Polish learning English
Gosia 2010-08-17 15:05 | Polish learning English Just out of curiosity: what are the most common mistakes in English made by Polish people? |
Gosia 2010-08-18 09:17 | I think that Polish learners tend to copy the grammar structures nad expression into English and translate everything too directly. Here are some of funny examples of common mistakes made in Polish-English: -thank you from the mountain! (pol. expression''dziękuję z góry”=thank you in advance) -Hasn’t for what! (pol. Expression „nie ma za co”, means more or less ''you're welcome” or sometimes ''not at all”) - I feel a train to you (Polish ''pociąg” means both ''a train” and''attraction, inclination”. Also, Poles have many problems with distinguishing ''lend” and ''borrow”, as there is only one verb use in both of those meanings (''pożyczyć”). They also confuse ''tongue” and „language” (again, only one Polish word with two meanings). And, of course, there is a whole list od words that sound similar in English and Polish, but mean completely diffferent things (like ''actual”, which sounds much like ''aktualnie”(currently)). |
Gosia 2010-08-19 14:02 | [quote:kurt]I think that Polish learners tend to copy the grammar structures nad expression into English and translate everything too directly. Here are some of funny examples of common mistakes made in Polish-English: -thank you from the mountain! (pol. expression''dziękuję z góry”=thank you in advance) -Hasn’t for what! (pol. Expression „nie ma za co”, means more or less ''you're welcome” or sometimes ''not at all”) - I feel a train to you (Polish ''pociąg” means both ''a train” and''attraction, inclination”. Also, Poles have many problems with distinguishing ''lend” and ''borrow”, as there is only one verb use in both of those meanings (''pożyczyć”). They also confuse ''tongue” and „language” (again, only one Polish word with two meanings). And, of course, there is a whole list od words that sound similar in English and Polish, but mean completely diffferent things (like ''actual”, which sounds much like ''aktualnie”(currently)). [/quote] I would add confusing numbers: Polish „miliard” is English „billion”. There are loads of funny examples on the Internet, you can type in Google for example: ,,Najczęstsze błędy popełniane przy tłumaczeniu angielskiego" (most common mistakes in translating into English") and then have some fun while trying to decipher it (if you learn Polish). |
malwinaflower 2011-01-09 13:17 | I think that the most common mistakes are made with phrasal verbs and prepositions. All those take off, take on, take out etc make Polish people confused. When it comes to prepositions, they are totally unpredictable in English and many of them do not cover Polish translation adequately, i.e. "I woke up AT 8", and in Polish is "Obudziłem się O 8"; "I live AT the Krakowska street" - "Mieszkam NA ulicy Krakowskiej". |
sara.w 2011-04-17 19:45 | I agree that prepositions are a tough row to hoe for every Pole, but I would say, from my own experience, that more basic things are tougher to understand, especially for younger learners, e.g. Present Perfect, Past Perfect and their Continuous forms. It's hard to explain these tenses to children, because there are no real equivalents of them in Polish language. |