I'm sure this video won't be controversial in any way. 😂 This video does not mean to offend, but just to offer a perspective as a foreigner. I will still continue to learn though. Let's see if I change my mind. Connect with me: instagram.com/wesleezy/ Listen to my music: shorturl.at/nw2c6 Contact me: weslythomasmusic@gmail.com Whatsapp: +57 324 243 6205 Set up a 1 on 1 consultation with me: whereswes.setmore.com Please consider donating to support the channel! Venmo: @Wesleezy Paypal: paypal.me/wesleezy Patreon: patreon.com/wesleezy If you want access to my unfiltered deleted videos, consider subscribing to my Patreon! You'll get access to a lot of my older deleted videos plus be able to contact me and ask me questions.
Please read all. I don't want to discourage you but you didn't even mention 😂 gender in verbs. You can easily function in Poland 30+ years with broken Polish and people won't mind, you can have family, friends, business, respect etc. (I'm 46 years old and personnally know foreigners living so long here). From English POV learning Polish C1 is 5-10 years matter. Portugese(Spanish less)/Chinese/Japanese cut this in half at least. Slavic person could learn Polish in 1-2 years - the biggest problems for other Slavs are false friends, words that have different or opposite meaning in both languages. Poland was extremely extremely homogenic (Japan level or higher due to less people visiting) 30 years ago. Last 2 years Poland exploded in popularity, we like to host people, learn languages, we love to be validated by foreigners but deep down even liberal Poles are conservative and protect language and culture (it's part of being Polish identity) - changing is a big no no for at least 100 years if ever and I'm the liberal but I know other Poles. Poland was few times wiped out from the map and came back. Poles are similar in this aspect with Scotts, Irish, Hungarians - it's identity, a kind of taboo.
It's best to talk to people who know your language and Polish of course. If you're trying to learn yourself, you can't do it 60%. Fun fact in South Korea is the largest Polish language University in the world outside of Poland.
Hey, I think it would be really helpful for you to reach out to Ignacy from Japan. He managed to teach himself Polish and is quite good at it, so he could offer some great tips and advice that might make learning easier for you. He’s been through it and could definitely help you, It’s worth messaging him when you get the chance!”**
One month coming from a none Slavic language background is not much for learning Polish. The language system is complex but once you achieve some mastery with it you can express exact things very efficiently and succinctly. You have a big advantage of being surrounded by the language. Try mastering the cases some more and then review if you want to continue. I very much like Paulina Lipiec - a Polish language teacher. She has a great learning platform and various interactive courses available. She explained that what is required to achieve A1 and A2 in Polish is reams and reams of information compared to other languages but that once you've mastered them the more advanced levels are much less of a jump than others.
Jemu bardziej chodziło o to, że jesteśmy dumni za swojego języka ojczystego i nie zamierzamy go zmieniać. Jest bardzo pięknym i bardzo melodyjnym językiem, a zaproponowane przez Ciebie uproszenia polegające na zrezygnowaniu z odmieniania słów przez: rodzaje, liczby, przypadki , czasy itp dla rodowitego Polaka brzmią dziwacznie - to tak jakbyśmy mówili przysłowiowe: Kali jeść słonia, słoń być dobry. Choć język polski jest trudny do nauczenia, to jednak warto podjąć to wyzwanie.
@@WheresWes Musiał byś przeczytać słowa Roty lecz w oryginalnej wersji językowej nie tej dzisiejszej to byłoby Tobie łatwiej zrozumieć jego wypowiedź, albo poczytać więcej o czasach zaborów Polski.
@@WheresWes Haha, true, but there is some truth to that. Language barrier is a really steep barrier, making Poland so homogenous (among other things), which in current world situation is a good thing. Still, those who are heavily invested in Poland, learn Polish in the end, which is also good, because foreigners can enrich our culture, but won't flood it.
0:22 Well if you asked a plain old Englishman or American why we say 1 goose but 2 geese (instead of gooses) or why we pronounce knight as “nite”, I bet they wouldn’t know the answer either. Does that mean that English speakers don’t know their own language? No! Both English and Polish grammatical intricacies have reasons behind them but you need to ask a linguist or an etymologist.
I like to watch your videos, I like them, really, but I want to say something. I deeply disagree with the idea of simplifying Polish. The reason behind it is that our language is a HUGE part of our culture and when I say huge I REALLY mean huge. Poland was gone from the map for 123 years, fought wars after that and then was under Soviet's rule. And during those events one of the few things that kept Poles' hopee alive was their language. Aggressors tried so hard to destroy our language because it was giving people hope that Poland will be great again someday, it was even forbidden in schools to learn Polish for some time. Our ancestors fought so long for our country and kept our language alive, not for us to just simplify it. It's not hate, I just want to show you why Polish is so important the way it is.
Cześć Wieśku, Język polski jest na innym poziomie. Języki romańskie mają prostą budowę i są dość regularne, co pozwala przekształcić ich nauczanie w jakiś rodzaj algorytmu. Natomiast język polski ma bardziej subtelną budowę, jest pełen niuansów, wyjątków i setek wykluczających się reguł. Tego języka do pewnego stopnia nauczysz się stosując reguły, ale szybko dojdziesz do ściany. Podejdź do tego jak do trenowania sieci neuronowej. Nauka gramatyki w oderwaniu od kontekstu jest bez sensu - nawet w językach romańskich odwrócenie kolejności - najpierw dialog, potem gramatyka daje dużo lepsze efekty. Sprawa druga to taka, że nam Polakom łatwiej jest uprościć sobie pojęcia językowe tak, żeby pasowały do języka angielskiego i tym samym nauczyć się go dość szybko, aniżeli ludziom anglojęzycznym ekstrapolować pojęcia tak, żeby zrozumieć koncepcje języka polskiego - to jest największy Twój problem. W języku polskim wszystkie wyjątki i subtelności mają swoje uzasadnienie, tylko nie oczekuj, że na youtubie będziesz rozmawiał z językoznawcami. To, że umiemy się poprawnie posługiwać naszym językiem jest zasługą naszych rodziców, dziadków i środowiska, w którym żyjemy. Kto nie rozumie języka polskiego, nie będzie rozumiał naszej kultury i Polaków i na odwrót, kto nie chce się nauczyć języka polskiego, nigdy nawet nie zbliży się do poznania naszej kultury. Kultury, która jest inna niż w krajach zachodnich i inna niż wschodnia. Jest czymś pomiędzy. To że Polska aspiruje do zachodu nie oznacza, że myśli tak samo i ma taką samą mentalność. To kwestia interesu. Kolejna sprawa. Nie. Nie uprościmy naszego alfabetu dlatego, że ktoś nie rozróżnia dźwięków s/ś/sz czy, ć/cz/c od siebie. To nie nasz problem. Może najpierw zmień w angielskim zapis na fonetyczny, bo to co macie teraz nie ma najmniejszego sensu. Tak samo nie jest naszym problemem niezrozumienie dlaczego liczebniki odmienia się tak, a nie inaczej. Tak po prostu jest i tak musi być. Nie znasz języka, a chcesz go upraszczać. Może zatem mi powiesz, po co w angielskim macie takie dziwactwa jak eleven i twelve skoro mogłoby być oneteen i twoteen jak w polskim jedenaście i dwanaście. Jeżeli nie idzie Ci nauka polskiego - to nie polski jest zły, tylko Twoje metody nauki i oczekiwania zawodzą. Doceniam czas i trud włożony w naukę mojego języka ojczystego, ale pamiętaj, że wypowiedzi na temat jego poprawiania i upraszczania z zewnątrz pachną arogancją i kolonializmem. Chyba, że naprawdę chcesz się pozbyć polskiej widowni. Wierzę jednak, że lepiej Polaków mieć po swojej stronie. Pomyśl o tym, Wieśku.
@@WheresWes Cała przyjemność po mojej stronie. Gdybyś kiedykolwiek potrzebował porozmawiać po polsku - zapraszam. Nie obiecuję, że wyjaśnię wszystkie reguły, ale jakieś skromne zaplecze mam.
@@WheresWes As a Pole, I can't disagree with @SiempreConTrasto comment. The amount of likes under his comment shows that it's not just me. Language is part of the culture, and you cannot modify it because it would just easier to learn, just as we don't give up on traditions just because they make no practical sense. Those are part of the culture code, part of the history, ours and our ancestors. Things evolve, but they must evolve naturally,
The chances of Poles ever deciding to change their language are absolutely zero, seriously. The Polish language has a very long tradition, and for us Poles, it’s beautiful. We are proud of it, and changing it would be unthinkable. This is probably the worst idea I’ve ever heard! 😄
Też chichotałem słuchając jego pomysłów jak wyeliminować różne głoski i zrobić z s, sz i ś jeden dźwięk, a już zupełnie leżałem na podłodze pod koniec, słuchając że to jest "kontrowersyjne" i "może obraźliwe". LOL, ani kontrowersyjne ani obraźliwe, za to strasznie zabawne 🤣🤣🤣
@@grzegorzduda7098 Raczej -- Amerykanin o mentalności nowo-chińskiej: wziąć coś i przerobić na kasę, tu i teraz. A to, czy przy okazji to albo coś innego bezpowrotnie się straci, zniszczy, itd., to kij z tym.
Exactly. Polish is over-complicated because of difficult history of Poland, in particular: partitions of Poland (occupation for 123 years), then 2 world wars (which also had periods of occupation), then 45 years of being soviet satellite country (maybe lighter, but still occupation). During those times of occupations the occupants tried to russify / germanize Poles, very hard, so people protected the language, avoiding any simplifications. That's why Polish won't get simpler anytime soon. Luckily most young and middle-aged Poles speak English well, so language is not a problem.
Next video: "Why I left Poland" 😂. I am learning German. It always is easier to blame a language complexity than put more effort in learning. You put to much pressure for speaking correctly. We don't care if you say "jabłko" "jabłka" "jabłek" until we can understand you. The correct version will be obvious for you after some time of speaking and listening to our language.
Zniechęciłem się do angielskiego na pierwszej lekcji, kiedy dowiedziałem się, że jest jakieś "the" i "a", które nic nie znaczą, ale czymś się różnią. Proponuję, żeby z nich zrezygnować.
Dobre. Mnie zniechęcił brak zwrotów grzecznościowych, brak płci i brak stałej wymowy liter w słowach. Brytole w końcu powinni wprowadzić trochę kultury i logiki do swojego języka.
" jest jakieś "the" i "a", które nic nie znaczą" - trzeba było skupić się na nauce, zamiast wymigiwaniu się od niej. "The" i "a" to rodzajniki, "the" to rodzajnik określony, "a" to nieokreślony". Nadają one kontekts rzeczownikom, więc "nic nie znaczą" jest błędne. "The cat" i "a cat" mają inne znaczenie".
You saying we should remove our number rules is like saying the English should abolish their weird tenses or make their alphabet phonetic because it's hard for slavic language users. The thing with chinese is they simplified their signs, but it didn't change the way they speak or their grammar, its like changing from cursive to block letters (I'm oversimplifying, of course). I feel like you have no idea about other slavic languages which have basically the same rules but different words. Language is not something created or controlled by the government. "Language is alive". And i know this wasn't your intention, but suggesting how Polish should be changed so it is easier for Germanic/Latin language users is insulting to our history.
Well it is controlled. The former is how you would write it right now, the latter is how you will write it from 2026 "Półserio, nie myślisz, czy by nielepiej było, żeby Żabojad mówił po Polsku zwiedzając Kościół Mariacki i Półwysep Hel?" "Pół serio, nie myślisz, czyby nie lepiej było, żeby żabojad mówil po Polsku zwiedzając kościół Mariacki i półwysep Hel?" Also we are writing some words the way it is written just because someone said so. "Mrzonka" when the word comes from "mżyć". Ogórek when it originated as ogurek. The current change is mostly about small or large letter and combined or separated spelling but the language could seriously use some bigger changes. Why is it still "tę książkę" when "tamtę" changed to "tamtą". What's the point of having "ch" and "h", "ó" and "u", "rz" and "ż" when they evolved into sounding exactly the same?
@@sattes "ch"/"h" "ó/"u" "rz"/"ż" might be phonetically identical but they're still different morphemes. they behave differently under declination and exchange sounds within word families. for example lekarz - lekarstwo, lekaż would suggest lekagstwo or at least something close to that. moreover i find it gives polish speakers an advantage when learning other (especially slavic) languages. not to mention the few speakers that still distinguish the sounds. i'm glad their speech is reflected in the written language and not seemingly just an anomaly
Polish and other slavic languages are related more with Sanskrit than with Germanic or Roman languages it would be so weird to force it into totally different language family just to make it easier for them 😗
Im assuring you... we wont change the language. It will be impossible for people to switch up to simpler terms and it would make no sense in many examples, words, or sentences. I know you are deeply disencouraged, but trust me, it will be worth it, you will know one of the hardest languages in the world
Właśnie, Wes chyba jeszcze nie rozumie że my odmianami komunikujemy bardzo dużo treści którą inaczej trzeba byłoby zakomunikować w inny sposób. I nagle byłoby trzeba mówić milion słów zamiast po postu powiedzieć trzy odmienione słowa xD A uproszenie ortografii xD Zaraz by było po 5 takich samych słów znaczących to samo bo zniknęły ogonki i nikt nie wiedziałby by o co chodzi w "Żeby zęby nie bolały..."
Dear Mr. "Where's Wes," I believe you misunderstand the essence of learning languages. Languages are tools for communication, and if a language is constructed in a particular way, it should be accepted as such. Every language broadens one's horizons, even English, which, although simple and somewhat illogical in terms of grammar, still holds its value. Polish is more codified, but this does not mean it is superior to English. All languages, regardless of their structure, contribute something unique to the human experience.
" Languages are tools for communication, and if a language is constructed in a particular way, it should be accepted as such." every lanugage evolves its never constant same with polish your spew is just insecure nonsense
@@braindeadbrick553 How do the statements "a language is constructed in a particular way and should be accepted as such" and "language constantly evolves" contradict each other? They are both equally true. Each language has certain characteristics which make it susceptible to certain types of shifts but not to others. There is a reason why some Polish dialects merged the sz, ż, cz, dż with s, z, c, dz consonant group or turned the mj, pj, bj clusters into mń, pś, bź, but none have developed tone, articles or lost their three grammatical genders for example
Simplify English! For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
In Poland's history, there have been many attempts to erase it, its culture and especially its language. For example, during the partitions it was not allowed to speak Polish. Poles opposed it and that's why we are still here. Poles would perceive the simplification of our language as a desire to rob us of our cultural heritage. Poles learn English and in Poland you can communicate in this language. If a foreigner masters Polish, even though it is such a difficult language, he or she proves that he or she respects our culture and considers it worthy of attention and cultivation. This makes Poles look at him completely differently. Such a foreigner goes beyond "the next step of initiation", he is more "ours". This is a way to verify the purity of intentions. Moreover, after simplification, access to our ancient literature would be much more difficult. People wouldn't be able to read the classics of their own literature, and we greatly respect the legacy of our ancestors. Languages evolve, and so does Polish, but no one will force us to make such a sudden change. If someone doesn't want to learn Polish as it is, it's their loss.
I agree with you-this is definitely a controversial video! Your suggestion to "simplify" the Polish language for the sake of foreigners learning it faster gave me major cringe. Language is deeply tied to culture, and artificially altering it strips away a part of that cultural identity. While it's true that languages evolve naturally over time, simplifying Polish solely to make it easier for non-native speakers is a pretty far-fetched idea. Have you tried learning Polish with a teacher or enrolling in a course? I know foreigners who have mastered Polish fluently, and given your experience with other languages, I’m confident you could too! Perhaps a change in approach would make a big difference and even help you appreciate the language more. Polish has roots in ancient languages, and such ancestry contributes to complexity of the language (such as its use of cases, inflection, and rich grammatical structures). That rich history is part of its charm! Learning another language isn't just about communication-it's a gateway to understanding another culture and its worldview. Simplifying Polish would erase so many nuances and the "soul" of the language. Languages don’t exist to accommodate outsiders; they reflect the history, values, and identity of the people who speak them. Polish is no exception. Instead of changing it, why not embrace the challenge and discover the beauty within its complexity?
@@yueli92 You're absolutely correct! Polish and Sanskrit belong to different branches of the Indo-European family, and Polish is not direct descent of Sanskrit. They both retain some features that can be traced back to common ancestor (PIE), such as the use of inflection and cases in their grammar. I phrased my statement poorly and corrected it - thanks for pointing it out.
Polish kids learn to express themselves in polish as quickly as english kids learn to express themselves in english. It's not a language problem. Leaving any country because you would like to make better progress with the language than you think you do is just an excuse.
Same. I still make mistakes. English is sooo much easier (and I say this as a Pole born and raised). To me it always seemed like there are more exceptions to the rules than things that actually follow them. This language makes you give up.... and once you do - you will be able to learn it 😅
Not rude, as he didn’t do it with bad intentions. I found it just funny 😂 and could relate to my feelings when living in an English-speaking country. English is the first candidate for simplification as the international language.
the thing is we don't want to simplify our language, especially not for the sake of others. Poland was not on map for 123 years and we were strictly censored even from speaking or writing in our language. That's why we're so defensive when it comes to these themes, so don't take any passive agressive coments personally.
Hey Wes. I visited Taiwan some months back, where I had the most interesting conversation with a local professor of Chinese literature. He was deeply critical of the simplification of the Chinese characters on the mainland. According to him, this entire operation was not meant to increase literacy, but rather make it more difficult for the younger generation to learn the classics of Chinese written culture.
