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Homogenik TAC 2012 Polish Team Żubr | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6996 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 73 of 115 11 April 2012 at 10:48pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
More or less but it's not considered that suitable to use dwóch/trzech/czterech/obu instead of dwaj/trzej/czterej/obaj in writing. Keep this set of terms SEPARATE from collective numerals. You seem to be getting tripped up by associating these "masculine human" numerals with the collective ones.
Oh, but they do. In more formal settings, you would use "Dwaj mężczyźni czekają w kolejce." instead of "Dwóch mężczyzn czeka w kolejce." and "Dwaj dyrektorzy (or: 'dyrektorowie') spotykją się w sprawie strajku." instead of "Dwóch dyrektorów spotyka się w sprawie strajku." The collective numerals are different. They ennumerate groups containing male and female humans, groups of young animals or items that are thought of as consisting of existing meaningfully in plural (rather like the English "x pairs of scissors", "x pairs of trousers" - in jargon these are called pluralia tantum). In poetry, you may also see these numerals modifying body parts that are often thought of as a pair. Therefore you could NOT say something like *Dwoje mężczyzn czeka w kolejce. It'll be either Dwaj mężczyźni czekają w kolejce. or more colloquially Dwóch mężczyzn czeka w kolejce.. However you would use these collective numerals in examples such as the following: Dwoje dzieci pije herbatę. [gender of the kids are unknown or there's a boy and a girl involved] Troje ludzi pije wino. [gender of the people involved is not important here] Czworo studentów pije piwo. [a known combination of male and female students constituing 4 students in total are involved] If I were to say Czterech studentów pije piwo. it could mean that there are 4 male students (in which case it would be "proper" and clearer to say Czterej studenci piją piwo.), 4 female students (in which case it would be "proper" or clearer to say Cztery studentki piją piwo.) or it could be a group of 4 students drinking beer but I didn't bother to find out or just don't know/care which gender each student is. If we were talking about a group of inanimate objects, we would use these collective numbers on objects where the plurality is important to their perception. E.g. Pięcioro kleszczy jest na stole. "5 [pairs of] pliers are on the table." (versus: Kleszcze są na stole. "[A pair of] pliers is on the table.") Yet you can't say: *Pięcioro krzeseł jest w pokoju. but Pięć krzeseł jest w pokoju. since an armchair is not viewed in the same way as a pair of pliers or other plural-only noun. Honestly, the best way to get around this is to do some exercises. Thinking about it can drive you nuts since you have to consciously connect the nouns with agreement. (e.g. Pięcioro kleszczy jest na stole. takes singular (even though we're talking about 5 pairs of pliers but Kleszcze są na stole. takes plural even though we're talking about 1 pair of pliers) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Homogenik Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4664 days ago 314 posts - 407 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 74 of 115 11 April 2012 at 11:26pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Thanks a lot, that really helped me to understand.
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6996 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 75 of 115 12 April 2012 at 4:51pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Nie ma za co.
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| Homogenik Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4664 days ago 314 posts - 407 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 76 of 115 14 April 2012 at 3:22pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Polish : Oh, yesterday I found a little gem at a bookstore : an old copy of Sienkiewicz's W pustyni i w
puszczy (In desert and wilderness), a classic polish novel published in 1912. But the book I found was in polish, which is amazingly rare here, very surprising, and it's an old edition as well. I started to read a bit and understand enough to find my way through the first few pages. I was surprised to find some strange forms of words that I figured must be an older polish style, for instance : me instead of moje swe instead of swoje And certain words that were written together and are now separate, for instance... I can't remember offhand, I'll have to come back with the actual book! But it's quite fascinating. Edited by Homogenik on 15 April 2012 at 7:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Homogenik Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4664 days ago 314 posts - 407 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 77 of 115 15 April 2012 at 7:13pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Chinese : I finally ended Pimsleur I (I could have gone over the last lessons again and again but decided to
move on as it will never be perfect anyway...). I started lesson one of Pim. II this morning and boy did I suck, but oh well I'll do it again. I'm also advancing slowly but surely with Basic Spoken/Written Chinese. I really like how it's done. There are different kinds of exercises, some are listening exercises (listen to conversation and answer questions on paper), substitution exercises with audio recording (you have to say a phrase, for instance Ni dao nar qu?, and then repeat the same phrase with various subjects or verbs that are said on the recording), translation exercises you have to do verbally and others by writing, and many grammatical and cultural notes. The writing exercises are mostly listening to an audio file and writing down the characters you hear, or reading exercises (there are many of those). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Homogenik Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4664 days ago 314 posts - 407 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 78 of 115 25 April 2012 at 3:21am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Chinese : I found a chinese girl student at the university and I'll meet her tomorrow. She wants to learn a bit
of English so we'll exchange services. I'm glad, it should be fruitful and interesting. Polish : I'm having a little trouble with the declensions of numbers as they are rather complicated. I'll have to do a few exercises more to make it. I've been lazy these last few days and the weather has been awful, which has affected my morale (and it's been my birthday... yet again!!!). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Vos Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5406 days ago 766 posts - 1020 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Polish | Message 79 of 115 25 April 2012 at 4:11am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Happy Birthday Homogenik! Hope you had a wonderful day. And what a find with W pustyni i w
puszczy, nice one. Unfortunately my polish studies have had to be put aside for now due to uni, so I'll be enjoying the wondrous language via you, Mooby and Amerykanka for the time being, hopefully I'll be able to join you all again in active study later on in the year, but will most definitely be following all of your logs with much interest till then. Hope all is well in Canada, and you must be off to Poland soon no? How amazing it will be! Take care. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Amerykanka Hexaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5011 days ago 657 posts - 890 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian | Message 80 of 115 26 April 2012 at 2:44pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Happy Birthday (a few days late)! That is really neat that you found a copy of W pustyni i w puszczy - it is
a very good book! It does use some rather old-fashioned language, though. Good luck with the declensions of numbers! I need to work on those myself. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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