Posts under Grammar

Readers Ask - I Answer: Counting Things in Polish

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Oct
22
2009

I was going to stay in bed and marinate under the covers for one more day (yes, my cold has morphed into a full-blown bronchitis now) but a reader’s email made me crawl out to face the enemy. The email had that panicky and ominous tone making it sound as if the intergalactic victory of good over evil (read: Polish grammar) depended solely on me.

So here I am, at your service.

What the reader wanted was this: please tell me how to count (in Polish, of course) the following nouns: dziecko (child, neuter), nauczycielka (teacher, female), pisarz (writer, masculine), jesień (autumn, feminine), mysz (mouse, feminine), and słoń (elephant, masculine). Though I am not entirely sure if the reader wanted słoń (elephant) or słońce (sun), so just in case I think I’ll do both.

Initially, I wrote back and told him to look up my previous posts on this subject, but he responded that this is the time when grammar explanations are not enough, he needs to see how it’s actually done in practice. OK, fine by me. And actually, I just wanted to throw those words at you (all my readers in general) and see what you could come up with in terms of counting them from one to five. But since the email had the “the world is going to end on Thursday at 3PM if you don’t help me” tone, I thought I’d just get up and do it myself.

But why do I have this strange feeling that I’m doing somebody’s homework here, huh?

Ok, but here we go.

  • dziecko (child) from one to five:
  • jedno dziecko, dwoje dzieci, troje dzieci, czworo dzieci, pięcioro dzieci
  • nauczycielka (female teacher) from one to five:
  • jedna nauczycielka, dwie nauczycielki, trzy nauczycielki, cztery nauczycielki, pięć nauczycielek
  • pisarz (writer, male) from one to five:
  • jeden pisarz, dwóch pisarzy, trzech pisarzy, czterech pisarzy, pięciu pisarzy
  • jesień (fall/autumn, feminine) from one to five:
  • jedna jesień, dwie jesienie, trzy jesienie, cztery jesienie, pięć jesieni
  • mysz (mouse, feminine) from one to five (this is a tricky one and I hope I got it right):
  • jedna mysz, dwie myszy, trzy myszy, cztery myszy, pięć myszy
  • słoń (elephant, masculine) from one to five:
  • jeden słoń, dwa słonie, trzy słonie, cztery słonie, pięć słoni (and we have a whole circus!)
  • słońce (sun, neuter) from one to five:
  • jedno słońce, dwa słońca, trzy słońca, cztery słońca, pięć słońc

OK, dear reader, I hope this is what you had in mind. And I hope I managed before your doomsday deadline.

 
Posted under Grammar, Vocabulary
Tagged with , , 		2 Comments | Post a Comment

What do you call a person who lives in Bielsko-Biała?

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Oct
12
2009

In his comment to the Bielsko-Biała post Mchl posed an interesting question: what do you call a person who lives in Bielsko-Biała? Yeah, indeed…

An inhabitant of Gdańsk is called gdańszczanin (masculine; gdańszczanka – feminine). A person who lives in Warsaw? Warszawiak or warszawianin, if a male, and warszawianka, if a female.
In Kraków? Krakowiak, or krakowianin, if a guy, and krakowianka, if a woman.

There’s really no rhyme or reason to how those names are formed. And those are just the easy ones. It gets a lot more complicated when you’re talking about a person who lives in Pruszcz Gdański, for example. Or Bielsko-Biała.

And yes, if we’re back on the subject of people who live in Bielsko-Biała, what do you call them? Hmmm… Bielsko-bialski, if a guy, and bielsko-bialska, if a woman. Yeah, where did that come from I have no clue, but that’s what it says in my dictionary. Many people mistakenly assume, it’s bielszczanin and bielszczanka, but those are people who live in Bielsk Podlaski.

And since we’re gluttons for punishment (and because we love Polish), we might as well go all the way and figure out how to call an inhabitant of Białystok. Białostoczanin, if a male, and białostoczanka if a female.