Polskie dzieci szybko uczą się języka polskiego, przede wszystkim poprzez słuchanie, co pokazuje, że nie jest to przesadnie trudne. W wieku pięciu lat większość dzieci potrafi mówić w tym języku z poprawną gramatyką i wymową. Wkrótce potem zaczynają uczyć się czytać i pisać. Większość języków słowiańskich, w tym polski, zachowała praindoeuropejski (PIE) system siedmiu lub ośmiu przypadków gramatycznych, stosowany zarówno w liczbie pojedynczej, jak i mnogiej. Podczas gdy wiele języków niesłowiańskich również miało początkowo więcej przypadków, zostały one później uproszczone, aby ułatwić naukę języków zagranicznym robotnikom (lub niewolnikom). Język polski zachował jednak swoją złożoność językową. My, Polacy, jesteśmy dumni z naszego języka, bo daje nam on bogate środki wyrazu. W przeciwieństwie do mocarstw kolonialnych zachowaliśmy nasze dziedzictwo językowe. Charakterystyczną cechą języka polskiego jest stosowanie deklinacji, która pozwala na stosunkowo swobodny szyk wyrazów, co jest cechą charakterystyczną wielu języków słowiańskich. Na przykład: "Kot widzi psa" lub "Psa widzi kot". Oba zdania są poprawne gramatycznie i przekazują jasne znaczenia, pomimo różnego szyku wyrazów. Jest to możliwe dzięki deklinacji, która wyjaśnia relacje i role słów w zdaniu bez polegania w dużym stopniu na słowach pomocniczych lub sztywnej składni. Pozdrawiam serdecznie.
Many native speakers don't know many rules of their language, it's just intuitive to them. I met once native english speaker, who didn't has any background with foreigners learning english or learning other languages by himself and he had no idea what Present Perfect is. He was completely unfamiliar with this name. Similar in Polish. We just use it, it's our native language. Changing our language is not an option. China is different in terms that they have a huge country, with many dialects, alphabets, rules and idea of unifying language so that they can all easily communicate on daily basis makes a sense. Polish people don't have such problem.
Polish is a Slavic language, Slavic languages through their very very very long history have experienced many evolution we share roots with Sanskrit! we are closer to Sanskrit than we are to Germanic or Roman languages (btw. English is a Germanic language) in English, writing system makes absolutely no sense as we see how it took a bunch of words from Roman and Germanic, natives and other and smashed them together - so you have to read it differently depending where it came from even if spelled the same Slavic languages have systematic way to create new words, we can mass produce new words with new meaning with it and people will still understand what it means, because it follows a certain logic it's very creative language that adapts and makes you use your brain as if you were painting a picture we don't want to use our language like lego blocks, no thank you btw. Polish WAS already simplified! we used to have double-numbers in it, the doors are reminder of that - one "drzwi", many "drzwi"
The very thing that complicates the polish language for foriegners also makes Poles free. Changing the form a word specifies its relation with other words in the sentence thus we can shuffle the order freely and it lets us express the mood of a message, be it poetic, formal or totally informal or emphesise a piece of information. We can also recognise the function of a word in the sentence without knowing its meaning. Every language has hard and easy parts. We gotta embrace it and live on.
I don't know which Poles you have contact with, but they are probably not very smart people. An educated person will explain the rules of Polish grammar to you. But he won't explain everything unless he is a linguist. For Poles, the Polish language is important, it is an element of our distinctiveness and identity. Polish poet Julian Tuwim coined the phrase "ojczyzna-polszczyzna", which meant you were Polish if you knew Polish. You can live in Poland without the Polish language as a foreigner, but without the Polish language you cannot blend into this society and culture. Without the Polish language, you won't grow into this country, but you probably only want to stay here for a few years, so it doesn't matter to you. The Polish language is constantly evolving and developing, and no one will make a linguistic revolution here, because the Polish language simply has too long a tradition and history. There will be changes, but they will be gradual. Generally, if someone wants to live in Poland, they must adapt to the rules and norms applicable here, not the other way around.
Most of the foreigners who come to Poland are from the former USSR. Most of them speak either Ukrainian, Russian or both. These language are also highly inflected with similar grammar and vocabulary. I know some dedicated Ukrainians who became sufficiently fluent in Polish after just two months of learning. But out of nothing we should basicaly change our entire grammar from synthetic to analytic (the most boring and repetitive grammar system), because some Americans are going to shit themselves once they get to learn our cases and conjugation (Try hungarian or finnish!). Not to mention that once we simplify our grammar they young generation that would grew up in new circumstances would be cut off from all the previus literature and other written sources. It's like the Greeks who need to learn Ancient Greek to understand archaic sources in what could be considered the same language. What a great improvement for educating our future children!
Yeah, but we could then sell Disco Polo to the entire world, which would then drop face down to the ground in stupefied admiration of that pinnacle of Polish culture -- just like K-Pop is the pinnacle of culture in Korea, obviously :D. We're just one step from making our country truly world reknown: we have to make the Disco Polo lyrics finally understandable to the world thirsty of the wisdoms conveyed by it :D. LOL!
There is a convincing explanation of this strange rule about numbers from 5 up (“pięć”, “sześć”, …). It states that they used to be regular nouns just like ones that we still use today: “garść” - a handful, “kiść” - a bunch. And when we use those nouns to describe the quantity, we have to do something with the following word. In English we add “of”: a handful of peppercorns, a bunch of bananas. In Polish we use the genitive case instead of the nominative. So it’s like saying “a five of apples” or “a six of pencils”
The Polish language and all Slavic languages are complicated because of these grammatical rules, they are one of the reasons why it is a Slavic language. You have to learn it just like your native language - the alphabet, single words and numbers, simple sentences, we learn grammar only around the fourth grade of primary school (approximately from the age of 8 to 11) and then we don't go back to it because it's complicated.
Hi, as polish people I think we are very forgiving of pronunciations and grammar. If you say "wczoraj ja iść do supermarket i ja kupić dwa jabłko i sześć jajko" instead of "wczoraj poszedłem do supermarketu i kupiłem dwa jabłka i sześć jajek" I think you will be understand and praised for learning such a hard language. Language is part of our culture and history, it would be hard to change it for foreigners. I know a few people that learned polish but their mother language was one of slavic languages so they had an easier job to do. I would say, Polish is like poem when you using it right, but for comunication every basic knowledge would return and in matter of time it become natural to use all conjugation and cases. Even native polish speakers makes mistakes and uses wrong forms of words. There is nothing to worry about. It just another challenging way of communication. I'm glad you learning Polish :)
you are wrong, is not about ability to change language. this is about pride and will - Polish language will be always first in Poland. saying that you have to understand, polish people takes 6years at home and another 8 in primary school to learn polish language and grammar and still some make mistake in "common" use language. Polish is not easy, however when you know language is different approach to the challenge, let me explain: Mandarine language is not easy as well - the same word / phrase have different meaning is you pronouns with different tone of voice ... this could be devastated experience for some people ;) Powodzenia z językiem polskim, btw ortografia to jest dopiero wyższy poziom jazdy :)
Hi Wes, try to use that rule: - 1 apple ----- jedno jabłko (number with noun in NOMINATIVE case SINGULAR, aka first form singular), - 2-4 (and every tens, hundreds and tousands with 2-4 starting [!] from 22-24) apples ----- 2-4 jabłka (number with noun in NOMINATIVE case PLURAL, aka first from plural), - 5 and more (except above) OF APPLES ----- 5 i więcej JABŁEK (number with noun in GENETIVE [!!!!!!!] case PLURAL, aka second form plural) So i think the clue is to remember mainly the third part of it because first two are just intuitive and easy to create: 5 and above (except 2,3,4 and every number with 2,3,4, starting from 22) always connects with noun GENETIVE PLURAL Here is the video shortly explaining it (go to 4:47 time of the video, turn on English subtitles, btw you may find whole video interesting to you) th-cam.com/video/ZaMDsNxgxto/w-d-xo.html Another way to learn it is to choose one noun, your favourite or one you use most often, and memorize it with numbers, till, let's say, 25 or at least 5, with pronounciation. Like having this association (both in writing and spelling): jedno jabłko, dwa jabłka, trzy jabłka, cztery jabłka, pięć jabłek... Have fun. :)
The amount of fallacies, cultural insensitivities, and plain old errors (not just in Polish but also in English) in this video is mind-blowing. Unless you like receiving a ton of hateful comments and thumbs down, I’d highly suggest reuploading and putting more effort, research, and sensitivity into the subject.
It's not a bug, it's a feature :D. He's probably just milking the revenue from the traffic on that video. The more comments, the better. The stupider and more arrogant the original position presented in it, the more comments will come. And the stupider and more arrogant the positions, the easier and quicker to make the video. It's just a win-win situation.
Studiuję polonistykę i na moim kierunku jest Chińczyk. Tak, na filologii polskiej w Polsce. Nauczył się języka polskiego w cztery lata i mówi pięknie. Być może problem nie jest w języku, a w twoim podejściu. Dziwne oczekiwać od całego narodu, żeby zmieniał się, bo ty tak żądasz :v
@@lastanetaarion Brakowało jeszcze tylko stwierdzenia, że się spocił, przeziębił, a w dodatku nabawił PTSD i że powinniśmy mu wypłacić odszkodowanie. Generalnie mam wrażenie, że te filmiki to jeden wielki clickbait. A ja znów się dałem wciągnąć w komentowanie tych bzdur.
I disagree with your statement. Polish language is our heritage and should stay as it is. If you are English speaker and can find your way around it means Poles did enough to blend in and in general making business is not a problem. Language is at the core of polish identity. If someone can't learn then it's fine but to suggest it should be redefined is rude. I live in the UK, 20 yrs now and I speak English, I Learned much of German for convenience as well, and gave a shot at French but I'd never suggest them to change anything as it would be disrespectful. I watched a few of your videos before and know you don't mean anything wrong and I actually liked them. Consider Polish as something unique and not something you are forced to know. Live and let live kind of thing. You said yourself you can communicate with people anyway so why should they change the language just so you can find it easier to learn..?...
Your idea of 'improving' the language comes from a very American manner of prioritizing efficiency. Life is not just about that, mate. Besides no one expects foreigners to master every bit of grammar. There already exists quick and easy language virtually everybody knows and it's English thank you very much
This video will lose you many subscribers. Because of our heroic struggle to preserve our language and identity; an arrogant foreigner telling us how to change our language is as offensive as you can possibly get. 💀
To be honest, I don't think starting to learn Polish with getting to know grammar rules so soon is a wise and effective way to learn it (but, for sure, it is the best way to get confused and discouraged👍). I highly recommend Jeff's Brown lecture on yt called 'How to acquire any language NOT learn it!'. Btw I came across a ranking of the most difficult languages to learn for english speakers and Polish is on 17th place there. So it's definitely not THE WORST language ever, it's just 17th 😁 So don't complain, Wes, and get back to work! & honestly - change the method and put the grammar aside at least for a year or two. (Btw I'm learning Chinese 😊 - the best language to learn if you have your whole life to spend ; ))
I think that only a very arrogant person can say after only a few months of learning that this language is too hard, it would be easier if you changed it. Well it takes time to learn a language and just that you use and know something doesn't mean that you can teach it. Motivation and the teacher are very important to really learn something.
Don't worry -- he probably never even meant it seriously. He's just a clickabaiting trolmaking some buck by posting provocative vids specifically targetted at an audience who will be motivated enough to watch and comment on them. He puts next to no effort in making them -- just look how short and basic they are -- and yet they generate a lot watch-time and comments. We are his goldmine, and I'm sure he's having a good laugh looking at how easily duped we are :).
sorry dude but your question why in terms of grammar is silly at best -- tell me why in English you would say "I was" but "You were" or why verb "to go" is used in past tenses as "went" or "gone", or why there is "I am" but "He is"?
I totally understand you're having a hard time with Polish language, however there is sadly no way to simplify it. Even some of us natives tries to shorten it and use some easier forms, but it does not work well for long. Polish needs to be accepted as it is. I'm sure that in time you will find the hidden beauty in it.
Polish is a standard language, and dialects play a very marginal role (this is partly a result of Stalinist language policy after WW2) so there is no need for linguistic unification. Every language has a different grammar, Polish is a strongly inflected and very synthetic language. Your suggestion to simplify inflection is a bit like saying to the Chinese, introduce letters, because none of the foreigners will learn a few thousand characters. Language is a living organism, it has its own rules and changes evolutionarily - slowly, along with its speakers. Language reforms happen, but they are not frequent revolutions. I see no reason to artificially interfere with the grammar of a language just to simplify it if its speakers do not initiate this change.
I think I can write writing on behalf of all Polish. If you cant learn it its not our problem. We don't need foreigners to tell us how to live or speak. If you cant learn proper Polish you can always speak like Kali. Kali jeść, Kali pić. You will still be understood. Polish language is beautiful how it is.
The complex inflection of words in the Polish language allows for flexibility in sentence structure, which generally does not change the meaning but shifts the emphasis to what you want to highlight in the sentence. It also enables recognition of individual words (such as their part of speech and what they might pertain to, even if you are unfamiliar with the specific word) without relying on the context of the entire sentence.
perfect! im so proud i can speak polish even more now :) thanks! edit: we will never make our language simpler. this is why we love our language for real
I disagree with you. You say that we need to simplify the Polish language, yet at the same time, you claim that language is the foundation of a country’s culture. So it’s either we protect culture by preserving the language, or we change the language and disregard the culture. 10:21
Chinese written language is also very hard to learn so why not abandon the logographic system completely and turn it into a simple 26 letter alphabet? Because it's not about easy, it's about the beauty of it. I started to appreciate polish language a lot more once i've seen english translation of The Witcher books and realised how much subtle meaning is lost in the process.
Well, the language won’t change-it’s just not possible. We’re proud of it, especially because of our history. Polish people had to fight to preserve it, so there’s no chance anyone would choose to alter it. Actually, the Polish language does make sense, though it’s true there are countless rules and reasons behind why it is the way it is. Of course, know all the details and ordinary people can't explain why something works a certain way, but that's the case for every language in the world, including English.
as a polish person who studies in china and is interested in linguistics, i find your argument about "CHINESE PEOPLE WERE ABLE TOC HANGE THE LANGUAGEE!!!!", no, all they did was just to simplify writing, but in polish you speak of entire grammar which would sound unnatural, you complain about the things that are in fact in all languages and are called RULES, if dwa jablko can do according to you, then change 两个苹果 to 二个苹果 your point in changing polish grammar as a person who barely knows anything about polish makes no point and you might as well remove all chinese tones "because u have to memowize it and its hawwd >//
@@sebazbujca8840 with characters I totally agree. Yet they are not logic like you’d like to guess character after its writing and NO, 嵩 although consists of 高 doesn’t make sound gao, even in other tone than just another gāo, let it be gáo; it’s sōng and God forbid if I mistaken with tone 😂 He talks about Polish, whereas his mother language makes no sense. Getting to pinyin and later expanding variations of combining new words out of limited syllables! That could be done, Chinese! Korean and Japanese could, why Chinese stays the caveman language until nowadays? Ciekawe czy to w ogóle przeczyta 🤣
@ this is not what I meant, for example it can be ma and yi in ayi 妈妈 阿姨, the 女 is what connects these two, yet the pronunciation is different, i meant the character itself and not the aspect of pronunciation, my point was MEMORIZING, no matter whether its written or spoken language, but chinese consists of two, you have to know the difference between 还 and 孩, but also between 行 and 行 xing hang, which you simply have to memorize
@@sebazbujca8840 oh yeah, that one. Well, we also have it in Polish with Morze and może, or in English with knight and night; so here we are kinda win win. The more I am clueless with like 免 and 兔, or 土 and 士, or 要 and 耍. This example you gave with 妈妈 and 阿姨 ofc kinda understand as here we talk about cardinal characters, but then there are like given above which „looks alike” and have totally different meanings and way you read them, plus not mentioning like usually if you have 高, 搞, 稿 or 砖, 转, 传, whereas you also have 车, 军 or 斩, where it gives no clue how to read unless someone tells you… We also have exceptions in Polish like Marznąć, but as far as I remember, there are not „that many” 🇵🇱 Cheers
We can't do anything about s/ś/sz thing. There are words there that can be distinguished only by that one sound. For example: Kaś (plural, genitive form of name "Kasia") kasz (plural, genitive form of "groats") kas (plural, genitive form of "cash register") It was easier in China cuz they didn't change spoken language.
"But the sounds of those Polish letters are absolutely indiscernible -- they all sound absolutely the same!" (... says somebody who is supposed to be fluent in Mandarin, which features something like 5 possible tone variations for each syllable).
@@barsorrro They sound completely different for me. If you spoke Polish fluently, you would recognize them without any problem. Tones work different, you make them using your vocal cords. In polish we place our tongue in different ways to make these sounds.
@@grineee5097 That was irony :) -- hence the use of quotes. I was just pointing out that to somebody with a background of a tonal language, "subtle" sound differences should be relatively easy to distinguish, and that such person should also not see it as weird or absurd to have them in a language.
You started learning Polish culture so you already know how many times foreigners tried to tell us what's for us better, and how they ended up ;P This means we're quite sensistive in that matter.
LOL You made me laugh so hard. But some of your concerns were addressed throughout history. The Polish alphabet was standardised back in the 16th century (French in the 19th, Pinyin - 20th, English - never). Since the 16th century there were two or three changes introduced but mostly it's unchanged and it's really logical and easy compared to many others. What's most important it's a WYSIWYG. Throughout the eras Poland used to have huge immigration. Nearly all Polish cities were German speaking till the 17th century. We also had Scots, Italians, Jews, Muslims and others, and Poland's lingua franca was Latin and sometimes French. In the end, they all learned Polish. Yes, it may be difficult for you, but once you settle and marry and have kids, your kids will be fluent. On the other hand, if someone finds the language too difficult they move to Germany or elsewhere and that's out immigration filter. Only the people who want to invest in the language stay. Just like with a relationship, those who initially invest more energy are more likely to be more respectful later. Living in Warsaw, I do know many foreigners who moved here and learned the language. However, there was also a man from Lublin who thought like you. He's name was Ludwik Zamenhof and he created a language for all. It's called Esperanto and he based it on Spanish as it's the easiest. A century later Polish still has many more speakers. In other words, don't worry about Polish. It survived Latin, German, French and Esperanto, it'll survive English, too. As to if it does make sense to have all that complex grammar? Yes, it does. Every language has its thing that is used to enable communication. Chinese has its tones. English - idioms. Polish - grammar. Once you learn it you have a powerful tool at your disposal thanks to which you can move parts of speech around freely or drop them entirely because the grammar takes care of the rest. It's much much easier to create a long sentence in Polish than in English. You're right about the spies though. During WW2 Poles didn't need to bother with difficult passwords. They just used simple words no German could pronounce. Poland also used to have a great influence on the world music in the form of dances like the polonaises and mazurkas but I do agree we could make our musicians more famous.
