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Is Polish really that hard? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| pesahson Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5729 days ago 448 posts - 840 votes  Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 17 of 125 07 May 2010 at 6:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
It actually would be Pradze, with no "i" in there. W Pradzie could be used when talking about a Prada boutique. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5465 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian | Message 18 of 125 07 May 2010 at 11:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for the correction! See what I mean about the consonant changes being
difficult? The reason I gave this example is because the second time I went to Poland I was staying in a dormitory in the Praga area of Warsaw. I arrived on a very hot Summer day, got myself to downtown Warsaw, and then realized I needed to take a taxi to Praga. I was stressed, hot, and tired, but my taxi driver was very friendly and kept on trying to chat to me in Polish. I remember making so many mistakes talking to him. I said "It's very cold today!" even though it was about 32 degrees, and I also told him to take me to Prague rather than Praga (I can't remember the Polish now, unfortunately). He was laughing his head off, no doubt wondering who on earth this crazy foreigner in his taxi was! He corrected my mistake but obviously it didn't sink in... This was 1992 so there were no Prada boutiques in Warsaw at that time! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Slovak_anglo Diglot Groupie United States facebook.com/deliver Joined 5346 days ago 87 posts - 100 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Italian, Slovak | Message 19 of 125 08 May 2010 at 3:51am | IP Logged | |||||
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I would say Slovak is as hard as polish. It also has seven cases. Although vocative is almost obsolete I've heard.... correct me if I'm wrong
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 20 of 125 08 May 2010 at 5:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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Vocative is practically obsolete in Slovak and so Slovak is taught as having six cases. If you look at declension tables for Slovak adjectives or nouns you will see that a distinct entry for vocative is missing. When addressing someone in Slovak you almost always use the nominative.
Forms such as "Bože!", "priateľu!" etc. are treated as relics and no longer viewed or taught as belonging to a separate case even though they are effectively the continuation of the vocative. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Derian Triglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5309 days ago 227 posts - 464 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Czech, French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 21 of 125 14 May 2010 at 9:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
Oh my, you are SO wrong with your assumptions. The standard of education in Poland is very high, and even extremely high in comparison to many parts of Europe. And judging it by the level of our English is very unfair, because for us - native speakers of a Slavic language - English is a very exotic language. It's very different from our own language, thus it presents many difficulties that the speakers of, say, Germanic languages don't get to face. The learners of English from Norway, Sweden, Danemark, Germany have it sooo much easier, and by default they will always speak English better than most of us. Also the native speakers of the latin languages have it significantly easier than us. If it was Czech or Russian that people in all countries learned... mate, then it would be a whole different story :)
But coming back to the standard of Polish education. In the last couple of years there have been numerous cases like this one: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-491438/Outclassed-Th e-Mail-investigates-Polish-students-claims-really-far-behind .html Aleksander said that before he left Poland he was an average student. "In Poland, I only ever got average marks in maths, yet in the UK teachers said I was a genius," he claimed yesterday. "After a year I was top of the class in everything, and that includes English." This article is a very interesting read. Edited by Derian on 14 May 2010 at 9:26pm 16 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Derian Triglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5309 days ago 227 posts - 464 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Czech, French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 22 of 125 14 May 2010 at 9:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
We're talking about the different qualities of the /ch/ SOUND, not the sound of what is spelled with a "ch" in Polish. So he meant the difference between "cz" and "ć". 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kubelek Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland chomikuj.pl/Kuba_wal Joined 6853 days ago 415 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 23 of 125 15 May 2010 at 12:19am | IP Logged | |||||
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You're right of course, I guess I wasn't really paying attention when I replied to that post.
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| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6143 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 24 of 125 15 May 2010 at 12:22am | IP Logged | |||||
What exactly is the difference between these two sounds? Is it important to distinguish them in Polish? Would you be understood if you don't distinguish between them? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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