Matching Tracksuits

Month: June 2004

Soccer Religion

Wednesday 30 June 2004

After having written a short review of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (Okay, I admit it – I have to stoop to some pretty low levels in my English reading while in Poland), I recently received the oddest letter from a complete stranger. The subject line: The DaVinci [sic] Code and The DA Revelation of Avatar Adi Da Love-Ananda Samraj

Dear Gary,

My name is John Forth from Melbourne Australia. I got your e-address from Amazon reviews.

The DaVinci [sic] Code is an interesting book on an important theme: namely the suppression [sic] of the gnostic [sic] strain in Christianity. A suppresion [sic] which has turned out to be a disaster for ALL beings on this planet.

With that in mind please check out The Divine Revelation of Avatar Adi Da Love-Ananda Samraj at:

1. www.adidam.org

2. www.adi-da-samraj.org

A Prophetic Criticism of the “Great” Religions (essays on how non-gnostic [sic] essentially materialist Christianity took over) at:

3. http://www.dabase.net/proofch6.htm

Grace Shines

John Forth

My response, after checking out the links he’d provided, was short: “What exactly does The Da Vinci Code – which is a horrid book filled with historical errors – have to do with a New Age cult?” Of course I knew such a reply was antagonistic enough to get another response out of him. In other words, I realized I was childishly provoking him, but I couldn’t help it. After all, it’s not every day that you get to speak to a cult apologist.

Mr. Forth replied:

Dear Gary,

Thankyou [sic] for your response.

IF you do your hope work you will discover that Adidam or The Way of the Heart created by Adi Da Samraj is not a “new age” cult. Christianity is a cult. Every body belongs to numerous cults. A cult being a group of people from the very small or in the billions fascinated by some object of desire or fascination.

Please check out “Beyond The Cultic Tendency in Religion—-” at: http://www.dabase.org/cultic.htm

You could say that the fascination with the Davinci [sic] Code is a cultish [sic] phenomenon [sic]. AS are the cults associated with The Lord of the Rings, the Matrix films, Star Trek etc etc [sic] Perhaps the relevance to Adidam is that Adi Da addresses in a very real way some of the themes, especially the repressed gnostic [sic] elements of early christianity [sic], mentioned in the Davinci [sic] Code.

Grace Shines

John Forth

Leaving aside the question of what “home work” Mr. Forth thought I was supposed to have done, I took him up on his offer and read – or rather, scanned – the piece Mr. Forth recommended, written by none other than the guru himself: Avatar Adi Da Samraj.

It was full of Things Not Normally Capitalized which were written in Capital Letters to express Their Importance (though he did restrain from some cult/sect writers’ typographical IDOCYCRIES), and basically filled with nonsensical Eastern guru babble. (I’m not suggesting that Eastern wisdom is just “babble,” just this particular “wisdom.”) Some choice quotes:

  • The relationship to Me that is Described (by Me) in the Ruchira Avatara Gita is not an exoteric cultic matter. It is a profound esoteric discipline, necessarily associated with real and serious and mature practice of the “radical” Way (or root-Process) of Realizing Real God, Which Is Reality and Truth. Therefore, in the Ruchira Avatara Gita, I am critical of the ego-based (or self-saving, and self-“guruing”, rather than self-surrendering, self-forgetting, self-transcending, and Divine-Guru-Oriented) practices of childish, and, otherwise, adolescent, and, altogether, merely exoteric cultism.
  • Just so, the cult of religious and Spiritual fascination tends to be equally righteous about maintaining fascinated faith (or indiscriminate, and even aggressive, belief) in the merely Parent-like “Divine” Status of one or another historical individual, “God”-Idea, religious or Spiritual doctrine, inherited tradition, or force of cosmic Nature.

The piece mainly dealt with the issue of “cultism,” which Adi Da claims is endemic in all religions – except his own, of course. His is the antidote to cults. Clever move: take critics’ charges and aim the back at them.

Next step, I decided to do my “homework” that Mr. Forth took me to task for not having done – particularly easy with Google. Soon I was flooded with information about Adi Da, Daism, and assorted goodies.

The Guru

I was initially not sure whether to call this charlatan “Franklin Jones” or “Adi Da.” Indeed, Jones himself cannot seem to make up his mind as far as names go. (names.adida.org) Continually referring to him as Jones makes his claims seem particularly absurd, but since they are currently published under the name, it seems to make contextual sense to call him “Adi Da.” In the end, I just oscillated back and forth.