Czyli ca 38 mln ma zmienić swoje przyzwyczajenia językowe, żeby było łatwiej małej grupie obcokrajowców? No ciekawa logika... To od razu idźmy dalej: zmiana nazw miejscowości, nazwisk, imion...
human brain is amazing, the fact that we were able to learn all those rules without actively thinking about them, I mean, 2 - dwa-dwie, dwóm, dwóch, dwoje, dwojga, dwoma, dwiema, etc and mix it with some verbs, adj and noun, for example I walked with 2 beautiful girls [isc+dwa+piekny+dziewczyna] becomes "szedlem z dwiema pieknymi dziewczynami", I don't know how foreigners could learn it without going insane, for real, it's impossible if you have not spent at least 3 years constantly listening only to polish like babies do, so respect to anyone who is even trying
W Angielskim zawsze przeszkadzały mi brak koncówek płci i ich ucinanie oraz ta walona wymowa, ktorej do teraz nie ogarniam, bo kazde slowo inaczej sie wymawia. W sumie porównanie fonetyki angielskiego do pisowni zasad Polskiego to ta sama rzecz, rzadzi sie swoimi prawami.
Hi Wes, I would agree with you that Polish could update its alphabet to become more consistent and flexible for typing, and for that we could borrow some ideas from Czech (or other Slavic languages that use Latin), like rz could be typed as rz but displayed as ř. But simplifying the grammar doesn’t make much sense to us. I think the complexity we have helps us understand each other immediately as we speak, because conjugation and declension convey some extra context information for each word, which eliminates ambiguity or confusion when you mishear something in a loud environment. I think I saw Polish people ask each other to repeat a word a bit less often than in America. As a synthetic language, it may seem harder to speak and write (not really for natives though!), but then it’s easier to understand quick when you read and listen. In English, there are occasionally alternative ways to understand a combination of words, which is confusing, and was sometimes annoying especially in my philosophy courses. But I understand your frustration; I had similar ideas for English when living in the U.S., especially for the spelling inconsistency. Unlike Polish or Italian, you can’t be sure how to read something that is written. And writing from hearing is arguably as hard or even harder for English than for Polish.
The English language is a contextual language, while Polish is concrete, logical, and detailed. For example, in English, there is a word like "sloth," which can mean "doing nothing" or the name of a slow-moving animal. To understand what is being referred to when using just the word "sloth," one needs context in English. In Polish, there are two separate forms of the word for "sloth,"->"lenistwo"/"leniwiec" and regardless of where or how they are used, it will always be clear whether one means "doing nothing" or the animal. Polish even has words that require two, three, or more words in English to express. For instance, "pralka" translates to "washing machine" in English.
I can't agree on the contextual part. We have plenty of homonyms in Polish language too. "Para" can be water in the air or a couple, "zamek" can mean "castle" or "lock" or "zipper", "klucz" can be the key or flock of birds, or the symbol for musicians, "bal" is a party or a log, "pilot" means pilot or remote control etc, etc. Not so different from Engllish from that perspective. I don't have anything particular in my mind atm, but I can recall using english word sometimes, because I would need to use description in many words in Polish too. This is just the sing the language is alive and developing with time. Don't agree with simplyfing Polish for that last reason. It is like it is, because it's evolved that way, no need to make artificial changes, let it evolve naturally. Maybe it will simplify with time, maybe on the contrary.
Yeah, but we still have some examples of words with the same spelling that, without context, you don't know what the word could truly mean, like "zamek-castle or lock" or "para-' (para wodna) steam or couple. " (of course probably much less than English, but still) Also second argument is whatever, because sometimes the Polish language takes non-native words to recreate use from other languages, like "computer" we could end up using "electronic brain or electronic digital machine" -- mózg elektroniczny or elektroniczna maszyna cyfrowa.
@@KatarzynaSoczka Ok. Szanuję Twoje zdanie. Jednakże odpowiedz mi czy znasz biegle język polski, jego gramatykę, semantykę, systematykę oraz historię? Pisząc "historia" mam na myśli "historię słów" w języku polskim, a także podstawowe, pierwotne rodzime znaczenia. Język Polski nie bez przyczyny jest konkretnym językiem, ale z drugiej strony logicznym i szczegółowym. Oznacza to, że dla każdego słowa w obcym języku zawsze istnieje tłumaczenie, ale nie zawsze na odwrót, na przykład: "chicken soup" to Po polsku: "zupa z kurczaka", ale: "rosół" to nie "chicken soup", Choć Wszyscy to tak kojarzą. Odnośnie co do Twoich spostrzeżeń na temat słów: "para, zamek, suwak, klucz, bal, pilot" w języku polskim istnieje coś takiego jak forma podstawowego znaczenia czasowników, rzeczowników i przymiotników, która określa pierwszeństwo znaczeniowe jeśli nie podano słowa dookreślajacego lub opisowego (kontekst). Więc jeśli znasz historię słów i semantykę możesz określić jak słowa zawierające wiele znaczeń zachowują się w języku polskim. Tak więc kiedy mówimy samo słowo: "Para" mamy na myśli pewien rodzaj liczebnika wskazujący na dwie rzeczy głównie przeciwstawne: "kobieta i mężczyzna", buty: "prawy i lewy" - to podstawowe znaczenie słowa: "para", które istniało przed wynalezieniem "pary wodnej", i tu przechodzimy do kolejnych znaczeń. Aby słowo: "para" przeszło z podstawowego znaczenia na inne znaczenie należy uściślić jego znaczenie dopisując słowo dookreślające: "Para wodna", "Mieć parę" (siła), "Być parą" (związek), jeśli chcemy rozszerzyć lub zmienić znaczenia określone możemy dodać kolejne słowa: "Być parą wodną", "Mieć parę jabłek", w przypadku kiedy dodajemy więcej słów do znaczeń że słowem: "para" słowo to dostosowuje się automatycznie do znaczenia, ale zawsze w podstawowej formie jest to pewien rodzaj liczebnika "dwa". Słowo "zamek" jako budowla obronna była wcześniej przed wszystkimi innymi znaczenia i, dlatego jeśli mówisz samo słowo "zamek" masz na myśli budowę obronną, wszystkie inne znaczenia muszą być dookreślone, czyli: "zamek do drzwi", "zamek błyskawiczny", "zamek spustowy" (np: w broni palnej). Słowo "suwak" oznacza w podstawowym znaczeniu "mechanizm do przesuwania", ale nie jest to "zamek do drzwi" tylko coś co możemy przesunąć jednym ruchem do przodu i do tyłu lub prawo i w lewo lub do góry i na dół, np: "zasuwkę furtki", wszystkie inne znaczenia należy dookreślić: "suwak błyskawiczny", "suwak obliczeniowy". Słowo: "Klucz" w podstawowym znaczeniu jest to narzędzie do otwierania drzwi, resztę znaczeń należy dookreślić: "Klucz rozwiązania", "Klucz licencyjny", "Klucz wiolinowy" itd. Słowo: "Bal" w podstawowym znaczeniu oznacza "przyjęcie z tańcami", resztę znaczeń należy dookreślić: "Bal drewna". Słowo: "Pilot" w podstawowym znaczeniu jest to osoba starująca "sternik, nawigator", według chronologii historycznej najpierw był "statek" potem "samolot" i słowo: "Pilot" powinno znaczyć kogoś kto steruję statkiem w swoim podstawowym znaczeniu, ale w miarę kształtowania się języka polskiego teraz uznaje się, że słowo "Pilot" w podstawowym znaczeniu oznacza osobę, która steruję samolotem, a resztę znaczeń należy doprecyzować: "Pilot statku", "Pilot do telewizora", "Pilot serialu" (odcinek pilotażowy), "Pilot wycieczki" itd. Niestety wiele ludzi nie przywiązuje wagi do swojego języka i do znaczeń że względu na reguły gramatyczne, semantyczne czy historyczne zmieniając ustalone rzeczy w chaos, co prowadzi do mylnego postrzegania świata. Uważam, że aby zrozumieć język polski przede wszystkim należy się go nauczyć, dużo czytać, zainteresować się gramatyką, semantyką, historią i analizować każdą swoją wątpliwość, dociekać i szukać odpowiedzi jeśli coś jest niejasne. Oczywiście język polski posiada, jak każdy język zresztą pewne wyjątki od reguły, ale te wyjątki też mają swoje zasady. W języku angielskim jest wiele nielogicznych rzeczy, które nie mają ustalonej zasady, np wymowa różnych słów inaczej mimo, że posiadają one te same litery: "door" i "food". Mam nadzieję, że trochę pomogłam rozwiać niejasności.
@@AmyLokmart Najwięcej błędów chyba z używaniem "ę" na końcu czasownika w 3 os. l. poj. np.: "kogoś kto steruję statkiem" - kogoś kto steruje statkiem (ja steruję, on steruje) Jeszcze jakieś przecinki, ale reszta idealnie. Pozdrawiam 🙂
I think that if you want to learn Polish, you have to lower your expectations. You don't have to speak perfect language and know all the flexion, people will still understand you just as well. A language as complicated as Polish takes long years to master. As for ć, cz, c, ś, sz etc. they are all different sounds and if they were simplified to just a few, the words would make no sense to us or they would sound silly. I know the pain, I've recently started learning Korean and I also find it hard with ㅈ, ㅊ, ㅉ for example but if you want to speak a language you just have to keep on going. Good luck with your Polish if you decide to continue. Btw. I find it funny that you think Chinese is easier than Polish with their tones. I considered learning it but after listening to a few examples of seemingly different words I gave up on this idea 😄
omg, so Poland should change their language, because immigrants have problems with the hardest language in the world? 38 milion people should change how they talk? Really?
As a Polish person I want to say that changing the language is a bad idea. Nice video tho, really appreciate your effort in learning our language and I must agree that it one of the hardest languages to learn but as other comments say it like telling others to change English language. I am studying english philology and I have Japanese language as my second study language and we look into English language in more detail. Truth to be told if you really want to speak "proper" English then you would realise form phonological and phonetical point of view that you speak it differently compared to lets say its right way of described language rules. It is to the point that if Polish person who studied English were to go to England then natives would either look at you all confused or be a little bit in awe because you speak in a beautiful and old English. There is less and less people who speak in RP (Recieved Pronounciation) and us Polish people for example have to know this RP. Either way the point is that it is not the problem of our language it is the problem of effort put into learning it. Trust me we do not care if speak in beautiful Polish,we just appreciate the fact that you speak it and try to communicate with us using it. Have a nice day and I hope it will help a little bit 😉
I know those changes could be useful but the problem is that it could completely destroy the sound of this language. As i heard those changes it felt like complete absurd.
Hi Wes, two things. I think the main reason why people can’t give you clear answers about Polish grammar and pronunciation is that you just ask wrong people. Look, we learn our grammar for about 10 years in primary school. Some of us find these lessons boring, useless and just don’t care. It’s because we can speak this language from a childhood. Then there is a problem in explaining complex issues. Second thing. One of the most famous language professors in Poland said that „language is created by people”. Polish, like many other languages has changed over the years. These changes are effect of neologisms, culture, but the most important people who speaks the language. I respect you for trying to learn Polish and I think you could easily get along with what you already got. However, if you want to take your Polish to the next level, I suggest you to learn with professional teacher. Take care! :)
Many Poles just use the language without thinking about cases or gender so they are not going to explain grammar to you. Mind that a lot of people make also mistakes (Ja przyszłem instead of Ja przyszedłem for example). Once I have asked an Englishman this question: Which tense is used in this question: "What does your mother do?". He couldn't answer. If you want to learn Polish I would suggest finding a tutor, a person with linquistic knowledge, not a common language user. I understand that it is frustrating (I have also moved to another country and learn the local language), but you must realize that such things take time. It's easier to demand change from the others (sorry, that's not gonna happen), but such thoughts just distract you, I'm afraid. Don't give up!
But do you know Poland has one of the most homogenized population due to forced replacement after the war? Sure, you have dialects, a little bit here and there, but everyone in Poland is capable of speaking proper Polish. This is not the China case where you pretend there is only one correct language to use. Even Kashubians speak common Polish.
You are going to get a lot of backlash from this video. The rule numer one is to never tell Polish people how to life. As a nation we went through a lot and that makes us proud of everything that is Polish, language included.
Here's my two cents: 1)For English speakers, Spanish is easier to learn than Polish, because: It is less complex in pronunciation (especially in fricatives and africates), it is more similar to English in its structure (articles, no case inflection, similar word order) Half of the lexicon is similar to English so you have a headstart 2)s/sz/ś, c/cz/ć, dz/dż/dź are roughly equivalent to Pinyin s/sh/x, c/ch/q, z/zh/j. If you can make that distinction in Chinese, you shouldn't have much trouble with hearing that distinction in other languages. If you're dissatisfied with your progress, try a more structured approach that suits you, be it a textbook (Linguaphone/Assimil/TeachYourself), audiocourse (Pimsleur/MichelThomas), or other things (lingq, StoryLearning). As for free ressources, you might look into older courses from the FSI and DLI, they are ca. 35-70 years old by now, but the language hasn't changed that much. Try looking for a tutor/coach to guide you in you process
Uważam odwrotnie. Niech on nie szuka porządku na własną rękę, niech się podda chaosowi. Niech nauczy się podstawowych zwrotów a potem niech obudowuje je kolejnymi określeniami. Niech obcuje z kimś, kto na co dzień będzie mu pomagał. Szkoda, że obecnie otacza się ludźmi gorzej wykształconymi, którzy nie umieją mu wytłumaczyć podstaw gramatycznych. Albo on pyta nie o podstawy, a o rzeczy, które wyjaśnić umieją precyzyjnie jedynie poloniści. Może to jest dla niego dobry kierunek: profesjonalne lekcje polskiego dla początkujących. On teraz myślał, że wszystkiego dowie się z internetu albo programów językowych, a tymczasem normalne lekcje z normalnym nauczycielem byłyby tu chyba najlepszym rozwiązaniem. Miałby odpowiedzi na swoje pytania. W każdym języku, również w angielskim, są reguły, których przeciętny użytkownik wytłumaczyć nie potrafi, ale stosuje je intuicyjnie, bo tak mu od małego wpajano.
Firstly, most of native speakers of any language have a difficulty in explaining why do grammar structures in their mother tongues look the way they do in a correct way. Secondly, in most of languages rules are not absolute, there are exceptions or sub-rules. Thirdly, the only way to meaningfully answer the question "why" is by delving into linguistic - but do you really want to do that? Most importantly, why would you do that? Would that really help your language acquistion? I doubt that. What makes you learn quicker? Input, output and interactions. It's all about communication - so communicate as much as you can - make mistakes and errors, don't let them discourage you. It's the part of the process.
Looks like you hit a wall. It was to be expected. You can now do one of two things: - either stare at it and walk away, without discovering what lies beyond, or - take time and effort to build a ladder in order to climb that wall and explore the wonders it conceals The choice is yours.
Also, don't worry about the conjugation and declination so much. Just learn words, how to put them together (more or less) and just talk, listen, communicate. Look at Anne Applebaum. People say she speaks bad Polish. It's not true. She can express very complex ideas and is not afraid of being interviewed in Polish. No matter what you do, you will never be a native speaker, and it's normal, I will never be a native speaker of English neither, and probably I will never learn to hear a difference between "buddy" and "body" and use compound tenses correctly, but still, I can professionally communicate in English (after, well, 15 years of never ending learning).
It doesn't make any sense for us to make Polish simpler, we don't need foreigners to learn our language. Everybody in Poland is taught english in school now, and most of the people born after 90' will be able to communicate with you in english. And we also don't have any problems with learning our own language even if sometimes we don't know all the principles behind it. Because of using it since birth, we use it perfectly correct and every case is clear for us. Those cases are clear because of our course of understanding makes us instinctively know what sounds right.
Words for one to four are etymologically "true" numerals, while words for five and above behave (and I guess they used to be) as if they were just nouns describing an amount or a container. So after dwa, trzy, cztery you put a normal plural, but after pięć and bigger you put a noun in genitive (dopełniacz), which is an equivalent of english "of". Just as you say "mam worek jabłek" ("I have a bag of apples") you also say "mam tuzin jabłek" and "mam siedem jabłek" (literally in English it would be "I have a dozen of apples", "I have a seven of apples"). Few people notice the logic behind it, few people think about this, but it is a very interesting aspect of the language.
One advice for those trying to learn Polish: don't try to speak perfectly. Even if you completely f up the grammar and just say an equivalent of "Me search shop buy milk", in 90% of the cases people will still understand you.
