What is the most annoying thing about non-native Polish speakers?

My Polish comes from being married to a Polish girl for 11 years. Her mom and dad lived with us off and on for many of those years. We send our kids to the local Saturday Polish school. It is amazing what you pick up... Still get the tenses / genders wrong all the time though...

Isnt that exactly what I wrote somewhere above?

Mixing feminine and masculine doesnt make us laugh. We might smile but its sympathy smile and we would definately encourage you to keep trying :) We just cant help but smile, cause its is so cute on some of ocassions :)

My Polish friend calls it cute when i get it wrong. He laughs which is a bit off puting but nice.

But do you get the general idea of what we are trying to say?

because it honestly does put a smile on our face and its cute. Dont get it wrong way, he doesnt want to put you off.
So many people are laughing at work when i just cant get a sound diffrence between sheet and **** when i talk :)

lol...

So, it's a common mistake, then? My Polish friend also does it.

At the beginning we knew each other, she wrote me to say she had a boyfriend and I was confused. She said "His name is XXX and he is the journalist". At first, I thought there was a famous journalist called XXX in Poland and she was his girlfriend. But no, it was just her mistake, as she simply meant that he is "a" journalist.

Don't be sorry. You are terribly right. It's a shame to speak only your language when your country belongs to the past of Europe. :-)

LOL ;-)

I was tired.
Besides, part of the reason I posted was because I have caught myself making so many grammatical mistakes lately, due to my GF.
She speaks english very well, however, her grammar can be a disaster at times and I seem to be absorbing some of it unfortunately.

argh I don't know if this pisses poles off but it sure as hell gets on my nerves, i never use my na's and za's and u's correctly. and when i speak polish it's always in this translated kind of way where the words are correct but it just doesn't sound right. if it kills my ears then it's gotta wound theirs something awful.

I'm in trouble if I go to Poland on my current skill level then!!

At the start of this year we got a Polish mechanic in the workshop I hang out in. His English was slightly better than my Polish is now.

I used Byki to get about 5 phrases (just hello, how are you etc). Took me ages to memorise just a few phrases, I was shocked at how slow I really was at this.

Anyway, we get a second Polish guy as the first is really good. The second guy has much more English, and more talkative. We get on great.

Only, I learn swear words, much more rapidly than the previous greetings etc. It's a workshop and well, their language with filled with kurwa, guvnoh, cutas and all the rest. Context I guess.

On the other hand, since then I've spent about 6 weeks constantly hammering the Pimsluer material hoping to gain enough to go visit and converse more naturally.

One problem is the trill, the rolled r. I cannot get my tongue around that!!

well I'm not polish but when I'm in poland and I say to some one in english "I can speak a little polish"
they always say yeah what "Kurwa"
it shits me right off.

I know about 1000 - 2000 words.
my friends are shocking for helping me, if i say ask me something in polish they talked at 100 miles an hour.
they must not realise I always talk slowly and clearly to them, I'm waiting for my best mate to come over from australia, when he does I'm inviting them all around and going to see there and talk flat out fast with him with extreme accent and super aussie country slang, they'll get the hint eventually lol

Droher mowie po polsku, niesbit dobrze is one way to say it. Please excuse the spelling however, its from my auditory memory :-), so it's sort of written phonetically too!

I've no clue how many words I really know. It usually feels like ten or twenty, though I think it's really nearer 100 as different words/phrases will popup when I try to use it.

mattinho- i hear ya brother. There is no notion of graded language when we're here, it's 100/hour and if you ask them to say that again a lil slower it's the exact same speed. Oh well it's up to us to adjust

I will tell you what really annoys me living in Krakow. It's when I go into a shop/cafe/bar and ask for something in my passable Polish and I get the reply in English. I guess this is more likely to happen in Krakow because of the number of tourists, but I live here and I want to fit in! I guess it is because I don't look Polish, and perhaps they want to show that they speak English, but by the same token it is really annoying.

this could happen anywhere to anyone so dont take it personally...I used to get it in Amsterdam..

Time for you to reply 'Nie rozumiem!' I think.

sometimes I do!

Warsaw too!

The other thing that really annoys me (can think of a few other words as well) is when my Polish teacher decides for me what would be too difficult for me to learn!!

i say that when i get cold callers to my door or the local religious folks calling to offer me a copy of the watchtower. (sorry no offense intended)

Kourvamuch! You mean swearing in Polish isn't acceptable???

That blows out about 50% of my Polish words then....

:)

I'd give it 30% of my Polish vocabulary. Ish.

It may be unacceptable in most situations, but may be important to know.


You could use some of the other words we have been discussing of late on this thread too.

Unless it is justified by the meaning you need to convey :)

In general:

a/an

1. countable
2. unspecific
3. as nouns in description

the if the noun is:

1. mentioned before
2. unique in a given case
3. has ordinal number
4. following info/coversation that makes it sufficiently specific
5. has superlative adjective (or comparative, if comparing 2 things)

No article

1. uncountable
2. unspecific plural (esp. when generalizing)
3. most proper nouns
4. many names of times (if they are nouns)
5. places (if being/traveling to them requires a change in social behavior)

And there are some exceptions and differences between BE and AE.

Yeah, you are helpless in Poland if you dont speak the language or have a translator by your side. cant do anything but maybe buy cigarettes.

To me the most annoying thing about non-native Polish speakers is that they exist, so I can never be sure I can talk privately in the presence of foreigners :)

When I was a student of English philology, one of my profersors was a Brit by the name Angus Macqueen (URL) (Hi Angus). He was out Shakespeare teacher and a very nice fella. He spoke practically no Polish After a year or so in Poland he went back to Oxford for some time and then came back to Wroclaw University.

During on of the classes he suddenyl left the classrom and came back with a handful of chalk. One of the sudents made a comment (in Polish, to conceal the meaning): "what a fool, he could have asked one of us to bring the chalk". At that, Angus stopped jotting notes on the board, turned around and said with a funny Polish accent, but nevertheless correctly: "Nie jestem glupcem. Jestem poprostu uprzejmy" (I am not a fool, I am simply polite).

His Polish was eventually so good that in late 1980's he was a consultant and the translator for the documentary "Struggles for Poland" (URL)

They teach them British English and to tell the truth I don't understand a lot of it! I live in Canada....people were using words like 'crisps' for chips and 'lift' for elevator, and to tell the truth I really didn't know what the hell they were talking about

You'll get used to it and eventually you'll wonder why people pay money for flats rather than for repairing them :)

Trochę mówię po polsku which means I can speak polish a bit. Try some more and U`ll be great speaker, however speaking polish is much easier than writing, U will have to read a bit as well

American English words sound too posh: "elevator" for lift, "apartment" for flat, or "automobile" for car are perfect examples... :o)


LoL. It's even worse when I go to a Polish shop in the UK and they speak to me in Polish. Basically, I get on well with my Polish, but I usually end up with explanations at the till, starting "Nie jestem Polakiem."