And maybe you noticed one thing – all those nouns are not capitalized. If you see “Krakowianin” that means a person who lives in Krakowskiem, which is a general area where Kraków is located. But an inhabitant of a city is always written using a small letter.

So yeah, what do you call an inhabitant of Pruszcz Gdański? I think I’ll stick with “an inhabitant of Pruszcz Gdański” (mieszkaniec Pruszcza Gdańskiego).

And since we’ve been talking about Bielsko-Biała a lot lately, I thought I’d show you some photos from that city. All photographs were taken by Artur Guzy and you can see more of them on his blog – Bielsko-Biała i wszystko jasne.

Pretty, isn’t it?

And I don’t know about you, but I had no idea that Bielsko-Biała was such a lovely town.

And for those who complained about the rain, here’s złota polska jesień, also in Bielsko-Biała.

For more photos, go to Artur’s blog and practice your Polish!

 
Posted under Grammar, Polish Language, Vocabulary
Tagged with , 		11 Comments | Post a Comment

On Bielsko-Biała and Białystok

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Oct
6
2009

Polish declensions. We all love them, right? All the funky case endings, exceptions, and then exceptions to exceptions. Life in Polish is never boring.

But just when you think you’ve finally managed to master the genitives, datives and accusatives, and you’re no longer kept awake at night by the adjective+noun combinations, you meet Bielsko-Biała. Or rather, Bielsko Biała. I’m confused, one dictionary I have spells it with a hyphen, the other – without. At least in the nominative case. Because both of them hyphenate it in all the other cases. And what fabulous cases these are!

I’m sure that Bielsko Biała is a great town. But couldn’t the good people of Bielsko Biała agree on a little easier way of declining that name?

You see, even though “bielsko” ends in “o”, it’s followed by “biała”, which is most definitely a feminine adjective. Which results in this:

  • do (to) Bielska-Białej
  • ku (towards) Bielsku-Białej
  • Bielsko-Białą
  • w (in) Bielsku-Białej

And as if that wasn’t enough, there’s also an adjective derived from that proper name: bielsko-bialski, but that one I’m not going to touch with a ten foot Pole (or a Hungarian, for that matter).

OK, so with Bielsko Biała, it’s logical to assume that both parts of this proper noun would decline, because they are two separate words.

But then how do you explain Białystok? Technically, it’s just one word, right? So why does it do this:

  • do (to) Białegostoku
  • ku (towards) Białemustokowi
  • w (in) Białymstoku

Huh???

Now you can easily guess which two Polish towns I’m definitely not fond of. And we haven’t even covered Bielsk Podlaski yet!

PS. Any funky computer language today?

 
Posted under Grammar, Polish Language
Tagged with , , , 		9 Comments | Post a Comment

Reader’s Question About Polish Surnames

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Sep
21
2009

A while back Sue Wilson left this comment, but due to my computer troubles (which, thankfully, are over now as I’m a proud owner of a brand new MacBook) I only managed to see it last weekend. I’m sorry Sue!

I thought that Sue’s question was interesting, and actually, because she is not the only one confused about this –ski/-ska issue when it comes to Polish surnames, I thought it would be good to share her comment here on the blog. I hope you don’t mind, Sue.
Here it is:

Is it common practice for a married woman whose husband’s surname is Kaliszewski to be Kaliszewska? My mother in law stuck with -ski yet addresses cards to her grand-daughters as -ska. Is the -ska only for single women or can married women use that form too?
I’m recently married to a Kaliszewski & as I am wife number 2 I’d quite like to use -ska to differentiate myself from wife number 1 who is Mrs K-ski. But obviously would not want to use -ska if that is associated with single women! I do appreciate the chaos that i will have by having a surname different to my wedding certificate but I’d quite like to follow Polish tradition with the feminisation of my surname if that is ok for married women to use!!
Many thanks!