The Polish language is orderly, it changes, but within the area of word formation, adaptation of words (currently mainly from English). Nevertheless, we do not intend to interfere with grammar by force. The whole charm of the Polish language is that we decline everything: verbs, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals. This is the BEAUTY of the Polish language (as well as almost all Slavic languages!), and you do not give up beauty, right? You do not give up beauty for the convenience of foreigners. For Poles, declension and conjugation of parts of speech are a normal thing, which is why they cannot explain where it came from, why it is like this. Because it is in their blood! Please do not change us by force! It is already convenient for foreigners that younger generations speak English, German or Spanish to some extent. The Polish language will not be reformed by force, because there is no such need. You do not rebuild Wawel Castle so that the entrance is not uphill and convenient for foreigners, right? 🤣
między rozumieniem mówionego języka polskiego w 99% a mówieniem poprawnie gramatycznie jest ogromna różnica. możesz rozumieć wszystko a nadal popełniać błędy, co zresztą zdarza się rodowitym Polakom
Actually, we regularly change the Polish language precisely to eliminate silly exceptions, inconsistencies, and so on. For example, the Polish Language Council decided this year that according to the new rules, names of city residents will be written with a capital letter (previously "warszawianin," now "Warszawianin"). Capital letters will also always be used for car brands (before: "Jechałem samochodem marki Ford," but "jechałem fordem"; after the changes, it will always be a capital letter). However, these changes happen naturally, following how Poles use the language. Most of them occur when people make mistakes more often than they write correctly. And our language has so many exceptions and strange rules that even we can't keep track of them and often write as we feel is right. On the other hand, there's no way to implement a large revolution like the one you mentioned. Even for such small changes, there’s often resistance from those who know the rules. Poles are very conservative and proud, so changing the language rules to simplify it for foreigners is out of the question. On the third hand-which is quite hypocritical-we’re destroying the language ourselves with a flood of Anglicisms. I think there’s no need to revolutionize it because in a dozen or so years, the difference between Polish and English will shrink so much that learning it will be easy and pleasant. 😅 In the past, at least foreign words were properly adapted to Polish (e.g., "computer" became "komputer," "shorts" became "szorty"), and we used Polish grammar rules with them. Nowadays, young people often speak in a mix of Polish and English, inserting English words into their sentences without declension. The worst example of this is corporate jargon. And fourth, the last point: don’t stress about not mastering word declensions-just speak. Honestly, in 90% of cases, if you know the word, we’ll understand what you mean regardless of the declension. And if we don’t understand, we’ll ask for clarification. Vocabulary is the most important thing, and in this regard, Polish is no different from other languages. Once you feel comfortable with vocabulary, you’ll naturally pick up declensions by listening to TV, music, reading books, or, most importantly, talking. Just like we learned-through practice, not school lessons. 🤷
I’m kind of disappointed. You know our history, you talk about it a lot yourself, and how you respect polish people for it. And now you tell us to “simplify” our language. Language is a huge part of a country’s identity, it is what kept our spirit alive during hard times. Its complexity is what makes it special and beautiful, just like other slavic languages. We def won’t change anything just because of the foreigners. If you can’t learn it - fine, but don’t expect from people to still be nice to you if they hear you’ve been living in Poland for x years and still don’t know the language/don’t care to learn it. That applies to all immigrants. And you have balls to talk about simplifying a language while your mother tongue is one of the plenty of languages and dialects spoken in China, not even mentioning chinese characters.
@@sovkaa201 dokładnie. Co do Chińskiego, to prędzej bym ten język uprościł, a znaczki zostawił dla tych, którzy chcą uczyć się ancient Chinese. Pinyin pisze się szybciej a znaczki tylko jedynie upraszczają rozróżnienie Yi od Yi 😅
To było by bez sensu na przykład: "wóda"-(vodka) i ”woda"- ( water) Daj mi wody - Give me water Daj mi wódy - Give me vodka One letter (dash) makes a huge difference
We are not going to change our language for foreigners or immigrants. There are plenty of YT channels were foreginers learn polish, they complain about it sure, BUT you are the first one to say change it so it will be easier for "everyone else". Why should we care? We consist of 94-97% of the nation, we won't change our cultural heritage for your convenience. Try listening to Rota with translation, maybe it will help you understand that we don't give af about what others want from us. Plus you complain that normal native speakers can't answer your linguistic questions? Well that's because we only "learn" basic grammar in primary school and in middle and high school is mainly learning cultural texts books poems songs and their interpretation If you want your questions answered maybe ask someone who finished polish philology :') or pay for lessons with professionals But I'm certain you angered quite a chunk of your Polish viewers with it
Simplifying Polish language would kill all of its beauty, never going to happen. When you think and speak in Polish you would understand what I mean. It would also boring if every language would be the same.
Ja mówię po polsku i nie rozumiem. Jeśli chodzi o gramatykę to bym nie zmieniał ale takiego ó i ch powinno nie być albo powinny być wymawiane inaczej niż u i h
4:24 You forgot to mention that in word "poszedłem" you also need to include your gender (i.e. masculine) and the fact that the action was completed. If everything else was the same, but the action of "going to the store" was not completed (or unspecified) it would be "szedłem". :) Therefore: - poszedłem - I, a man, went to (the store) and reached (the store) in the past. - szedłem - I, a man, went to (the store) but I will not tell you, whether I actually reached (the store). However if it was me speaking insteaf (i. e. a woman) those two words would be "poszłam" and "szłam" instead. In Poland we actually enjoy that foreigners struggle with our language. It's so much fun. :D Also, we're not going to simplify the language on purpose, and we're not going to stop using it. Polish language survived 123 years of Poland literally not existing (it remained in use even when it was literally banned), so it's going to survive some foreigners refusing to learn it. Also, we don't actually get that many immigrants. Poland is not a rich country, people searching for better place to live usually prefer to go elsewhere, and I don't blame them. Most of the immigrants we have right now are from Ukraine, and Ukrainians (at least the ones I know) seem to learn Polish really fast (maybe because the languages are somewhat similar). And most of other ethnic minorities were already in Poland for ages and yet they didn't kill Polish language by speaking their simpler languages. So I think Polish language will be fine.
I meet Indian boy what was supervisor in five star hotel in Warsaw ? I was thinking that his Polish will be broken ? I was wrong ! He was fluent in Polish ? I had a feeling that I am talking to Polish person ? I did ask him haw long you have been in Poland ? He answer one year ? I said ? You learn Polish that good in one year ? He said yes ! I was shocked and with full of admiration ! He definitely was genius but he was prove that anything is possible !
Polish, as a Slavic language, was few centuries ago very complicated. Slavic languages preserved grammatical cases system (the same which was abandoned when Latin was transformed into Romance languages), 3 (or even more) grammatical genders, many tenses and modes, dual number etc. Also consonant shifts in declension, long and short vowels, semi-nasal vowels etc. It was VERY complicated, but rather regular. During centuries of "simplification" some of these features were abandoned or unified, but at the expense of regularity. Today's Polish is quite irregular, because it preserves in its structure all the historical features. Everything in Polish grammar can be explained logically or historically, but it doesn't make it any simpler (OK, maybe a little). The proposed "simplifications" are not simplifications from the Polish point of view. It's like replacing Chinese symbols with Latin letters and dropping Chinese tonality for the sake of "simplification" from the Western point of view, LOL.
As for the political argument, paraphrasing "in a few years Poland will have a lot of immigrants who will not learn Polish", according to what is happening in Poland now (and trends in the world), someone who does not know the basics of Polish will not receive a permanent residence card and subsequently will not be able to count on citizenship. This change has now taken place and/or is taking place. This results from a simple fact, i.e. Poland, like many countries, cannot afford alternative societies. Without learning the language, someone will be alienated from politics, society and culture, they will be unintegrated. This will mean that such a person, even living in Poland, will not be able to participate in political life in any meaningful way. In the worst case, there would be two societies, one voting and the other silent but subject to the laws. In order to avoid such a dichotomy, learning the language is necessary for foreigners. As for the alleged difficulty of the Polish language, it is relative. For people from the same linguistic background, there is nothing difficult in the Polish language. In fact, they often learn the language by listening at the beginning, and some minor things related to grammar are often learned later. The Polish language is difficult, of course, for people from the Germanic or Asian languages background. There is simply no analogy between these languages. Another issue, although important, is that in Slavic languages, or at least in Polish, there is no strongly established order of words in a sentence. Therefore, what is a strict requirement in English, i.e. SVO, is not in Polish and other Slavic languages. Hence, the appropriate declension of all these words in a sentence is necessary, because without it it would be unclear who is talking about what. Changing this would require changing the entire language and, by the way, would require throwing out all literature from the language, including of course fiction and novels. By the way, it would completely break the backward continuity in the language. This is possible to do in theory, but in practice why? We would gain a language without history, literature, more similar to Germanic languages, but still not the same, and additionally difficult to learn for Slavs but easier to learn for Germans, etc. is also not entirely certain. Moreover, why would they learn a language in which there is no literature, or even technical and scientific books? As for the numerals you point to, although they may currently be a problem for you, I have the impression that what would really make the language easier lies in a completely different place. The rule itself for numerals for 1, 2-5, 5+ may be unusual, but easy to learn and in my opinion, that is not where the problem lies. Besides, I do not know whether their "simplification" would not cause some conflict or another exception in the language... You are learning a Slavic language and this will be a problem for you. It does not matter whether it is Polish or another Slavic language, there will be a problem. The advantage is that the Polish language at least uses this Latin alphabet with a few national characters. When it comes to sounds, for example, compared to tonal languages, the pronunciation of Polish doesn't seem difficult either. There's a bit to learn at the beginning, but then everything falls into place after w while. In addition, at least with some exceptions, what you write is how you speak. It's not like that in English, for example. So there's already a built-in simplification in Polish... If Polish seems difficult to you, you don't want to spend time on it because you know that you will eventually move out of Poland, then maybe it would be a better solution not to learn it. Don't learn a language if you don't need it as it may be a waste of time for you. You won't learn this language quickly and it will be the same with other Slavic languages. Decide whether you want to better understand Poland, society, culture and finally Polish politics and better understand your friends and acquaintances, or rather you want to see the country like a nomad. There is no obligation to learn Polish and maybe it would be a better move for you not to learn it. :) Apart from that, thank you for the interesting observation and I wish you good luck, also in learning or not learning Polish. :)
He doesn't really want to get to know Poland better. He's absolutely sure he already knows it well enough. Have you watched his earlier videos? They are all extremely opinionated: "Polish society is this and that, Polish men are this and that, Polish women are this and that, Polish politics emphasises this and that" -- all those "wisdoms" coming from somebody who has not yet even fully mastered shopping-mall level of Polish, so any notions he has are clearly limited to a caveman's perception of the his surroundings. (He ignored a question I posed to him in a comment to one of his earlier videos, whether he reads any English-language news bulletins concerning Poland, which leads me to believe he doesn't fuss with obtaining information from _any_ news sources.) You might call it arrogance, but I think it's not even that -- it's his business model: he simply posts ignorant, self-centred, provocative videos in order to stir up reaction, get the views and earn some cash. Plain and simple.
I sent you an e-mail some time ago, explaining many things in Polish that already frustrated you before. These are explanations from a linguist, or a language nerd, not from a John Doe that you grabbed on the street and bombed with questions. That's like grabbing Nigel Strokesmith in Birmingham's factory and asking them what's future perfect continuous for and why English has it. I answered many of your questions from a previous video, which you repeat in here again. Have you read this? Most foreigners here come from Ukraine and they speak Polish. Outside Slavic languages, it seems like 50/50, but I don't have data on this.
In reality if you don't need to be fluent at Polish, you just don't have to learn when apple - jabłko turns into jabłka or jabłek, because everyone will know about how much apples do you think when you say a number and add any plural form of apple, it really doesn'y have to be correct... And we know our language is hard.
0:22 This my dear friend applies to every nation, we are no exception here, I thought it was a common knowledge. I give you that, polish to learn is a massive pain in the ass, but say again, why should we simplify it?
You don't take into account the fact that we don't use our language just to buy eggs in the supermarket or find the nearest toilet, and the language reforms in China were not aimed at making the language more attractive to tourists.
You're wrong for a bunch of other reasons that others probably haven't mentioned yet: 1. We already have a single unified language that goes beyond dialects and 90% of people in the country already speak it. In fact that's the form of the language you're learning. It's called "Literary Polish" and it's regulated by Rada Języka Polskiego. A lot of people believe that speaking differently is a sign of stupidity and are actually hell-bent on correcting others who use non-standard or dialectal forms even in informal speech and it has contributed to a mass-scale deterioration of dialects. More institutional intereference into the language is the opposite of what we need 2. Although a lot of dialects use simplifications in grammar, they do not coincide with your propositions. In literary Polish nouns end in many different ways in genitive plural, but in most dialects they all end in -ów. However in all variaties of Polish the numerals from 5 upwards trigger the genitive case. So literary Polish says "trzy jajka" and "pięć jajek", dialects say "trzy jajka" and "pięć jajków", but nobody says "trzy jajka" and "pięć jajka". That's more than weird - it's plainly un-Slavic. You don't know the language enough to tell what's essential and what's incidental 3. The difference between ś, ź, ć, dź and sz, ż/rz, cz, dż is vital to make the language clear and cannot be levelled. In fact there is a precedent of merging the sz, ż, cz, dż group with s, z, c, dz, which happened in many dialects and is called mazurzenie. That does not destroy the language, but your proposition would. I suppose things would be easier if the ś, ź, ć, dź sounds never came into existence, but they did and they define our language. Their sound changes in very few dialects. The literary language is actually simplified when it comes to the number of vowels. Most dialects have twice as many of them. The Polish you're would've been even harder to pronounce if that did not happen.
This complexity is what makes it so beautiful. All those details and nuances are the building blocks for literature and poetry and can convey subtle meanings (of course, I am not saying you can't describe the same complex states in other languages). What you find complex sometimes surprisingly results in simplification. For example, the English sentence "He went out" consists of three words. To convey the same meaning in Polish, it is enough to say "Wyszedł"- just one word. Poles are such individualists that I can't imagine any authority that can arbitrarily conduct a successful, collective national language simplification program. Languages are living organisms, so we better let them evolve naturally. English has lost conjugations and complexities over time to eventually become what it is right now, so there is hope -- for future generations. LOL
:) I like to see such reports on our language :) Honestly, I have probably never seen a foreigner to speak entirely correct polish, even after 20 years living here. I'd say - don't pay attenion to errors in recognizing the forms of declination - if you can talk and be understood, that's enough, and I'd say that's even considered impressive in Poland. Changing polish grammar - would be very difficult - as you may know Poland was for 123 years out of map, partitioned by Germany, Austria and Russia - the language was the only thing that helped the polish national identity to survive. It was for example the time when the most recognized polish poet, Adam Mickiewicz wrote his works. So Poles are a kind of proud of the language, and doing such things to it is like stabbing with a knife to the heart ;) You are right, Poland is not the biggest country in the world so if one values time to invest in learning, maybe other languages are a better choice. On the other hand, Polish is similar to other slavic languages - we can communicate with Czech, Slovaks, Russians (here you'd also say "я хочу одно яйцо, ну 6 яец", even Croatians without knowing the destination language, speaking just Polish :) Good luck in learning :)
I'm sure this video won't be controversial in any way. 😂 This video does not mean to offend, but just to offer a perspective as a foreigner.
I will still continue to learn though. Let's see if I change my mind.
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Please read all. I don't want to discourage you but you didn't even mention 😂 gender in verbs. You can easily function in Poland 30+ years with broken Polish and people won't mind, you can have family, friends, business, respect etc. (I'm 46 years old and personnally know foreigners living so long here). From English POV learning Polish C1 is 5-10 years matter. Portugese(Spanish less)/Chinese/Japanese cut this in half at least. Slavic person could learn Polish in 1-2 years - the biggest problems for other Slavs are false friends, words that have different or opposite meaning in both languages. Poland was extremely extremely homogenic (Japan level or higher due to less people visiting) 30 years ago. Last 2 years Poland exploded in popularity, we like to host people, learn languages, we love to be validated by foreigners but deep down even liberal Poles are conservative and protect language and culture (it's part of being Polish identity) - changing is a big no no for at least 100 years if ever and I'm the liberal but I know other Poles. Poland was few times wiped out from the map and came back. Poles are similar in this aspect with Scotts, Irish, Hungarians - it's identity, a kind of taboo.
It's best to talk to people who know your language and Polish of course. If you're trying to learn yourself, you can't do it 60%. Fun fact in South Korea is the largest Polish language University in the world outside of Poland.
Hey,
I think it would be really helpful for you to reach out to Ignacy from Japan. He managed to teach himself Polish and is quite good at it, so he could offer some great tips and advice that might make learning easier for you. He’s been through it and could definitely help you, It’s worth messaging him when you get the chance!”**
th-cam.com/video/t70zGKw_L6Y/w-d-xo.htmlsi=dJe6aj-eoPvoV-a6
One month coming from a none Slavic language background is not much for learning Polish. The language system is complex but once you achieve some mastery with it you can express exact things very efficiently and succinctly.
You have a big advantage of being surrounded by the language. Try mastering the cases some more and then review if you want to continue.
I very much like Paulina Lipiec - a Polish language teacher. She has a great learning platform and various interactive courses available. She explained that what is required to achieve A1 and A2 in Polish is reams and reams of information compared to other languages but that once you've mastered them the more advanced levels are much less of a jump than others.
The point is, we do not want our language to be simpler for foreigners to learn. Hope this was helpful. Have a nice day! 😂🤣
The most passive aggressive comment ever lmao
Jemu bardziej chodziło o to, że jesteśmy dumni za swojego języka ojczystego i nie zamierzamy go zmieniać. Jest bardzo pięknym i bardzo melodyjnym językiem, a zaproponowane przez Ciebie uproszenia polegające na zrezygnowaniu z odmieniania słów przez: rodzaje, liczby, przypadki , czasy itp dla rodowitego Polaka brzmią dziwacznie - to tak jakbyśmy mówili przysłowiowe: Kali jeść słonia, słoń być dobry. Choć język polski jest trudny do nauczenia, to jednak warto podjąć to wyzwanie.
