Polish/Ukrainian words similarities

Marek,

Point taken. I have a tendency to misspell quite often, especially when using computer. My handwritten English and Polish are much better. Do you have any thoughts on that? It really puzzles me. I suspect a sligh case od dyslexia. I have consulted the doctor and the advice was just to carry on, since it's too late for me, becuase I had already managed to create coping strategies and it would be too difficult to reverse them.

Jestem wdzieczna za poprawki i uwagi,

Marchewka

correction: using a computer, case of ....dyslexia

isn't that like the modern English language compared to Pykee (Pike- eeeee)? srry don't know if i spelled it right.

Gustaw, there is more to it:

W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie i Szczebrzeszyn z tego slynie.

or

W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie, wól się pyta panie Chrząszczu czemu pan tak brzęczy w gąszczu.

How is that for tongue breaking

As an aside, are there any Bulgarian speakers here who might offer an opinion as to which slavic languages are easier or harder for the native English-speaker? On the one hand it has the cyrllic alphabet like Russian. But I've heard Bulgarian is the only slavic language where nouns don't decline?

bill

My Polish mother speaks Polish to her Ukrainian aunt who in turn speaks Ukrainian and they seem to get along just fine...It's actually pretty interesting

Most appreciated your response, Marczewka. I still believe that it's phonetic, not dyslexic. Many Poles hear the English, i.e. foreign, sounds differently from English native speakers.

Prosze bardzo a dobrego weekendu

Marek

Bill,

A Russian native speaker told me recently that Bulgarian is "closer" for her to Russian than the other Slavic languages.

Don't know if this means anything or not
Marek

I was at my local Borders (bookstore) and saw two book on Ukrainian: Ukrainian by Teach Yourself (features two CDs and is rather thick) and a phrasebook by Lonely Planet. I bought the latter. For a phrasebook it's almost 300 pages thick. Just thought I'd share if anyone was interested in learning Ukrainian.

I browsed through my Ukrainian book today. Not only does it give hundreds of phrases, but it has about 20 pages on grammar.

The matter of a different alphabet in Russian does not in itself make Russian easier or more difficult than any other language. Russian is not at all phonetic with a shifting stress patern, which makes it much harder to learn that Polish. Polish stress is almost always set on the last but one vowel.

Michal,

That's true enough what you say. Nonethless, Polish seems to have a slightly more intricate morphology as well as phonological structure than other Slavic languages, including Russian (Slovene though, does have a vestigial "dual" form!).

Apart from stress patterns in Polish, an added difficulty in pronunciation, is the proto-slavic, i.e. left over, nasals in Polish vowels "a" and "e", a phenomenom no longer found, for example, in Modern Russian or in Ukrainian.

Marek

Are the Polish nasals 'a' and 'e' a difficulty? Is the stress pattern of Polish difficult? To me, I find it quite logical. Why is the subject of Polish such a problem? Why have you got to use language like ' intricate morphology', 'phonological structure' and 'proto-slavic'-good God, do you think like this every time you drive a car? When I visit Slovenia I will remember at the border to tell the customs man when showing him my pasport about their 'vestigial "dual" form! Why is it necessary to make simple slovanic languages so unbearable complicated and boring?

Michal!

Not all are as gifted as you and I. Granted, linguists can be there own worst enemies, but do take into account the rest of those non-native speakers who DO find learning a foreign language a struggle.

Boring, complicated?? I hardly think so
Marek

Sorry about the typos. ".......their own worst enemies........"

By the way, as a native speaker, one almost never imagines the complications of his/her own language.

As a bilingual native speaker of German, it honestly never occurred to me that the cases caused students so many headaches!

Marek

I am not a linguist, I am a postman! Jestem listonoszem!

That's funny

Somebody has to do the rotten job

I didin't find your job funny, all jobs are noble. I found your conversation with Marek funny

"Jestem listonoszem."


Ale jednak zdolny (i madry)....
Cheers!

Marek

In Ukrainian opinion ;):

- our Russian is fluent because it was imposed by centuries. Russians don't understand Ukrainian (!)...and don't even try as far as they're being understood in our country;
- I can read in Serbian and Bulgarian without problems, but cannot speak. Vice versa in Polish and Check;
- in the means of vocabulary Polish is closer

I noticed that girls in Lvov and in Krakow look exactly the same.The cities in West Ukraine like Lvov,Ternopil look like polish cities.The language sounds like polish but is more soft.You hear the same words,kochanie etc.I saw some photos of Lvov in the beginning of the century and all names of central shops were in polish.
However I find ukrainian mentality as a whole closer to russian.Especially in East,central Ukraine.

yeah well the languages sound very familiar. I come from those parts and have no problem understanding ukrainian. Plus you need to remember that for a very long time Ukraine was part of Poland so the cultures mixed with one another.

As it come to Lvov.... a tear comes to my eye. I wont say anything to avoid beeing called racist or anti Ukrainian (I love 'em). But if you look for Lvov history in the internet you will know.

knowing you Southern, that probably means they have the same bra size, I doubt you were looking at their faces

I will have to defend southern, Ukrainian women are very good looking, I love spending summer over there.

yeah but we know what Southern is like, he's such a perv

cant blame a man for beeing a man.

Yes, I've read that there still exists two Ukraines: the western and the eastern. Western Ukraine, or formerly Galicia, used to be a Polish territory before the war (hence the similarities you mention), but the people there feel more Ukrainian than in the East, where Russian is more dominant in terms of language, culture, and mentality.

Just happened to be reading about this, thought I'd share :)

Has anyone actually mentioned that Ukrainian and Russian, along with Belorussian are East Slavic languages,
whereas Polish, along with Czech and Slovak are West Slavic languages.
West and East Slavic split some time before their daughter languages diverged.
I believe their is more commonality between all Slavic languages than, say,
between English and German (both descended from the same tongue).
Words may have been borrowed between languages after they had split,
thereby slightly incresing the possibility of mutual intelligibility
(but also giving rise to a certain number of 'false friends').

Has anyone else pointed out
that there are beautiful women from all over the world?
I thought that most men who look for a particular eastern European nationality of girl
are usually the ones who think they can get one cheap over the internet.
(See Singles section on PF)

Osiol!

With the topic "false friends", you've hit upon one of the most fascinating, yet misunderstood, areas in linguistics, fascinating at least to me. A certain Prof. Daniel Buncic, a Croatian linguist, has published a monumental paper on precisely this subject. He cites as examples Pol. "pismo" (work of writing, written opus) vs. Russ "pismo" (letter), Pol. Russ. "slovo/"slowo" (word) vs. Cr. "slovo" (letter of the alphabet) and numerous others.

Marek