Posts from September 2008

Your Wish Is My Command

Posted by Anna 22 Comments
Sep 30 2008

This blog is a few months old now (if it were a baby it’d be fed solids with a spoon), and I’ve been feeling very guilty lately. Why? Because I just write this stuff and post it here and it finally came to me that I never really thanked you. You – my readers. Well, it’s about time, I hear you say.

So, without any further ado, please accept my sincere thanks for coming here, reading what I write, leaving constructive comments and generally, for making this Polish blogging experience so pleasant for me. I couldn’t have done it without you. Sounds like a dorky cliché, yes I know, but as it often happens with dorky clichés, it’s also absolutely true.

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Subtitles: Yes or No?

Posted by Anna 15 Comments
Sep 27 2008

There’s been quite a discussion going on among my friends about this plan of TVP2 (one of the Polish TV channels, link sadly in Polish only) to start using Polish subtitles for some of its programming. And it’s about blerry time, I’d say!

You see, while most countries either use subtitles in their native language or dub foreign programs completely, in Poland the set-up is slightly different. There you have one person (normally a guy) reading the lines of all actors in Polish while the original soundtrack is still somewhat audible in the background. So let’s say, you have Dr. House going on one of his usual rants and you can just barely hear Hugh Laurie’s voice muffled by the sound of the Polish reader. Sounds weird? It is!
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Why We Need Professor Miodek

Posted by Anna 15 Comments
Sep 25 2008

Lately I’ve been writing in Polish more and more, and while I’ve always thought that my Polish spelling skills were decent, now I’m not so sure. In fact, I am sure – they suck.

It’s of very little consolation that I am not alone. Any random read of internet forums populated by Poles will prove that a great number of us can’t spell. And that to me proves that Polish spelling is not as easy and uncomplicated as our school teachers once upon a time tried to tell us. Liars!

“iść“ is an easy word, you write “ść” at the end, just like you say it and just like it sounds.
Same with “pójść“.

But what about “znaleźć”? Or is it “znaleść”? Here Anna runs to look it up in a dictionary.

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Dative Case, part 2

Posted by Anna No Comments
Sep 21 2008

After studying Fran’s wonderful poem in the last post, you should know a little bit about the dative case (celownik) already. It’s a very unassuming case, really. And when you see it in a sentence, it will be most likely used to modify a personal pronoun in expressions like these:

  • Jest mi gorąco. – I am hot (as in, the temperature is so high that I’m sweating)

“Mi” in that sentence is in the dative case. And of course, as you’ve already probably figured out, it’s the personal pronoun “I” – “ja”, which as almost everything else in Polish, also declines.

The same happens in these examples, but with different words, naturally:

Here “nam” is in the dative case. And yes, in the nominative version it would be “we” – “my”.

“Wam” is the dative form of plural “you” – “wy”.

So, I think I should use this lovely dative excuse and show you all the other personal pronouns, as well. Let’s go!

  • ja – I
  • ty – you
  • on- he
  • ona – she
  • ono – it

And now in plural:

  • my – we
  • wy – you plural
  • oni – they masculine and mixed gender
  • one – they feminine and neuter

You may have also noticed that unlike in English, the word “ja” (“I”) is not capitalized in Polish. Instead, when writing to somebody, both in personal and official correspondence, Poles capitalize the word “ty” (“you”) in all its permutations. And yes, if talking to more than one “you”, the word “wy” is capitalized, as well. It’s done to be polite, and other than that, has no other stylistic function. You can tell a Polish speaker writing in English by the fact that he or she will most likely stubbornly write “you” with the capital letter.

But enough of this digression. Let’s get back to the dative case and see how those personal pronouns would look then. You already have some examples above, and here’s a complete list:

See, it wasn’t so bad. One use of the dative case and a whole stack of Polish personal pronouns is what you get today. Next time we will talk about something more exciting – I’m planning to make a typical Polish cheesecake!

Dative Case, part 1

Posted by Anna No Comments
Sep 17 2008

It’s been a while since we talked about our lovely Polish noun cases, so I thought we might get back to it today.

But first, I have a little treat for you. One of our readers, as it turned out, is also a very talented poet. I mean, you have to be talented to write a poem about Polish declensions. Yep. That’s exactly what Fran did. Just take a look:

In Case of Polish

The Polish language is quite curious.
Seven cases! Yes, they’re serious.
The Nominative Case is so exquisite.
Answers the question: who or what is it?

If there’s few or even many,
Or you tell me there’s not any,
Look for something that’s a possession.
Carefully listen for a preposition
Od, ze, do, dla, or koło
Genitive case does a solo.

Now I know it sounds amusing
To what, to whom – it’s just confusing!
But if you listen to the help I give,
I lend to you this case of Dative.

I see I need to get going soon
Of course, I’d like to fly to the moon
Just remember when passing through
That any old direct object will do
And action or motion to anyplace
Always results in the Accusative case.

Whether in front or behind, above, under or below
There’s one more thing that you need know
Transportation is fundamental
When the case is Instrumental

Although it may seem quite apparent
About “on”, “in”, “by”, or “after” it is inherent
That these are prepositions of locations.
(I thank you now, for your patience.)
We’ve arrived at the case called Locative
And all that’s left – hey you! Vocative!

By Polish learner
Frances Turner

Isn’t that just great, or what?! Thank you so much, Fran, for agreeing to include it in here.

I was going to talk about dative today, but no matter what I say now, after reading Fran’s poem, it won’t look very impressive.

So let’s just stick to the basics. Dative – in Polish – celownik. The English name of the case came from Latin “casus dativus”, but where the Polish name “celownik” came from I have no idea. “Celować” is a verb and it means to aim (at somebody). Obviously, somewhere along the way, there is a connection to this grammatical case.

Next time, we will discuss how, when and where this case is used. Now let me read Fran’s poem again. She basically did all the hard teaching for me, all I will need to do next time is to give you some usage examples. And voila!

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