@@anetaspec4932 "Jej", ale dobrze podsumowane ;)
@@WheresWes Musiał byś przeczytać słowa Roty lecz w oryginalnej wersji językowej nie tej dzisiejszej to byłoby Tobie łatwiej zrozumieć jego wypowiedź, albo poczytać więcej o czasach zaborów Polski.
@@WheresWes Haha, true, but there is some truth to that. Language barrier is a really steep barrier, making Poland so homogenous (among other things), which in current world situation is a good thing. Still, those who are heavily invested in Poland, learn Polish in the end, which is also good, because foreigners can enrich our culture, but won't flood it.
„Polacy nie gęsi, swój język mają”
nie owce.....😉
A niechaj narodowie wżdy postronni znają, iż Polacy nie gęsi, iż swój język mają
@@xellostuver To napisał Mikołaj Rej . Lecz wcześniej było " Daj, ać ja pobruszam, a ty poczywaj "- choć tylko mówione a nie pisane.
@@KL-ii1xt mmm nie.
@@xellostuver Mikołaj Rej z Nagłowic
0:22 Well if you asked a plain old Englishman or American why we say 1 goose but 2 geese (instead of gooses) or why we pronounce knight as “nite”, I bet they wouldn’t know the answer either. Does that mean that English speakers don’t know their own language? No! Both English and Polish grammatical intricacies have reasons behind them but you need to ask a linguist or an etymologist.
I like to watch your videos, I like them, really, but I want to say something. I deeply disagree with the idea of simplifying Polish. The reason behind it is that our language is a HUGE part of our culture and when I say huge I REALLY mean huge. Poland was gone from the map for 123 years, fought wars after that and then was under Soviet's rule. And during those events one of the few things that kept Poles' hopee alive was their language. Aggressors tried so hard to destroy our language because it was giving people hope that Poland will be great again someday, it was even forbidden in schools to learn Polish for some time. Our ancestors fought so long for our country and kept our language alive, not for us to just simplify it. It's not hate, I just want to show you why Polish is so important the way it is.
Cześć Wieśku,
Język polski jest na innym poziomie. Języki romańskie mają prostą budowę i są dość regularne, co pozwala przekształcić ich nauczanie w jakiś rodzaj algorytmu. Natomiast język polski ma bardziej subtelną budowę, jest pełen niuansów, wyjątków i setek wykluczających się reguł. Tego języka do pewnego stopnia nauczysz się stosując reguły, ale szybko dojdziesz do ściany. Podejdź do tego jak do trenowania sieci neuronowej. Nauka gramatyki w oderwaniu od kontekstu jest bez sensu - nawet w językach romańskich odwrócenie kolejności - najpierw dialog, potem gramatyka daje dużo lepsze efekty.
Sprawa druga to taka, że nam Polakom łatwiej jest uprościć sobie pojęcia językowe tak, żeby pasowały do języka angielskiego i tym samym nauczyć się go dość szybko, aniżeli ludziom anglojęzycznym ekstrapolować pojęcia tak, żeby zrozumieć koncepcje języka polskiego - to jest największy Twój problem. W języku polskim wszystkie wyjątki i subtelności mają swoje uzasadnienie, tylko nie oczekuj, że na youtubie będziesz rozmawiał z językoznawcami. To, że umiemy się poprawnie posługiwać naszym językiem jest zasługą naszych rodziców, dziadków i środowiska, w którym żyjemy. Kto nie rozumie języka polskiego, nie będzie rozumiał naszej kultury i Polaków i na odwrót, kto nie chce się nauczyć języka polskiego, nigdy nawet nie zbliży się do poznania naszej kultury. Kultury, która jest inna niż w krajach zachodnich i inna niż wschodnia. Jest czymś pomiędzy. To że Polska aspiruje do zachodu nie oznacza, że myśli tak samo i ma taką samą mentalność. To kwestia interesu.
Kolejna sprawa. Nie. Nie uprościmy naszego alfabetu dlatego, że ktoś nie rozróżnia dźwięków s/ś/sz czy, ć/cz/c od siebie. To nie nasz problem. Może najpierw zmień w angielskim zapis na fonetyczny, bo to co macie teraz nie ma najmniejszego sensu.
Tak samo nie jest naszym problemem niezrozumienie dlaczego liczebniki odmienia się tak, a nie inaczej. Tak po prostu jest i tak musi być. Nie znasz języka, a chcesz go upraszczać.
Może zatem mi powiesz, po co w angielskim macie takie dziwactwa jak eleven i twelve skoro mogłoby być oneteen i twoteen jak w polskim jedenaście i dwanaście.
Jeżeli nie idzie Ci nauka polskiego - to nie polski jest zły, tylko Twoje metody nauki i oczekiwania zawodzą.
Doceniam czas i trud włożony w naukę mojego języka ojczystego, ale pamiętaj, że wypowiedzi na temat jego poprawiania i upraszczania z zewnątrz pachną arogancją i kolonializmem. Chyba, że naprawdę chcesz się pozbyć polskiej widowni. Wierzę jednak, że lepiej Polaków mieć po swojej stronie. Pomyśl o tym, Wieśku.
I love that deep learning methaphor. English is just dict, few rules and couple exceptions. Tho english pronunciation is chaotic as hell.
this is a very profound perspective thank you
@@WheresWes Cała przyjemność po mojej stronie. Gdybyś kiedykolwiek potrzebował porozmawiać po polsku - zapraszam. Nie obiecuję, że wyjaśnię wszystkie reguły, ale jakieś skromne zaplecze mam.
Zbazowano! + 1
@@WheresWes As a Pole, I can't disagree with @SiempreConTrasto comment. The amount of likes under his comment shows that it's not just me. Language is part of the culture, and you cannot modify it because it would just easier to learn, just as we don't give up on traditions just because they make no practical sense. Those are part of the culture code, part of the history, ours and our ancestors. Things evolve, but they must evolve naturally,
The chances of Poles ever deciding to change their language are absolutely zero, seriously. The Polish language has a very long tradition, and for us Poles, it’s beautiful. We are proud of it, and changing it would be unthinkable. This is probably the worst idea I’ve ever heard! 😄
Sing along for everyone. Polish Karaoke;
th-cam.com/video/yrI04TqfujM/w-d-xo.html
haha brat chce nam język uprościć żeby obcokrajowcy mogli się go łatwiej nauczyć xD
Kali jeść jeden sarna
Też chichotałem słuchając jego pomysłów jak wyeliminować różne głoski i zrobić z s, sz i ś jeden dźwięk, a już zupełnie leżałem na podłodze pod koniec, słuchając że to jest "kontrowersyjne" i "może obraźliwe". LOL, ani kontrowersyjne ani obraźliwe, za to strasznie zabawne 🤣🤣🤣
@@bastek9633 cześć widze wczoraj cztery sarna i pięć drzew być fajnie dzięki
To jest jednak Amerykanin - wszystko pod Amerykanów ma być: proste i TANIE! :D
@@grzegorzduda7098 Raczej -- Amerykanin o mentalności nowo-chińskiej: wziąć coś i przerobić na kasę, tu i teraz. A to, czy przy okazji to albo coś innego bezpowrotnie się straci, zniszczy, itd., to kij z tym.
Simplyfying Polish? Lol, that`s not going to happen. :)
It wouldn't be Polish, that's the problem.😂
Exactly 😂
Nah it will naturally, in around 200 years it will probably streamline itself a little with use. ;)
Exactly. Polish is over-complicated because of difficult history of Poland, in particular: partitions of Poland (occupation for 123 years), then 2 world wars (which also had periods of occupation), then 45 years of being soviet satellite country (maybe lighter, but still occupation). During those times of occupations the occupants tried to russify / germanize Poles, very hard, so people protected the language, avoiding any simplifications. That's why Polish won't get simpler anytime soon.
Luckily most young and middle-aged Poles speak English well, so language is not a problem.
Polish people alredy barely use past perfect tense but on the other hand the spelling became distant from pronunciation therefore more difficult.
Next video: "Why I left Poland" 😂. I am learning German. It always is easier to blame a language complexity than put more effort in learning. You put to much pressure for speaking correctly. We don't care if you say "jabłko" "jabłka" "jabłek" until we can understand you. The correct version will be obvious for you after some time of speaking and listening to our language.
Exactly my thoughts. "Dwa jabłko" will be perfectly understood. Maybe that's how we should teach Polish to foreigners, actually?
Zniechęciłem się do angielskiego na pierwszej lekcji, kiedy dowiedziałem się, że jest jakieś "the" i "a", które nic nie znaczą, ale czymś się różnią. Proponuję, żeby z nich zrezygnować.
Dobre. Mnie zniechęcił brak zwrotów grzecznościowych, brak płci i brak stałej wymowy liter w słowach. Brytole w końcu powinni wprowadzić trochę kultury i logiki do swojego języka.
Akurat the i a coś znaczą.
The używasz kiedy mówisz o konkretnej rzeczy
A używasz kiedy rzecz o której mówisz jest w liczbie pojedynczej
Tak skrótowo
@@JanKowalski-or8xg znaczą tylko w zestawieniu z innym słowem, same w sobie nic nie znaczą
@@flapus_ na tym polegają języki germańskie
" jest jakieś "the" i "a", które nic nie znaczą" - trzeba było skupić się na nauce, zamiast wymigiwaniu się od niej. "The" i "a" to rodzajniki, "the" to rodzajnik określony, "a" to nieokreślony". Nadają one kontekts rzeczownikom, więc "nic nie znaczą" jest błędne. "The cat" i "a cat" mają inne znaczenie".
You saying we should remove our number rules is like saying the English should abolish their weird tenses or make their alphabet phonetic because it's hard for slavic language users. The thing with chinese is they simplified their signs, but it didn't change the way they speak or their grammar, its like changing from cursive to block letters (I'm oversimplifying, of course). I feel like you have no idea about other slavic languages which have basically the same rules but different words. Language is not something created or controlled by the government. "Language is alive".
And i know this wasn't your intention, but suggesting how Polish should be changed so it is easier for Germanic/Latin language users is insulting to our history.
I heavily doubt that any other slavic language has 49 declesions. 🤐
@@diunasiek slavic languages have almost identical grammar.. besides bulgarian
Well it is controlled. The former is how you would write it right now, the latter is how you will write it from 2026
"Półserio, nie myślisz, czy by nielepiej było, żeby Żabojad mówił po Polsku zwiedzając Kościół Mariacki i Półwysep Hel?"
"Pół serio, nie myślisz, czyby nie lepiej było, żeby żabojad mówil po Polsku zwiedzając kościół Mariacki i półwysep Hel?"
Also we are writing some words the way it is written just because someone said so. "Mrzonka" when the word comes from "mżyć". Ogórek when it originated as ogurek.
The current change is mostly about small or large letter and combined or separated spelling but the language could seriously use some bigger changes. Why is it still "tę książkę" when "tamtę" changed to "tamtą". What's the point of having "ch" and "h", "ó" and "u", "rz" and "ż" when they evolved into sounding exactly the same?
@@sattes "ch"/"h" "ó/"u" "rz"/"ż" might be phonetically identical but they're still different morphemes. they behave differently under declination and exchange sounds within word families. for example lekarz - lekarstwo, lekaż would suggest lekagstwo or at least something close to that. moreover i find it gives polish speakers an advantage when learning other (especially slavic) languages.
not to mention the few speakers that still distinguish the sounds. i'm glad their speech is reflected in the written language and not seemingly just an anomaly
Polish and other slavic languages are related more with Sanskrit than with Germanic or Roman languages
it would be so weird to force it into totally different language family just to make it easier for them 😗
We dont want to fix nothing. We are proud of ourr language
'We do not want to fix anything.'
Im assuring you... we wont change the language. It will be impossible for people to switch up to simpler terms and it would make no sense in many examples, words, or sentences. I know you are deeply disencouraged, but trust me, it will be worth it, you will know one of the hardest languages in the world
Właśnie, Wes chyba jeszcze nie rozumie że my odmianami komunikujemy bardzo dużo treści którą inaczej trzeba byłoby zakomunikować w inny sposób. I nagle byłoby trzeba mówić milion słów zamiast po postu powiedzieć trzy odmienione słowa xD A uproszenie ortografii xD Zaraz by było po 5 takich samych słów znaczących to samo bo zniknęły ogonki i nikt nie wiedziałby by o co chodzi w "Żeby zęby nie bolały..."
Dear Mr. "Where's Wes,"
I believe you misunderstand the essence of learning languages. Languages are tools for communication, and if a language is constructed in a particular way, it should be accepted as such. Every language broadens one's horizons, even English, which, although simple and somewhat illogical in terms of grammar, still holds its value.
Polish is more codified, but this does not mean it is superior to English. All languages, regardless of their structure, contribute something unique to the human experience.
Couldn't agree more
" Languages are tools for communication, and if a language is constructed in a particular way, it should be accepted as such." every lanugage evolves its never constant same with polish your spew is just insecure nonsense
@@braindeadbrick553 How do the statements "a language is constructed in a particular way and should be accepted as such" and "language constantly evolves" contradict each other? They are both equally true. Each language has certain characteristics which make it susceptible to certain types of shifts but not to others. There is a reason why some Polish dialects merged the sz, ż, cz, dż with s, z, c, dz consonant group or turned the mj, pj, bj clusters into mń, pś, bź, but none have developed tone, articles or lost their three grammatical genders for example
Simplify English!
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet.
The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later.
Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.
Bai iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
Podoba mi sie. I niech dadza tylko trzy czasy u nas starcza: terazniejszy, przeszly i przyszly :D
Haha this is gold! 😂 love how you implemented the rules right away. Although it was a bit hard to read 😉
I agree
Tych zasad można użyć jako jakiś szyfr i zrobić z tego sekretny język xD
There's this great video showcasing the reverse. It's titled "What If English Were Phonetically Consistent?" and you should all go check it out!
In Poland's history, there have been many attempts to erase it, its culture and especially its language. For example, during the partitions it was not allowed to speak Polish. Poles opposed it and that's why we are still here. Poles would perceive the simplification of our language as a desire to rob us of our cultural heritage. Poles learn English and in Poland you can communicate in this language. If a foreigner masters Polish, even though it is such a difficult language, he or she proves that he or she respects our culture and considers it worthy of attention and cultivation. This makes Poles look at him completely differently. Such a foreigner goes beyond "the next step of initiation", he is more "ours". This is a way to verify the purity of intentions. Moreover, after simplification, access to our ancient literature would be much more difficult. People wouldn't be able to read the classics of their own literature, and we greatly respect the legacy of our ancestors. Languages evolve, and so does Polish, but no one will force us to make such a sudden change. If someone doesn't want to learn Polish as it is, it's their loss.
I agree with you-this is definitely a controversial video! Your suggestion to "simplify" the Polish language for the sake of foreigners learning it faster gave me major cringe. Language is deeply tied to culture, and artificially altering it strips away a part of that cultural identity. While it's true that languages evolve naturally over time, simplifying Polish solely to make it easier for non-native speakers is a pretty far-fetched idea.
Have you tried learning Polish with a teacher or enrolling in a course? I know foreigners who have mastered Polish fluently, and given your experience with other languages, I’m confident you could too! Perhaps a change in approach would make a big difference and even help you appreciate the language more.
Polish has roots in ancient languages, and such ancestry contributes to complexity of the language (such as its use of cases, inflection, and rich grammatical structures). That rich history is part of its charm! Learning another language isn't just about communication-it's a gateway to understanding another culture and its worldview. Simplifying Polish would erase so many nuances and the "soul" of the language.
Languages don’t exist to accommodate outsiders; they reflect the history, values, and identity of the people who speak them. Polish is no exception. Instead of changing it, why not embrace the challenge and discover the beauty within its complexity?
@@yueli92 You're absolutely correct! Polish and Sanskrit belong to different branches of the Indo-European family, and Polish is not direct descent of Sanskrit. They both retain some features that can be traced back to common ancestor (PIE), such as the use of inflection and cases in their grammar. I phrased my statement poorly and corrected it - thanks for pointing it out.
@@Jusssstyna88 Thanks for correcting your otherwise great post! I removed mine now.
Be careful how you write "z" because some Poles write "ż" like this
exacty, at first I was very confused
it depends on the word , zero , żaba
Polish kids learn to express themselves in polish as quickly as english kids learn to express themselves in english. It's not a language problem. Leaving any country because you would like to make better progress with the language than you think you do is just an excuse.
Dude, it took me about 7 years to be fluent in polish and i was born in Poland, don't push yourself to much
Same. I still make mistakes. English is sooo much easier (and I say this as a Pole born and raised). To me it always seemed like there are more exceptions to the rules than things that actually follow them. This language makes you give up.... and once you do - you will be able to learn it 😅
i'm Polish and I think that your suggestion to simplify Polish language is quite rude
oh relax, it's a fun video
Not rude, as he didn’t do it with bad intentions. I found it just funny 😂 and could relate to my feelings when living in an English-speaking country. English is the first candidate for simplification as the international language.
Im from Poland and I don’t give a fuk
the thing is we don't want to simplify our language, especially not for the sake of others. Poland was not on map for 123 years and we were strictly censored even from speaking or writing in our language. That's why we're so defensive when it comes to these themes, so don't take any passive agressive coments personally.
Hey Wes. I visited Taiwan some months back, where I had the most interesting conversation with a local professor of Chinese literature. He was deeply critical of the simplification of the Chinese characters on the mainland. According to him, this entire operation was not meant to increase literacy, but rather make it more difficult for the younger generation to learn the classics of Chinese written culture.
Polskie dzieci szybko uczą się języka polskiego, przede wszystkim poprzez słuchanie, co pokazuje, że nie jest to przesadnie trudne. W wieku pięciu lat większość dzieci potrafi mówić w tym języku z poprawną gramatyką i wymową. Wkrótce potem zaczynają uczyć się czytać i pisać.
