[header]Welcome to Nana's useless guide to Polish![/header]
Why did I decide to post this... I'm not sure myself. Well, I'm pretty sure some people are at least interested in the language, as to why it's fucked up enough as it is etc, so I thought I'll just post this simple guide to understanding the basics of the language. I won't post everything at once, since there's an awful lot of things to mention, but I'll update it over time.
Now, I'm pretty sure most of you will pretty much disregard this guide in educational purposes, and I don't really care, just see it as an interesting thing to know. If it piques your interest anyway.
[header]PART 1 - VERBS[/header]
Verbs are a rather crucial aspect to the polish language. In the term of usage, they don't differ much from the English verbs, but the way we modify them is a lot more complicated. The most important part is that the verbs in Polish, apart from the infinitive forms, have to refer exactly to the person/people, the gender and the time at once. Sounds complicated, so I'll just show you an example.
to do - robić
I do - robię
you do - robisz
he/she/it does - robi
we do - robimy
you do - robicie
they do - robią
I did - robiłem
you did - robiłeś
you did (female) - robiłaś
he did - robił
she did - robiła
it did - robiło
we did - robiliśmy
we did (females) - robiłyśmy
you did - robiliście
you did (females) - robiłyście
they did - robili
they did (females) - robiły
As you probably noticed by now, the verbs are so crucial we pretty much disregard the personal pronouns. That's why the usual sentence formation in our language can be written in both ways: the English one or similarly, but without the personal pronoun at all.
To clear up the marking there, let me just give you a few rules real quick.
underline - this part of a word is called the 'topic' and pretty much determines what does this verb mean, regardless of how the rest looks.
orange - this, usually 'ć', is an indication that the verb does not refer to a person or a time.
green - this part determines the person in present tense. 'ę' usually refers to 'me', 'sz' means 'you', nothing or 'e' means 'he/she/it', 'my' means 'us' (literally as well), 'cie' refers to 'you' plural and 'ą' is usually 'they'.
blue - the indication that the past tense is used. Can be either 'ł' or 'l', depending on the gender.
red - this part tells us what gender/person the sentence is about. In plural, this pretty much links with the blue letter, irreversably forming 'li' and 'ły' as components, however defining only the gender.
fuckthiscolor - this is what determines the person in plural.
The above pretty much explains how all verbs work in Polish. Worth noting, if you add the letter 'z' at the beginning of each of those, it'll change the meaning from 'did' to 'done', so something that has been finished.
[header]PART 2 - POLISH LETTERS AND SOUNDS[/header]
Polish language, being one of the Slavonic languages, involves the usage of swift, Polish-exclusive sounds and letters that help us express everything we want to. Since it's one of the languages that sound a lot... harder? sharper? than English, most of the additional sounds and letters are used to create this very form of speech.
You will find the following commonly used in Polish language:
ą - pronounced closely to /o̞/, with the finishing sound resembling something like 'oh'
ć - you can loosely compare it to 'chi', but the length between 'c' and 'i' sounds is way shorter
ę - the closest I can get to it in English is /e̞o̞/, with /o̞/ being shorter and more open
ł - imagine yourself speaking 'whatever'. The very first sound you make, so 'wh', is that exactly.
ń - try speaking 'nisemono', obviously in Japanese (since English doesn't make that sounds IIRC), the 'ni' part of it is the closest you can get
ó - something between /ɯ/ and /u/ pretty much.
ś - like 'ć', this one is similar to 'shi', but the length between 's' and 'i' is way shorter
ż - you know how to properly pronounce Jean-Claude Van Damme? The first sound of Jean (more accenting at 'j') is 'ż'.
ź - speak 'Jihad'. The first sound, so 'ji', but more with the 'z' element than 'j', is close to 'ź'.
ch - speak 'huh', this sound is something along those lines.
cz - 'tch', harder.
dz - 'kamikaze' is sometimes pronounced as 'dz' on the 'z' part.
rz - pretty much 'ż', has more of a grammar use and doesn't really sound different in pronunciation.
sz - 'sh', but harder.