Is Polish really that hard? (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Is Polish really that hard?
Tags: Polish \| Difficulty \| Pronunciation \| Grammar
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

125 messages over 16 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 5 ... 15 16 Next >>

chucknorrisman
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5446 days ago
321 posts - 435 votes

Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French

Message 33 of 125

25 May 2010 at 2:27pm | IP Logged

When it says that Polish accenting is fixed, does it mean that it is always at the 2nd to last syllable even if the declined words have more syllables at the end, or does it mean that it is always at the 2nd to last syllable of the root word?
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Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6437 days ago
4474 posts - 6726 votes

Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

Message 34 of 125

25 May 2010 at 3:10pm | IP Logged

chucknorrisman wrote:

The former.

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Kubelek
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
chomikuj.pl/Kuba_wal
Joined 6850 days ago
415 posts - 528 votes

Speaks: Polish*, English^C2, French, Spanish
Studies: German

Message 35 of 125

25 May 2010 at 3:13pm | IP Logged

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_phonology#Stress

some information that may interest you.

There is a number of exceptions to the general rules such as REguła, RYzyko, oKOlica, CZTErysta, rzeczposPOlita (wiki), but personally I was aware only of the last one of them. I either don't pay attention to accent at all or colloquial pronunciation is very widespread. It's probably a little of both :)

Words ending in -ika -yka have their stress on 3rd before last syllable. I make sure I use such stress in formal situation, as the regular penultimate stress sounds very colloquial to me.

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chucknorrisman
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5446 days ago
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Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French

Message 36 of 125

26 May 2010 at 2:14am | IP Logged

Thank you, Volte and Kubelek!
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pesahson
Diglot
Senior Member
Poland
Joined 5726 days ago
448 posts - 840 votes

Speaks: Polish*, English
Studies: French, Portuguese, Norwegian

Message 37 of 125

30 May 2010 at 10:26am | IP Logged

Derian wrote:

Martien wrote:

so when you see rz, you know you will have to pronounce it like s in leisure,

And the only exception to this is the foreign word "Tarzan". :)

and "marznąć" to freeze
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Miiyii
Groupie
Greenland
Joined 5581 days ago
59 posts - 97 votes

Message 38 of 125

15 October 2010 at 12:47pm | IP Logged

cordelia0507 wrote:

I guess that's why many Poles are pretty good at languages. Seems it's easier to
understand foreign grammar if your own native language has complex grammar.

I know one Polish person here in London who speaks fluent German and good Russian (although I've not heard
him speak that). He also speaks good English.
I read about a Polish woman who wanted to work as a dentist in Sweden. She learnt Swedish in six months, well
enough to run a dental clinic.

Plus, if their language is too hard for anyone else to learn, then it stands to reason that they instead have to
learn other languages... lol

I actually think that's more or less correct! :P!!
F.x. my second native language, greenlandic, has 8 casus, and since I can speak with ca. 56.000 people, and
very few has the ability of learning greenlandic perfectly, I have
to learn other languages, so, in an age of 8 I learned a lot of English, and now when my mother and I have
moved to Denmark, I've had my first German lessons at school, and my teacher says I am a lot in front of the
others in my class, (since I can all the (un)definite articles' names like.. *poof* :P!!) who has had German in 1 year
more than me!! ..
(Sorry for my word order.. Haven't wrote English in a long time. :P!!)

.. So that's actually right for me. ^_^'

Edited by Miiyii on 15 October 2010 at 12:48pm
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Mozart D. L.
Newbie
Brazil
Joined 5169 days ago
3 posts - 3 votes
Speaks: Portuguese*
Studies: English, Italian

Message 39 of 125

17 October 2010 at 5:18am | IP Logged

numerodix wrote:

I was there in February and I was struck by the truly vast amount of
advertising for private foreign language schools. I've never seen anything like it. So
many different companies selling their services, above all for English,
"business English" and things like that. It seems to suggest that the public education
system is pretty deficient on this point (frankly I doubt these language schools get
all that much business despite their advertising).

Hi, Numerodix!

Here is the same situation. Lots of schools, principally English, are here to sell
their services, with lots of progamms packs. It seems that there is one at each corner!
A supermarket closes and you ask to anyone "what will be there?" and the person will
tell you: "an English school." hehehe

Mozart D. L.
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Lucas
Pentaglot
Groupie
Switzerland
Joined 5165 days ago
85 posts - 130 votes

Speaks: French*, English, German, Italian, Russian
Studies: Mandarin

Message 40 of 125

17 October 2010 at 6:56am | IP Logged

I don't know polish (I spoke slovak when I've been there), but I know this:

- there is a myth of the polish difficulty: I guess most polish has been raised in the
idea that their language is particularly complicated
- morphology is as difficult as other slavic laguages
- phonology is a little harder as other slavic languages (more different phonemes)
- spelling is not tricky at all (there is always one only way to spell each of those
phonemes)
- the stress is regular

In russian you have two difficulties there is not in polish: spelling a stress. So I
hardly believe than russian is easier than polish...

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