Większość języków słowiańskich, w tym polski, zachowała praindoeuropejski (PIE) system siedmiu lub ośmiu przypadków gramatycznych, stosowany zarówno w liczbie pojedynczej, jak i mnogiej. Podczas gdy wiele języków niesłowiańskich również miało początkowo więcej przypadków, zostały one później uproszczone, aby ułatwić naukę języków zagranicznym robotnikom (lub niewolnikom). Język polski zachował jednak swoją złożoność językową. My, Polacy, jesteśmy dumni z naszego języka, bo daje nam on bogate środki wyrazu. W przeciwieństwie do mocarstw kolonialnych zachowaliśmy nasze dziedzictwo językowe.
Charakterystyczną cechą języka polskiego jest stosowanie deklinacji, która pozwala na stosunkowo swobodny szyk wyrazów, co jest cechą charakterystyczną wielu języków słowiańskich. Na przykład: "Kot widzi psa" lub "Psa widzi kot".
Oba zdania są poprawne gramatycznie i przekazują jasne znaczenia, pomimo różnego szyku wyrazów. Jest to możliwe dzięki deklinacji, która wyjaśnia relacje i role słów w zdaniu bez polegania w dużym stopniu na słowach pomocniczych lub sztywnej składni. Pozdrawiam serdecznie.
Widzi psa kot. Widzi kot psa. Psa kot widzi. Kot psa widzi 😀
@@SzlachtaPracuje7 Super: możemy stworzyć 6 permutacji tych trzech wyrazów i zawsze jest to poprawne.😀
Many native speakers don't know many rules of their language, it's just intuitive to them. I met once native english speaker, who didn't has any background with foreigners learning english or learning other languages by himself and he had no idea what Present Perfect is. He was completely unfamiliar with this name. Similar in Polish. We just use it, it's our native language. Changing our language is not an option. China is different in terms that they have a huge country, with many dialects, alphabets, rules and idea of unifying language so that they can all easily communicate on daily basis makes a sense. Polish people don't have such problem.
Polish is a Slavic language, Slavic languages through their very very very long history have experienced many evolution
we share roots with Sanskrit!
we are closer to Sanskrit than we are to Germanic or Roman languages
(btw. English is a Germanic language)
in English, writing system makes absolutely no sense as we see how it took a bunch of words from Roman and Germanic, natives and other and smashed them together - so you have to read it differently depending where it came from even if spelled the same
Slavic languages have systematic way to create new words, we can mass produce new words with new meaning with it and people will still understand what it means, because it follows a certain logic
it's very creative language that adapts and makes you use your brain as if you were painting a picture
we don't want to use our language like lego blocks, no thank you
btw. Polish WAS already simplified! we used to have double-numbers in it, the doors are reminder of that - one "drzwi", many "drzwi"
The very thing that complicates the polish language for foriegners also makes Poles free. Changing the form a word specifies its relation with other words in the sentence thus we can shuffle the order freely and it lets us express the mood of a message, be it poetic, formal or totally informal or emphesise a piece of information. We can also recognise the function of a word in the sentence without knowing its meaning. Every language has hard and easy parts. We gotta embrace it and live on.
I don't know which Poles you have contact with, but they are probably not very smart people. An educated person will explain the rules of Polish grammar to you. But he won't explain everything unless he is a linguist.
For Poles, the Polish language is important, it is an element of our distinctiveness and identity. Polish poet Julian Tuwim coined the phrase "ojczyzna-polszczyzna", which meant you were Polish if you knew Polish.
You can live in Poland without the Polish language as a foreigner, but without the Polish language you cannot blend into this society and culture. Without the Polish language, you won't grow into this country, but you probably only want to stay here for a few years, so it doesn't matter to you.
The Polish language is constantly evolving and developing, and no one will make a linguistic revolution here, because the Polish language simply has too long a tradition and history. There will be changes, but they will be gradual.
Generally, if someone wants to live in Poland, they must adapt to the rules and norms applicable here, not the other way around.
Most of the foreigners who come to Poland are from the former USSR. Most of them speak either Ukrainian, Russian or both. These language are also highly inflected with similar grammar and vocabulary. I know some dedicated Ukrainians who became sufficiently fluent in Polish after just two months of learning. But out of nothing we should basicaly change our entire grammar from synthetic to analytic (the most boring and repetitive grammar system), because some Americans are going to shit themselves once they get to learn our cases and conjugation (Try hungarian or finnish!). Not to mention that once we simplify our grammar they young generation that would grew up in new circumstances would be cut off from all the previus literature and other written sources. It's like the Greeks who need to learn Ancient Greek to understand archaic sources in what could be considered the same language. What a great improvement for educating our future children!
Yeah, but we could then sell Disco Polo to the entire world, which would then drop face down to the ground in stupefied admiration of that pinnacle of Polish culture -- just like K-Pop is the pinnacle of culture in Korea, obviously :D. We're just one step from making our country truly world reknown: we have to make the Disco Polo lyrics finally understandable to the world thirsty of the wisdoms conveyed by it :D. LOL!
There is a convincing explanation of this strange rule about numbers from 5 up (“pięć”, “sześć”, …). It states that they used to be regular nouns just like ones that we still use today: “garść” - a handful, “kiść” - a bunch. And when we use those nouns to describe the quantity, we have to do something with the following word. In English we add “of”: a handful of peppercorns, a bunch of bananas. In Polish we use the genitive case instead of the nominative. So it’s like saying “a five of apples” or “a six of pencils”
The Polish language and all Slavic languages are complicated because of these grammatical rules, they are one of the reasons why it is a Slavic language. You have to learn it just like your native language - the alphabet, single words and numbers, simple sentences, we learn grammar only around the fourth grade of primary school (approximately from the age of 8 to 11) and then we don't go back to it because it's complicated.
Hi,
as polish people I think we are very forgiving of pronunciations and grammar. If you say "wczoraj ja iść do supermarket i ja kupić dwa jabłko i sześć jajko" instead of "wczoraj poszedłem do supermarketu i kupiłem dwa jabłka i sześć jajek" I think you will be understand and praised for learning such a hard language. Language is part of our culture and history, it would be hard to change it for foreigners. I know a few people that learned polish but their mother language was one of slavic languages so they had an easier job to do. I would say, Polish is like poem when you using it right, but for comunication every basic knowledge would return and in matter of time it become natural to use all conjugation and cases. Even native polish speakers makes mistakes and uses wrong forms of words. There is nothing to worry about. It just another challenging way of communication.
I'm glad you learning Polish :)
you are wrong, is not about ability to change language. this is about pride and will - Polish language will be always first in Poland.
saying that you have to understand, polish people takes 6years at home and another 8 in primary school to learn polish language and grammar and still some make mistake in "common" use language.
Polish is not easy, however when you know language is different approach to the challenge, let me explain: Mandarine language is not easy as well - the same word / phrase have different meaning is you pronouns with different tone of voice ... this could be devastated experience for some people ;)
Powodzenia z językiem polskim, btw ortografia to jest dopiero wyższy poziom jazdy :)
Polish is for the chosen few. We do not want it to be learned by just anybody... It's a kind of natural selection.
And it still makes more sense than English
That may be true. English pronunciation is a mess lmao
@@WheresWes it's such a mess it's impossible to say whether it's pronunciation, spelling or both that's screwed up
Hi Wes, try to use that rule:
- 1 apple ----- jedno jabłko (number with noun in NOMINATIVE case SINGULAR, aka first form singular),
- 2-4 (and every tens, hundreds and tousands with 2-4 starting [!] from 22-24) apples ----- 2-4 jabłka (number with noun in NOMINATIVE case PLURAL, aka first from plural),
- 5 and more (except above) OF APPLES ----- 5 i więcej JABŁEK (number with noun in GENETIVE [!!!!!!!] case PLURAL, aka second form plural)
So i think the clue is to remember mainly the third part of it because first two are just intuitive and easy to create:
5 and above (except 2,3,4 and every number with 2,3,4, starting from 22) always connects with noun GENETIVE PLURAL
Here is the video shortly explaining it (go to 4:47 time of the video, turn on English subtitles, btw you may find whole video interesting to you)
th-cam.com/video/ZaMDsNxgxto/w-d-xo.html
Another way to learn it is to choose one noun, your favourite or one you use most often, and memorize it with numbers, till, let's say, 25 or at least 5, with pronounciation. Like having this association (both in writing and spelling):
jedno jabłko,
dwa jabłka,
trzy jabłka,
cztery jabłka,
pięć jabłek...
Have fun. :)
The amount of fallacies, cultural insensitivities, and plain old errors (not just in Polish but also in English) in this video is mind-blowing. Unless you like receiving a ton of hateful comments and thumbs down, I’d highly suggest reuploading and putting more effort, research, and sensitivity into the subject.
It's not a bug, it's a feature :D. He's probably just milking the revenue from the traffic on that video. The more comments, the better. The stupider and more arrogant the original position presented in it, the more comments will come. And the stupider and more arrogant the positions, the easier and quicker to make the video. It's just a win-win situation.
Studiuję polonistykę i na moim kierunku jest Chińczyk. Tak, na filologii polskiej w Polsce. Nauczył się języka polskiego w cztery lata i mówi pięknie. Być może problem nie jest w języku, a w twoim podejściu. Dziwne oczekiwać od całego narodu, żeby zmieniał się, bo ty tak żądasz :v
No on przecież mówił, że się miesiąc uczył polskiego 😋🤷...
@@lastanetaarion Brakowało jeszcze tylko stwierdzenia, że się spocił, przeziębił, a w dodatku nabawił PTSD i że powinniśmy mu wypłacić odszkodowanie. Generalnie mam wrażenie, że te filmiki to jeden wielki clickbait. A ja znów się dałem wciągnąć w komentowanie tych bzdur.
I disagree with your statement. Polish language is our heritage and should stay as it is. If you are English speaker and can find your way around it means Poles did enough to blend in and in general making business is not a problem. Language is at the core of polish identity. If someone can't learn then it's fine but to suggest it should be redefined is rude. I live in the UK, 20 yrs now and I speak English, I Learned much of German for convenience as well, and gave a shot at French but I'd never suggest them to change anything as it would be disrespectful.
I watched a few of your videos before and know you don't mean anything wrong and I actually liked them. Consider Polish as something unique and not something you are forced to know. Live and let live kind of thing. You said yourself you can communicate with people anyway so why should they change the language just so you can find it easier to learn..?...
When i saw the first learning Polish video i knew this one was coming XDDD
Your idea of 'improving' the language comes from a very American manner of prioritizing efficiency. Life is not just about that, mate.
Besides no one expects foreigners to master every bit of grammar.
There already exists quick and easy language virtually everybody knows and it's English thank you very much
This video will lose you many subscribers. Because of our heroic struggle to preserve our language and identity; an arrogant foreigner telling us how to change our language is as offensive as you can possibly get. 💀
Nie będzie Amerykano-Chińczyk nas germanił ✌💪
@@nonperson22 "krzyżaczył" 🙃
@@drzewowit To wg Nowackiej, ja trzymam się oryginału.
To be honest, I don't think starting to learn Polish with getting to know grammar rules so soon is a wise and effective way to learn it (but, for sure, it is the best way to get confused and discouraged👍). I highly recommend Jeff's Brown lecture on yt called 'How to acquire any language NOT learn it!'.
Btw I came across a ranking of the most difficult languages to learn for english speakers and Polish is on 17th place there. So it's definitely not THE WORST language ever, it's just 17th 😁 So don't complain, Wes, and get back to work! & honestly - change the method and put the grammar aside at least for a year or two. (Btw I'm learning Chinese 😊 - the best language to learn if you have your whole life to spend ; ))
I think that only a very arrogant person can say after only a few months of learning that this language is too hard, it would be easier if you changed it. Well it takes time to learn a language and just that you use and know something doesn't mean that you can teach it. Motivation and the teacher are very important to really learn something.
Don't worry -- he probably never even meant it seriously. He's just a clickabaiting trolmaking some buck by posting provocative vids specifically targetted at an audience who will be motivated enough to watch and comment on them. He puts next to no effort in making them -- just look how short and basic they are -- and yet they generate a lot watch-time and comments. We are his goldmine, and I'm sure he's having a good laugh looking at how easily duped we are :).
But... We DO have a one unified language and we don't really use local variations :P (they exist but only at homes)
It's just really chaotic
@@chinskazupka666 no nie godoj dziołcho/chopie, że ty ino w chałupie gwarou godosz? To kaj ty mieszkosz? 😅😎🇵🇱
He doesn't care -- he knows better :D.
sorry dude but your question why in terms of grammar is silly at best -- tell me why in English you would say "I was" but "You were" or why verb "to go" is used in past tenses as "went" or "gone", or why there is "I am" but "He is"?
You just need a good teacher. You’ll get there :)
that's probably true
@@WheresWesIf you have any questions about Polish grammar I am here to help. I am a Polish teacher with 23 years of experience 😊
@@WheresWes, also just don't apply rules from other language groups, it won't get you anywhere...
I totally understand you're having a hard time with Polish language, however there is sadly no way to simplify it. Even some of us natives tries to shorten it and use some easier forms, but it does not work well for long. Polish needs to be accepted as it is. I'm sure that in time you will find the hidden beauty in it.
Polish is a standard language, and dialects play a very marginal role (this is partly a result of Stalinist language policy after WW2) so there is no need for linguistic unification. Every language has a different grammar, Polish is a strongly inflected and very synthetic language. Your suggestion to simplify inflection is a bit like saying to the Chinese, introduce letters, because none of the foreigners will learn a few thousand characters. Language is a living organism, it has its own rules and changes evolutionarily - slowly, along with its speakers. Language reforms happen, but they are not frequent revolutions. I see no reason to artificially interfere with the grammar of a language just to simplify it if its speakers do not initiate this change.
I think I can write writing on behalf of all Polish. If you cant learn it its not our problem. We don't need foreigners to tell us how to live or speak.
If you cant learn proper Polish you can always speak like Kali. Kali jeść, Kali pić. You will still be understood.
Polish language is beautiful how it is.
I am interested in Poland because it seems like a self-respecting nation (something that seems almost like a dream for those of us in the UK).
The complex inflection of words in the Polish language allows for flexibility in sentence structure, which generally does not change the meaning but shifts the emphasis to what you want to highlight in the sentence. It also enables recognition of individual words (such as their part of speech and what they might pertain to, even if you are unfamiliar with the specific word) without relying on the context of the entire sentence.
perfect! im so proud i can speak polish even more now :) thanks! edit: we will never make our language simpler. this is why we love our language for real
Jakoś Od XVI wieku do połowy XVIII wieku litera Á była używana w języku polskim, a teraz nie jest. Zmiany nie koniecznie są złe
I disagree with you. You say that we need to simplify the Polish language, yet at the same time, you claim that language is the foundation of a country’s culture. So it’s either we protect culture by preserving the language, or we change the language and disregard the culture. 10:21
Chinese written language is also very hard to learn so why not abandon the logographic system completely and turn it into a simple 26 letter alphabet? Because it's not about easy, it's about the beauty of it. I started to appreciate polish language a lot more once i've seen english translation of The Witcher books and realised how much subtle meaning is lost in the process.
@@kertelas4272 dokładnie 🇵🇱🇵🇱
english geralt > polish geralt
Well, the language won’t change-it’s just not possible. We’re proud of it, especially because of our history. Polish people had to fight to preserve it, so there’s no chance anyone would choose to alter it. Actually, the Polish language does make sense, though it’s true there are countless rules and reasons behind why it is the way it is.
Of course, know all the details and ordinary people can't explain why something works a certain way, but that's the case for every language in the world, including English.
Yeah, I still don't know all the grammar rules in Polish, but I was able to construct sentences after a year of English lessons.
as a polish person who studies in china and is interested in linguistics, i find your argument about "CHINESE PEOPLE WERE ABLE TOC HANGE THE LANGUAGEE!!!!", no, all they did was just to simplify writing, but in polish you speak of entire grammar which would sound unnatural, you complain about the things that are in fact in all languages and are called RULES, if dwa jablko can do according to you, then change 两个苹果 to 二个苹果
your point in changing polish grammar as a person who barely knows anything about polish makes no point and you might as well remove all chinese tones "because u have to memowize it and its hawwd >//
@@sebazbujca8840 with characters I totally agree. Yet they are not logic like you’d like to guess character after its writing and NO, 嵩 although consists of 高 doesn’t make sound gao, even in other tone than just another gāo, let it be gáo; it’s sōng and God forbid if I mistaken with tone 😂
He talks about Polish, whereas his mother language makes no sense.
Getting to pinyin and later expanding variations of combining new words out of limited syllables! That could be done, Chinese!
Korean and Japanese could, why Chinese stays the caveman language until nowadays?
Ciekawe czy to w ogóle przeczyta 🤣
@ this is not what I meant, for example it can be ma and yi in ayi 妈妈 阿姨, the 女 is what connects these two, yet the pronunciation is different, i meant the character itself and not the aspect of pronunciation, my point was MEMORIZING, no matter whether its written or spoken language, but chinese consists of two, you have to know the difference between 还 and 孩, but also between 行 and 行 xing hang, which you simply have to memorize
@@sebazbujca8840 oh yeah, that one.
Well, we also have it in Polish with Morze and może, or in English with knight and night; so here we are kinda win win.
The more I am clueless with like 免 and 兔, or 土 and 士, or 要 and 耍.
This example you gave with 妈妈 and 阿姨 ofc kinda understand as here we talk about cardinal characters, but then there are like given above which „looks alike” and have totally different meanings and way you read them, plus not mentioning like usually if you have 高, 搞, 稿 or 砖, 转, 传, whereas you also have 车, 军 or 斩, where it gives no clue how to read unless someone tells you…
We also have exceptions in Polish like Marznąć, but as far as I remember, there are not „that many” 🇵🇱
Cheers
We can't do anything about s/ś/sz thing. There are words there that can be distinguished only by that one sound.