Now onto my answer.
The endings –ski and –ska have absolutely nothing to do with one’s marital status, but with the gender of the person.
So, a –ski IN POLAND is always a male, and a –ska – a female.
As I’m sure you’ve noticed I emphasized the “IN POLAND” bit, because it is important. Things work a little bit differently in other countries.
In the US (and other English speaking countries), a woman who takes her husband’s name after marriage takes HIS surname with no allowances made for her gender.

So, if you marry a guy named Kaliszewski, you, as a wife, become Kaliszewski, too. Now, if it were in Poland, you’d be Kaliszewska, because last names ending in –ski follow Polish rules similar to adjectives.

If you are determined to be a Kaliszewska in the US, I think the only way to accomplish it would be through a legal name change – from Kaliszewski to Kaliszewska.

Does it make sense?

I’m sure that Barb in Canada, who also has a masculine version of a Polish last name, can add her trzy grosze on this subject.

 
Posted under Culture, Grammar, Polish Language
Tagged with , 		6 Comments | Post a Comment

Polish Grammar - what’s the best way to explain it?

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Aug
16
2009

Every so often I am being accused that my grammar explanations are too simplistic, too crude and too “for dummies.” That I don’t use proper linguistic, or grammatical, (or whatever those long and useless terms in “serious” grammar books are called) terminology in my blog posts and that basically, it looks like I mock the subject whenever possible. Eeegadz. Really?

Oddly enough, whenever such complaints come (via email normally, not in the comments section on this blog) they come from native Polish speakers. And boy, are those speakers furious!

So, I thought it might be time to address this issue. And of course, as always, to ask your (meaning ALL my readers, not just the Polish natives who read this blog) opinion, because if there are problems with how I explain grammar, then I better rectify this issue, and I better do it fast.

So let’s begin.

  • 1.    Do I mock grammar? Far from it, actually. Actually, I’m terrified of the thing. Really. If you’re terrified of something, you generally try to avoid any contact with it whenever possible. Just like you’d do with your neighbor’s rottweiler. If you try mocking it, you may lose an arm. That’s how I feel about grammar. Except that instead of an arm, I may lose the chance to write this blog. And I wouldn’t want that to happen.
  • 2.    The lack of proper terminology. Hmmm… If that’s what you want, then read Prof. Swan’s “Polish Grammar” book. He has that terminology bit covered. Trust me! I do try to smuggle proper names for things whenever possible, but I try to do it in such a way that wouldn’t scare too much a casual learner of the language (and reader of this blog). You know, the person who just wants to study it for fun and pleasure and to communicate with the cute Polish girl next door. Also, and it’s been my experience when learning a couple of other foreign languages, many people simply don’t know any proper grammar-book terminology at all. Not even in their native lingo.
  • 3.    And that brings us to my “too simplistic” approach and “for dummies” explanations. Oh yeah? It’s easy for you to say, native Poles, but do you realize that there is a difference in how grammar is taught to native and non-native speakers of the language? Also, another thing to consider are the levels of my readers. Some are advanced learners, or already speak Polish perfectly, and some are just starting out on their Polish language adventure. And of course, I want to keep everybody happy. And let’s be realistic - it’s Polish grammar we’re talking about here. Might as well try explaining quantum physics. Though incidentally, there are nice popular science books dealing with quantum physics, explaining it in a fun and easy to understand way. The fact that there aren’t any for Polish grammar should tell you something…

And now, of course, I want to know what I should do. Should I make my grammar posts more serious and sophisticated, use fancy terminology and treat them with the respect they deserve? Or should I keep them as they are, even if Polish natives will no doubt complain that they are “for dummies”? It’s entirely up to YOU!

PS. And just so we are perfectly clear how I feel about my neighbor’s rottweiler – I hate that beast.

 
Posted under Grammar, Polish Language
Tagged with , , 		21 Comments | Post a Comment