day Polish women's journal "...uroczystość TWEMU.....".
Obviously, purposely archaic diction:-)

Doesn't make any sense. It's clipped, where's the rest of it?

Indeed, clipped. But it still may be purposely archaic. The -u is the archaic ending of the singular masculine dativ (celownik) which has survived until today in several common nouns: ojc-u, brat-u, księci-u, księdz-u, ps-u, kot-u and in others. In biblical language they would say "ojcu twemu", but in contemporary Polish it would be "twojemu ojcu".
Lyzko 45 | 9,346
7 Jun 2015 #233
Exactly, Ziemowit!

The text is indeed truncated, but the "Twemu" immediately came to mind as arch literary, i.e. biblical, diction:-)
Church services for example in almost any language will contain archaic usage, often neither known nor even recognized in everday language.

Back to counting, collective numeralia I continue to ponder over when writing.

The schwa sound also exists in Turkish and in Albanian, the latter having two dots over the "e" for certain words.
Wulkan - | 3,203
7 Jun 2015 #234
się becomes sze

No, się never becomes sze, it becomes sie.
Polonius3 994 | 12,367
7 Jun 2015 #235
singular masculine dativ (celownik)

Yes, but singular masculine dativ (celownik) nouns. Twemu is an adjective and only coinidentally ends in -u. The Bratu, ojcu, etc. are archaic hold-overs since except for those 10 or 12 the normal ending is

-owi. -emu is the normal dat. singular masculine ending for adjetives.
.
brahmin
7 Jun 2015 #236
I heard Mormons can learn any language in 9 weeks, including polish and mandarin chinese.
gumishu 13 | 6,134
7 Jun 2015 #237
well something along those lines - I have met Mormons in Poland (Americans) and they spoke Polish reasonably well for a duration they had learned the language
Wulkan - | 3,203
7 Jun 2015 #238
I have similar experience, however it seemed like they just memorize the bunch of Polish text about their Mormon bible but maintaining conversation in Polish is a different story.
Lyzko 45 | 9,346
8 Jun 2015 #239
I agree. Way too many a Polish student become hopelessly mired in "Pan Tadeusz", Biblical quotations, not to even mention purely grammatical exercises, merely to discover eventually that they can't communicate in daily Polish with average, run-of-the-mill Poles!

In this poster's humble opinion, HEAD OUT OF THE FREAKIN' BOOK and start conversing with Poles (mistakes and all):-)
Polskamistrz212
14 Jun 2015 #240
Siemanko pozdrawiam Polish is not really hard American language is hard letters can make many different sounds


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