For example:
Kaś (plural, genitive form of name "Kasia")
kasz (plural, genitive form of "groats")
kas (plural, genitive form of "cash register")
It was easier in China cuz they didn't change spoken language.
"But the sounds of those Polish letters are absolutely indiscernible -- they all sound absolutely the same!"
(... says somebody who is supposed to be fluent in Mandarin, which features something like 5 possible tone variations for each syllable).
@@barsorrro They sound completely different for me. If you spoke Polish fluently, you would recognize them without any problem. Tones work different, you make them using your vocal cords. In polish we place our tongue in different ways to make these sounds.
@@grineee5097 That was irony :) -- hence the use of quotes. I was just pointing out that to somebody with a background of a tonal language, "subtle" sound differences should be relatively easy to distinguish, and that such person should also not see it as weird or absurd to have them in a language.
You started learning Polish culture so you already know how many times foreigners tried to tell us what's for us better, and how they ended up ;P This means we're quite sensistive in that matter.
LOL You made me laugh so hard. But some of your concerns were addressed throughout history. The Polish alphabet was standardised back in the 16th century (French in the 19th, Pinyin - 20th, English - never). Since the 16th century there were two or three changes introduced but mostly it's unchanged and it's really logical and easy compared to many others. What's most important it's a WYSIWYG. Throughout the eras Poland used to have huge immigration. Nearly all Polish cities were German speaking till the 17th century. We also had Scots, Italians, Jews, Muslims and others, and Poland's lingua franca was Latin and sometimes French. In the end, they all learned Polish. Yes, it may be difficult for you, but once you settle and marry and have kids, your kids will be fluent. On the other hand, if someone finds the language too difficult they move to Germany or elsewhere and that's out immigration filter. Only the people who want to invest in the language stay. Just like with a relationship, those who initially invest more energy are more likely to be more respectful later. Living in Warsaw, I do know many foreigners who moved here and learned the language. However, there was also a man from Lublin who thought like you. He's name was Ludwik Zamenhof and he created a language for all. It's called Esperanto and he based it on Spanish as it's the easiest. A century later Polish still has many more speakers. In other words, don't worry about Polish. It survived Latin, German, French and Esperanto, it'll survive English, too.
As to if it does make sense to have all that complex grammar? Yes, it does. Every language has its thing that is used to enable communication. Chinese has its tones. English - idioms. Polish - grammar. Once you learn it you have a powerful tool at your disposal thanks to which you can move parts of speech around freely or drop them entirely because the grammar takes care of the rest. It's much much easier to create a long sentence in Polish than in English. You're right about the spies though. During WW2 Poles didn't need to bother with difficult passwords. They just used simple words no German could pronounce.
Poland also used to have a great influence on the world music in the form of dances like the polonaises and mazurkas but I do agree we could make our musicians more famous.
Czyli ca 38 mln ma zmienić swoje przyzwyczajenia językowe, żeby było łatwiej małej grupie obcokrajowców? No ciekawa logika... To od razu idźmy dalej: zmiana nazw miejscowości, nazwisk, imion...
human brain is amazing, the fact that we were able to learn all those rules without actively thinking about them, I mean, 2 - dwa-dwie, dwóm, dwóch, dwoje, dwojga, dwoma, dwiema, etc and mix it with some verbs, adj and noun, for example I walked with 2 beautiful girls [isc+dwa+piekny+dziewczyna] becomes "szedlem z dwiema pieknymi dziewczynami", I don't know how foreigners could learn it without going insane, for real, it's impossible if you have not spent at least 3 years constantly listening only to polish like babies do, so respect to anyone who is even trying
Spacerowalem z dwiema pieknymi dziewwczynami....or Ja chodze dwiena..... or .... 😆
W Angielskim zawsze przeszkadzały mi brak koncówek płci i ich ucinanie oraz ta walona wymowa, ktorej do teraz nie ogarniam, bo kazde slowo inaczej sie wymawia. W sumie porównanie fonetyki angielskiego do pisowni zasad Polskiego to ta sama rzecz, rzadzi sie swoimi prawami.
Hi Wes, I would agree with you that Polish could update its alphabet to become more consistent and flexible for typing, and for that we could borrow some ideas from Czech (or other Slavic languages that use Latin), like rz could be typed as rz but displayed as ř. But simplifying the grammar doesn’t make much sense to us. I think the complexity we have helps us understand each other immediately as we speak, because conjugation and declension convey some extra context information for each word, which eliminates ambiguity or confusion when you mishear something in a loud environment. I think I saw Polish people ask each other to repeat a word a bit less often than in America. As a synthetic language, it may seem harder to speak and write (not really for natives though!), but then it’s easier to understand quick when you read and listen. In English, there are occasionally alternative ways to understand a combination of words, which is confusing, and was sometimes annoying especially in my philosophy courses. But I understand your frustration; I had similar ideas for English when living in the U.S., especially for the spelling inconsistency. Unlike Polish or Italian, you can’t be sure how to read something that is written. And writing from hearing is arguably as hard or even harder for English than for Polish.
The English language is a contextual language, while Polish is concrete, logical, and detailed. For example, in English, there is a word like "sloth," which can mean "doing nothing" or the name of a slow-moving animal. To understand what is being referred to when using just the word "sloth," one needs context in English. In Polish, there are two separate forms of the word for "sloth,"->"lenistwo"/"leniwiec" and regardless of where or how they are used, it will always be clear whether one means "doing nothing" or the animal.
Polish even has words that require two, three, or more words in English to express. For instance, "pralka" translates to "washing machine" in English.
I can't agree on the contextual part. We have plenty of homonyms in Polish language too. "Para" can be water in the air or a couple, "zamek" can mean "castle" or "lock" or "zipper", "klucz" can be the key or flock of birds, or the symbol for musicians, "bal" is a party or a log, "pilot" means pilot or remote control etc, etc. Not so different from Engllish from that perspective. I don't have anything particular in my mind atm, but I can recall using english word sometimes, because I would need to use description in many words in Polish too. This is just the sing the language is alive and developing with time. Don't agree with simplyfing Polish for that last reason. It is like it is, because it's evolved that way, no need to make artificial changes, let it evolve naturally. Maybe it will simplify with time, maybe on the contrary.
Yeah, but we still have some examples of words with the same spelling that, without context, you don't know what the word could truly mean, like "zamek-castle or lock" or "para-' (para wodna) steam or couple. " (of course probably much less than English, but still)
Also second argument is whatever, because sometimes the Polish language takes non-native words to recreate use from other languages, like "computer" we could end up using "electronic brain or electronic digital machine" -- mózg elektroniczny or elektroniczna maszyna cyfrowa.
@@KatarzynaSoczka
Ok. Szanuję Twoje zdanie. Jednakże odpowiedz mi czy znasz biegle język polski, jego gramatykę, semantykę, systematykę oraz historię? Pisząc "historia" mam na myśli "historię słów" w języku polskim, a także podstawowe, pierwotne rodzime znaczenia. Język Polski nie bez przyczyny jest konkretnym językiem, ale z drugiej strony logicznym i szczegółowym. Oznacza to, że dla każdego słowa w obcym języku zawsze istnieje tłumaczenie, ale nie zawsze na odwrót, na przykład: "chicken soup" to Po polsku: "zupa z kurczaka", ale: "rosół" to nie "chicken soup", Choć Wszyscy to tak kojarzą.
Odnośnie co do Twoich spostrzeżeń na temat słów: "para, zamek, suwak, klucz, bal, pilot" w języku polskim istnieje coś takiego jak forma podstawowego znaczenia czasowników, rzeczowników i przymiotników, która określa pierwszeństwo znaczeniowe jeśli nie podano słowa dookreślajacego lub opisowego (kontekst). Więc jeśli znasz historię słów i semantykę możesz określić jak słowa zawierające wiele znaczeń zachowują się w języku polskim.
Tak więc kiedy mówimy samo słowo: "Para" mamy na myśli pewien rodzaj liczebnika wskazujący na dwie rzeczy głównie przeciwstawne: "kobieta i mężczyzna", buty: "prawy i lewy" - to podstawowe znaczenie słowa: "para", które istniało przed wynalezieniem "pary wodnej", i tu przechodzimy do kolejnych znaczeń. Aby słowo: "para" przeszło z podstawowego znaczenia na inne znaczenie należy uściślić jego znaczenie dopisując słowo dookreślające: "Para wodna", "Mieć parę" (siła), "Być parą" (związek), jeśli chcemy rozszerzyć lub zmienić znaczenia określone możemy dodać kolejne słowa: "Być parą wodną", "Mieć parę jabłek", w przypadku kiedy dodajemy więcej słów do znaczeń że słowem: "para" słowo to dostosowuje się automatycznie do znaczenia, ale zawsze w podstawowej formie jest to pewien rodzaj liczebnika "dwa".
Słowo "zamek" jako budowla obronna była wcześniej przed wszystkimi innymi znaczenia i, dlatego jeśli mówisz samo słowo "zamek" masz na myśli budowę obronną, wszystkie inne znaczenia muszą być dookreślone, czyli: "zamek do drzwi", "zamek błyskawiczny", "zamek spustowy" (np: w broni palnej).
Słowo "suwak" oznacza w podstawowym znaczeniu "mechanizm do przesuwania", ale nie jest to "zamek do drzwi" tylko coś co możemy przesunąć jednym ruchem do przodu i do tyłu lub prawo i w lewo lub do góry i na dół, np: "zasuwkę furtki", wszystkie inne znaczenia należy dookreślić: "suwak błyskawiczny", "suwak obliczeniowy".
Słowo: "Klucz" w podstawowym znaczeniu jest to narzędzie do otwierania drzwi, resztę znaczeń należy dookreślić: "Klucz rozwiązania", "Klucz licencyjny", "Klucz wiolinowy" itd.
Słowo: "Bal" w podstawowym znaczeniu oznacza "przyjęcie z tańcami", resztę znaczeń należy dookreślić: "Bal drewna".
Słowo: "Pilot" w podstawowym znaczeniu jest to osoba starująca "sternik, nawigator", według chronologii historycznej najpierw był "statek" potem "samolot" i słowo: "Pilot" powinno znaczyć kogoś kto steruję statkiem w swoim podstawowym znaczeniu, ale w miarę kształtowania się języka polskiego teraz uznaje się, że słowo "Pilot" w podstawowym znaczeniu oznacza osobę, która steruję samolotem, a resztę znaczeń należy doprecyzować: "Pilot statku", "Pilot do telewizora", "Pilot serialu" (odcinek pilotażowy), "Pilot wycieczki" itd.
Niestety wiele ludzi nie przywiązuje wagi do swojego języka i do znaczeń że względu na reguły gramatyczne, semantyczne czy historyczne zmieniając ustalone rzeczy w chaos, co prowadzi do mylnego postrzegania świata. Uważam, że aby zrozumieć język polski przede wszystkim należy się go nauczyć, dużo czytać, zainteresować się gramatyką, semantyką, historią i analizować każdą swoją wątpliwość, dociekać i szukać odpowiedzi jeśli coś jest niejasne.
Oczywiście język polski posiada, jak każdy język zresztą pewne wyjątki od reguły, ale te wyjątki też mają swoje zasady. W języku angielskim jest wiele nielogicznych rzeczy, które nie mają ustalonej zasady, np wymowa różnych słów inaczej mimo, że posiadają one te same litery: "door" i "food".
Mam nadzieję, że trochę pomogłam rozwiać niejasności.
@KatarzynaSoczka
Przepraszam za ewentualne błędy ortograficzne 😁
@@AmyLokmart Najwięcej błędów chyba z używaniem "ę" na końcu czasownika w 3 os. l. poj.
np.: "kogoś kto steruję statkiem" - kogoś kto steruje statkiem (ja steruję, on steruje)
Jeszcze jakieś przecinki, ale reszta idealnie. Pozdrawiam 🙂
I think that if you want to learn Polish, you have to lower your expectations. You don't have to speak perfect language and know all the flexion, people will still understand you just as well. A language as complicated as Polish takes long years to master. As for ć, cz, c, ś, sz etc. they are all different sounds and if they were simplified to just a few, the words would make no sense to us or they would sound silly. I know the pain, I've recently started learning Korean and I also find it hard with ㅈ, ㅊ, ㅉ for example but if you want to speak a language you just have to keep on going. Good luck with your Polish if you decide to continue.
Btw. I find it funny that you think Chinese is easier than Polish with their tones. I considered learning it but after listening to a few examples of seemingly different words I gave up on this idea 😄
omg, so Poland should change their language, because immigrants have problems with the hardest language in the world? 38 milion people should change how they talk? Really?
@@miriastic it's not hardest in the world but definitely a out of the slavic ones
As a Polish person I want to say that changing the language is a bad idea. Nice video tho, really appreciate your effort in learning our language and I must agree that it one of the hardest languages to learn but as other comments say it like telling others to change English language. I am studying english philology and I have Japanese language as my second study language and we look into English language in more detail. Truth to be told if you really want to speak "proper" English then you would realise form phonological and phonetical point of view that you speak it differently compared to lets say its right way of described language rules. It is to the point that if Polish person who studied English were to go to England then natives would either look at you all confused or be a little bit in awe because you speak in a beautiful and old English. There is less and less people who speak in RP (Recieved Pronounciation) and us Polish people for example have to know this RP. Either way the point is that it is not the problem of our language it is the problem of effort put into learning it. Trust me we do not care if speak in beautiful Polish,we just appreciate the fact that you speak it and try to communicate with us using it. Have a nice day and I hope it will help a little bit 😉
I know those changes could be useful but the problem is that it could completely destroy the sound of this language. As i heard those changes it felt like complete absurd.
Hi Wes,
two things.
I think the main reason why people can’t give you clear answers about Polish grammar and pronunciation is that you just ask wrong people. Look, we learn our grammar for about 10 years in primary school. Some of us find these lessons boring, useless and just don’t care. It’s because we can speak this language from a childhood. Then there is a problem in explaining complex issues.
Second thing. One of the most famous language professors in Poland said that „language is created by people”. Polish, like many other languages has changed over the years. These changes are effect of neologisms, culture, but the most important people who speaks the language.
I respect you for trying to learn Polish and I think you could easily get along with what you already got. However, if you want to take your Polish to the next level, I suggest you to learn with professional teacher. Take care! :)
Many Poles just use the language without thinking about cases or gender so they are not going to explain grammar to you. Mind that a lot of people make also mistakes (Ja przyszłem instead of Ja przyszedłem for example). Once I have asked an Englishman this question: Which tense is used in this question: "What does your mother do?". He couldn't answer. If you want to learn Polish I would suggest finding a tutor, a person with linquistic knowledge, not a common language user. I understand that it is frustrating (I have also moved to another country and learn the local language), but you must realize that such things take time. It's easier to demand change from the others (sorry, that's not gonna happen), but such thoughts just distract you, I'm afraid. Don't give up!
But do you know Poland has one of the most homogenized population due to forced replacement after the war? Sure, you have dialects, a little bit here and there, but everyone in Poland is capable of speaking proper Polish. This is not the China case where you pretend there is only one correct language to use. Even Kashubians speak common Polish.
You are going to get a lot of backlash from this video. The rule numer one is to never tell Polish people how to life. As a nation we went through a lot and that makes us proud of everything that is Polish, language included.
Here's my two cents:
1)For English speakers, Spanish is easier to learn than Polish, because:
It is less complex in pronunciation (especially in fricatives and africates),
it is more similar to English in its structure (articles, no case inflection, similar word order)
Half of the lexicon is similar to English so you have a headstart
2)s/sz/ś, c/cz/ć, dz/dż/dź are roughly equivalent to Pinyin s/sh/x, c/ch/q, z/zh/j. If you can make that distinction in Chinese, you shouldn't have much trouble with hearing that distinction in other languages.
If you're dissatisfied with your progress, try a more structured approach that suits you, be it a textbook (Linguaphone/Assimil/TeachYourself), audiocourse (Pimsleur/MichelThomas), or other things (lingq, StoryLearning). As for free ressources, you might look into older courses from the FSI and DLI, they are ca. 35-70 years old by now, but the language hasn't changed that much. Try looking for a tutor/coach to guide you in you process
Uważam odwrotnie. Niech on nie szuka porządku na własną rękę, niech się podda chaosowi. Niech nauczy się podstawowych zwrotów a potem niech obudowuje je kolejnymi określeniami. Niech obcuje z kimś, kto na co dzień będzie mu pomagał. Szkoda, że obecnie otacza się ludźmi gorzej wykształconymi, którzy nie umieją mu wytłumaczyć podstaw gramatycznych. Albo on pyta nie o podstawy, a o rzeczy, które wyjaśnić umieją precyzyjnie jedynie poloniści. Może to jest dla niego dobry kierunek: profesjonalne lekcje polskiego dla początkujących. On teraz myślał, że wszystkiego dowie się z internetu albo programów językowych, a tymczasem normalne lekcje z normalnym nauczycielem byłyby tu chyba najlepszym rozwiązaniem. Miałby odpowiedzi na swoje pytania.
W każdym języku, również w angielskim, są reguły, których przeciętny użytkownik wytłumaczyć nie potrafi, ale stosuje je intuicyjnie, bo tak mu od małego wpajano.
Firstly, most of native speakers of any language have a difficulty in explaining why do grammar structures in their mother tongues look the way they do in a correct way. Secondly, in most of languages rules are not absolute, there are exceptions or sub-rules. Thirdly, the only way to meaningfully answer the question "why" is by delving into linguistic - but do you really want to do that? Most importantly, why would you do that? Would that really help your language acquistion? I doubt that. What makes you learn quicker? Input, output and interactions. It's all about communication - so communicate as much as you can - make mistakes and errors, don't let them discourage you. It's the part of the process.
Looks like you hit a wall. It was to be expected. You can now do one of two things:
- either stare at it and walk away, without discovering what lies beyond, or
- take time and effort to build a ladder in order to climb that wall and explore the wonders it conceals
The choice is yours.
Also, don't worry about the conjugation and declination so much. Just learn words, how to put them together (more or less) and just talk, listen, communicate. Look at Anne Applebaum. People say she speaks bad Polish. It's not true. She can express very complex ideas and is not afraid of being interviewed in Polish. No matter what you do, you will never be a native speaker, and it's normal, I will never be a native speaker of English neither, and probably I will never learn to hear a difference between "buddy" and "body" and use compound tenses correctly, but still, I can professionally communicate in English (after, well, 15 years of never ending learning).
It doesn't make any sense for us to make Polish simpler, we don't need foreigners to learn our language. Everybody in Poland is taught english in school now, and most of the people born after 90' will be able to communicate with you in english.
And we also don't have any problems with learning our own language even if sometimes we don't know all the principles behind it. Because of using it since birth, we use it perfectly correct and every case is clear for us. Those cases are clear because of our course of understanding makes us instinctively know what sounds right.
Words for one to four are etymologically "true" numerals, while words for five and above behave (and I guess they used to be) as if they were just nouns describing an amount or a container. So after dwa, trzy, cztery you put a normal plural, but after pięć and bigger you put a noun in genitive (dopełniacz), which is an equivalent of english "of". Just as you say "mam worek jabłek" ("I have a bag of apples") you also say "mam tuzin jabłek" and "mam siedem jabłek" (literally in English it would be "I have a dozen of apples", "I have a seven of apples"). Few people notice the logic behind it, few people think about this, but it is a very interesting aspect of the language.
One advice for those trying to learn Polish: don't try to speak perfectly. Even if you completely f up the grammar and just say an equivalent of "Me search shop buy milk", in 90% of the cases people will still understand you.
The Polish language is orderly, it changes, but within the area of word formation, adaptation of words (currently mainly from English). Nevertheless, we do not intend to interfere with grammar by force. The whole charm of the Polish language is that we decline everything: verbs, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals. This is the BEAUTY of the Polish language (as well as almost all Slavic languages!), and you do not give up beauty, right? You do not give up beauty for the convenience of foreigners. For Poles, declension and conjugation of parts of speech are a normal thing, which is why they cannot explain where it came from, why it is like this. Because it is in their blood! Please do not change us by force! It is already convenient for foreigners that younger generations speak English, German or Spanish to some extent. The Polish language will not be reformed by force, because there is no such need. You do not rebuild Wawel Castle so that the entrance is not uphill and convenient for foreigners, right? 🤣
między rozumieniem mówionego języka polskiego w 99% a mówieniem poprawnie gramatycznie jest ogromna różnica. możesz rozumieć wszystko a nadal popełniać błędy, co zresztą zdarza się rodowitym Polakom
Actually, we regularly change the Polish language precisely to eliminate silly exceptions, inconsistencies, and so on. For example, the Polish Language Council decided this year that according to the new rules, names of city residents will be written with a capital letter (previously "warszawianin," now "Warszawianin"). Capital letters will also always be used for car brands (before: "Jechałem samochodem marki Ford," but "jechałem fordem"; after the changes, it will always be a capital letter). However, these changes happen naturally, following how Poles use the language. Most of them occur when people make mistakes more often than they write correctly. And our language has so many exceptions and strange rules that even we can't keep track of them and often write as we feel is right.
On the other hand, there's no way to implement a large revolution like the one you mentioned. Even for such small changes, there’s often resistance from those who know the rules. Poles are very conservative and proud, so changing the language rules to simplify it for foreigners is out of the question.
On the third hand-which is quite hypocritical-we’re destroying the language ourselves with a flood of Anglicisms. I think there’s no need to revolutionize it because in a dozen or so years, the difference between Polish and English will shrink so much that learning it will be easy and pleasant. 😅 In the past, at least foreign words were properly adapted to Polish (e.g., "computer" became "komputer," "shorts" became "szorty"), and we used Polish grammar rules with them. Nowadays, young people often speak in a mix of Polish and English, inserting English words into their sentences without declension. The worst example of this is corporate jargon.
And fourth, the last point: don’t stress about not mastering word declensions-just speak. Honestly, in 90% of cases, if you know the word, we’ll understand what you mean regardless of the declension. And if we don’t understand, we’ll ask for clarification. Vocabulary is the most important thing, and in this regard, Polish is no different from other languages. Once you feel comfortable with vocabulary, you’ll naturally pick up declensions by listening to TV, music, reading books, or, most importantly, talking. Just like we learned-through practice, not school lessons. 🤷
I’m kind of disappointed. You know our history, you talk about it a lot yourself, and how you respect polish people for it. And now you tell us to “simplify” our language. Language is a huge part of a country’s identity, it is what kept our spirit alive during hard times. Its complexity is what makes it special and beautiful, just like other slavic languages. We def won’t change anything just because of the foreigners. If you can’t learn it - fine, but don’t expect from people to still be nice to you if they hear you’ve been living in Poland for x years and still don’t know the language/don’t care to learn it. That applies to all immigrants. And you have balls to talk about simplifying a language while your mother tongue is one of the plenty of languages and dialects spoken in China, not even mentioning chinese characters.
@@sovkaa201 dokładnie. Co do Chińskiego, to prędzej bym ten język uprościł, a znaczki zostawił dla tych, którzy chcą uczyć się ancient Chinese. Pinyin pisze się szybciej a znaczki tylko jedynie upraszczają rozróżnienie Yi od Yi 😅
there is youtuber "ignacy z japonii" ,he learned polish, maybe he can help
Ignacy z Japonii z tego co kojarzę jest pół Polakiem, chyba przyjeżdżał do Polski za dzieciaka więc na pewno jego droga była łatwiejsza
@@JanKowalski-or8xg Ignacy nie. Gabriel Hyodo jest pół Polakiem
Also Jadzia Kim has gone through a lot with the language.
And Japonka Ai -Polish life.
@@JanKowalski-or8xg Ignacy jest Japończykiem. Mylisz osoby.
To było by bez sensu na przykład: "wóda"-(vodka) i ”woda"- ( water)
Daj mi wody - Give me water
Daj mi wódy - Give me vodka
One letter (dash) makes a huge difference
We are not going to change our language for foreigners or immigrants. There are plenty of YT channels were foreginers learn polish, they complain about it sure, BUT you are the first one to say change it so it will be easier for "everyone else". Why should we care? We consist of 94-97% of the nation, we won't change our cultural heritage for your convenience.
Try listening to Rota with translation, maybe it will help you understand that we don't give af about what others want from us.
Plus you complain that normal native speakers can't answer your linguistic questions?
Well that's because we only "learn" basic grammar in primary school and in middle and high school is mainly learning cultural texts books poems songs and their interpretation
If you want your questions answered maybe ask someone who finished polish philology :') or pay for lessons with professionals
But I'm certain you angered quite a chunk of your Polish viewers with it
Simplifying Polish language would kill all of its beauty, never going to happen. When you think and speak in Polish you would understand what I mean. It would also boring if every language would be the same.
Ja mówię po polsku i nie rozumiem. Jeśli chodzi o gramatykę to bym nie zmieniał ale takiego ó i ch powinno nie być albo powinny być wymawiane inaczej niż u i h
4:24 You forgot to mention that in word "poszedłem" you also need to include your gender (i.e. masculine) and the fact that the action was completed. If everything else was the same, but the action of "going to the store" was not completed (or unspecified) it would be "szedłem". :) Therefore:
- poszedłem - I, a man, went to (the store) and reached (the store) in the past.
- szedłem - I, a man, went to (the store) but I will not tell you, whether I actually reached (the store).
However if it was me speaking insteaf (i. e. a woman) those two words would be "poszłam" and "szłam" instead.
In Poland we actually enjoy that foreigners struggle with our language. It's so much fun. :D
Also, we're not going to simplify the language on purpose, and we're not going to stop using it. Polish language survived 123 years of Poland literally not existing (it remained in use even when it was literally banned), so it's going to survive some foreigners refusing to learn it. Also, we don't actually get that many immigrants. Poland is not a rich country, people searching for better place to live usually prefer to go elsewhere, and I don't blame them. Most of the immigrants we have right now are from Ukraine, and Ukrainians (at least the ones I know) seem to learn Polish really fast (maybe because the languages are somewhat similar). And most of other ethnic minorities were already in Poland for ages and yet they didn't kill Polish language by speaking their simpler languages. So I think Polish language will be fine.
I meet Indian boy what was supervisor in five star hotel in Warsaw ? I was thinking that his Polish will be broken ? I was wrong ! He was fluent in Polish ? I had a feeling that I am talking to Polish person ? I did ask him haw long you have been in Poland ? He answer one year ? I said ? You learn Polish that good in one year ? He said yes ! I was shocked and with full of admiration ! He definitely was genius but he was prove that anything is possible !
Seeing this title after the last few language videos is hilarious. I'm not surprised.
Polish, as a Slavic language, was few centuries ago very complicated. Slavic languages preserved grammatical cases system (the same which was abandoned when Latin was transformed into Romance languages), 3 (or even more) grammatical genders, many tenses and modes, dual number etc. Also consonant shifts in declension, long and short vowels, semi-nasal vowels etc. It was VERY complicated, but rather regular.
During centuries of "simplification" some of these features were abandoned or unified, but at the expense of regularity. Today's Polish is quite irregular, because it preserves in its structure all the historical features.
Everything in Polish grammar can be explained logically or historically, but it doesn't make it any simpler (OK, maybe a little).
The proposed "simplifications" are not simplifications from the Polish point of view. It's like replacing Chinese symbols with Latin letters and dropping Chinese tonality for the sake of "simplification" from the Western point of view, LOL.
As for the political argument, paraphrasing "in a few years Poland will have a lot of immigrants who will not learn Polish", according to what is happening in Poland now (and trends in the world), someone who does not know the basics of Polish will not receive a permanent residence card and subsequently will not be able to count on citizenship. This change has now taken place and/or is taking place.
This results from a simple fact, i.e. Poland, like many countries, cannot afford alternative societies. Without learning the language, someone will be alienated from politics, society and culture, they will be unintegrated. This will mean that such a person, even living in Poland, will not be able to participate in political life in any meaningful way. In the worst case, there would be two societies, one voting and the other silent but subject to the laws. In order to avoid such a dichotomy, learning the language is necessary for foreigners.
As for the alleged difficulty of the Polish language, it is relative. For people from the same linguistic background, there is nothing difficult in the Polish language. In fact, they often learn the language by listening at the beginning, and some minor things related to grammar are often learned later.
The Polish language is difficult, of course, for people from the Germanic or Asian languages background. There is simply no analogy between these languages.
Another issue, although important, is that in Slavic languages, or at least in Polish, there is no strongly established order of words in a sentence. Therefore, what is a strict requirement in English, i.e. SVO, is not in Polish and other Slavic languages. Hence, the appropriate declension of all these words in a sentence is necessary, because without it it would be unclear who is talking about what.
Changing this would require changing the entire language and, by the way, would require throwing out all literature from the language, including of course fiction and novels. By the way, it would completely break the backward continuity in the language. This is possible to do in theory, but in practice why? We would gain a language without history, literature, more similar to Germanic languages, but still not the same, and additionally difficult to learn for Slavs but easier to learn for Germans, etc. is also not entirely certain. Moreover, why would they learn a language in which there is no literature, or even technical and scientific books?
As for the numerals you point to, although they may currently be a problem for you, I have the impression that what would really make the language easier lies in a completely different place. The rule itself for numerals for 1, 2-5, 5+ may be unusual, but easy to learn and in my opinion, that is not where the problem lies. Besides, I do not know whether their "simplification" would not cause some conflict or another exception in the language...
You are learning a Slavic language and this will be a problem for you. It does not matter whether it is Polish or another Slavic language, there will be a problem. The advantage is that the Polish language at least uses this Latin alphabet with a few national characters.
When it comes to sounds, for example, compared to tonal languages, the pronunciation of Polish doesn't seem difficult either. There's a bit to learn at the beginning, but then everything falls into place after w while. In addition, at least with some exceptions, what you write is how you speak. It's not like that in English, for example. So there's already a built-in simplification in Polish...
If Polish seems difficult to you, you don't want to spend time on it because you know that you will eventually move out of Poland, then maybe it would be a better solution not to learn it. Don't learn a language if you don't need it as it may be a waste of time for you. You won't learn this language quickly and it will be the same with other Slavic languages.
Decide whether you want to better understand Poland, society, culture and finally Polish politics and better understand your friends and acquaintances, or rather you want to see the country like a nomad. There is no obligation to learn Polish and maybe it would be a better move for you not to learn it. :)
Apart from that, thank you for the interesting observation and I wish you good luck, also in learning or not learning Polish. :)
@@arkadiuszkrolak4523 awesome and detailed explanation 🇵🇱
He doesn't really want to get to know Poland better. He's absolutely sure he already knows it well enough. Have you watched his earlier videos? They are all extremely opinionated: "Polish society is this and that, Polish men are this and that, Polish women are this and that, Polish politics emphasises this and that" -- all those "wisdoms" coming from somebody who has not yet even fully mastered shopping-mall level of Polish, so any notions he has are clearly limited to a caveman's perception of the his surroundings. (He ignored a question I posed to him in a comment to one of his earlier videos, whether he reads any English-language news bulletins concerning Poland, which leads me to believe he doesn't fuss with obtaining information from _any_ news sources.)
You might call it arrogance, but I think it's not even that -- it's his business model: he simply posts ignorant, self-centred, provocative videos in order to stir up reaction, get the views and earn some cash. Plain and simple.
I sent you an e-mail some time ago, explaining many things in Polish that already frustrated you before. These are explanations from a linguist, or a language nerd, not from a John Doe that you grabbed on the street and bombed with questions. That's like grabbing Nigel Strokesmith in Birmingham's factory and asking them what's future perfect continuous for and why English has it. I answered many of your questions from a previous video, which you repeat in here again. Have you read this?
Most foreigners here come from Ukraine and they speak Polish. Outside Slavic languages, it seems like 50/50, but I don't have data on this.
In reality if you don't need to be fluent at Polish, you just don't have to learn when apple - jabłko turns into jabłka or jabłek, because everyone will know about how much apples do you think when you say a number and add any plural form of apple, it really doesn'y have to be correct... And we know our language is hard.
0:22 This my dear friend applies to every nation, we are no exception here, I thought it was a common knowledge. I give you that, polish to learn is a massive pain in the ass, but say again, why should we simplify it?
You don't take into account the fact that we don't use our language just to buy eggs in the supermarket or find the nearest toilet, and the language reforms in China were not aimed at making the language more attractive to tourists.
You're wrong for a bunch of other reasons that others probably haven't mentioned yet:
1. We already have a single unified language that goes beyond dialects and 90% of people in the country already speak it. In fact that's the form of the language you're learning. It's called "Literary Polish" and it's regulated by Rada Języka Polskiego. A lot of people believe that speaking differently is a sign of stupidity and are actually hell-bent on correcting others who use non-standard or dialectal forms even in informal speech and it has contributed to a mass-scale deterioration of dialects. More institutional intereference into the language is the opposite of what we need
2. Although a lot of dialects use simplifications in grammar, they do not coincide with your propositions. In literary Polish nouns end in many different ways in genitive plural, but in most dialects they all end in -ów. However in all variaties of Polish the numerals from 5 upwards trigger the genitive case. So literary Polish says "trzy jajka" and "pięć jajek", dialects say "trzy jajka" and "pięć jajków", but nobody says "trzy jajka" and "pięć jajka". That's more than weird - it's plainly un-Slavic. You don't know the language enough to tell what's essential and what's incidental
3. The difference between ś, ź, ć, dź and sz, ż/rz, cz, dż is vital to make the language clear and cannot be levelled. In fact there is a precedent of merging the sz, ż, cz, dż group with s, z, c, dz, which happened in many dialects and is called mazurzenie. That does not destroy the language, but your proposition would. I suppose things would be easier if the ś, ź, ć, dź sounds never came into existence, but they did and they define our language. Their sound changes in very few dialects. The literary language is actually simplified when it comes to the number of vowels. Most dialects have twice as many of them. The Polish you're would've been even harder to pronounce if that did not happen.
This complexity is what makes it so beautiful. All those details and nuances are the building blocks for literature and poetry and can convey subtle meanings (of course, I am not saying you can't describe the same complex states in other languages).
What you find complex sometimes surprisingly results in simplification.
For example, the English sentence "He went out" consists of three words. To convey the same meaning in Polish, it is enough to say "Wyszedł"- just one word.
Poles are such individualists that I can't imagine any authority that can arbitrarily conduct a successful, collective national language simplification program. Languages are living organisms, so we better let them evolve naturally. English has lost conjugations and complexities over time to eventually become what it is right now, so there is hope -- for future generations. LOL
:) I like to see such reports on our language :) Honestly, I have probably never seen a foreigner to speak entirely correct polish, even after 20 years living here. I'd say - don't pay attenion to errors in recognizing the forms of declination - if you can talk and be understood, that's enough, and I'd say that's even considered impressive in Poland. Changing polish grammar - would be very difficult - as you may know Poland was for 123 years out of map, partitioned by Germany, Austria and Russia - the language was the only thing that helped the polish national identity to survive. It was for example the time when the most recognized polish poet, Adam Mickiewicz wrote his works. So Poles are a kind of proud of the language, and doing such things to it is like stabbing with a knife to the heart ;) You are right, Poland is not the biggest country in the world so if one values time to invest in learning, maybe other languages are a better choice. On the other hand, Polish is similar to other slavic languages - we can communicate with Czech, Slovaks, Russians (here you'd also say "я хочу одно яйцо, ну 6 яец", even Croatians without knowing the destination language, speaking just Polish :) Good luck in learning :)