I found out that – surprise, surprise – “Adi Da” is in fact Franklin Jones, a sixty-something Long Island born “guru” who has been holed up for over twenty years in Fiji , where he dispenses his Eastern-tinged “Crazy Wisdom” (his term, not mine) selflessly. I scanned a bit of his stuff and it was quickly evident that the guy is a fraud.

Jones’ religion, his “Crazy Wisdom,” is not a Siddhartha-type Western understanding of Buddhism, something which might raise the eyebrows a bit of a true Eastern master but cause no real consternation. In other words, it’s not some new meditation method, some slightly commercialized take on yoga (i.e., twelve positions for the supermarket checkout counter). Nothing so insignificant as that.

The claim that Jones make – the heart of his religion – is that he is an Avatar. A human manifestation of God. To frame it in Western terms, Jones makes the same claim Jesus did: that he is God incarnate. As he explains it:

I Am the Divine Heart-Master of every one, and of all, and of the All of all. Therefore, I Call upon every one (and all) to rightly and positively understand My Divine Self-Revelation. And I Call upon every one (and all) to truly devotionally recognize Me, and to responsively demonstrate that devotional recognition of Me in the
context of, and by Means of, the right, true, full, and fully devotional, and really counter-egoic, practice of the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam (www.dabase.org)
.

He is the Set Apart Guide (I can’t help lapsing into some Jones-esque capitalization) for All those Who want to Know the Way. The Way, coincidentally, is Jones himself, so his teaching amounts to how to recognize he is God. Indeed, followers are given instructions that the best way to forget about ego is to meditate on Jones, and since he’s living it up in Fiji and not physically available to all his followers, they’re provided with a photo album to help with the visualization!

Salvation, it seems, is based on fantasizing about a fat, bald, literally slimey-looking (just scroll down a bit) New Yorker with glaucoma.

The only Liberating discovery is that My Avataric Divine Spiritual Presence is Real, able to be tangibly experienced under any and all circumstances. It is not about imagining My Spiritual Presence or manipulating yourself. None of that is satisfying, in any case. To searchlessly [sic] Behold Me and, in the midst of it, to notice My Spiritual Presence tangibly moving upon you in your real experience–this is the great and Liberating discovery, the only Satisfaction. Ultimately, it is the only Satisfaction in life. Everything else is temporary, conditional, ego-based, and disheartening. Only the discovery of the tangible Reality of That Which Is Divine is heartening and Liberating and Satisfactory (adidam.org).

The practice is searchless, ego-forgetting, altogether to-Me-turned Beholding of Me in My bodily (human) Divine Form. When you are not in My physical Company, you can recollect My bodily (human) Divine Form. You can use My Murti-Form, My Padukas, and so on. Persisting in this practice, there is the potential of moving Me to Bless you further. [March 24, 2003] (adidam.org)

I closed my eyes and pictured him for a few moments and the only result I got was a chill running down my back and a brief
paranoia that, like the catchy melody of the latest pop trash hit, the image would keep popping back into my head unwanted.The Suckers and VictimsThe case of Franklin Jones and his AdidDaSes (the name “Adi Da” supposed just came to him; perhaps he just glanced down at someone’s athletic shoes) would be more comic than anything if it weren’t for the people that follow him. The difference between a cult leader and a raving schizophrenic homeless man in a subway station is that someone has taken the former seriously, and that’s a frightening thought. What makes a cult tragic is of course the devoted, mindless followers.Jones’ website speaks of “turning to him,” of “recognizing him,” of “loving him.” It’s scary stuff. But the words are not half as scary as the pictures – images from the inside workings of a cultic compound. Imagine David Koresh made pictures available of what went on in Waco. It might look something like this:And what’s worse is the fact that there are children being raised on this bullshit. Children of followers living on Jones’ Fiji island paradise are taught from birth (i.e., primarily socialization) that this snake-oil salesman is God. It’s difficult enough to deprogram adults who have surrendered (voluntarily or not) their grip on reality, but these poor kids will never have had a firm understanding of reality to begin with, and they’re going to be warped for life. It’s nothing short of child abuse, but unfortunately, such child abuse is legal.Thus armed, I dashed off a quick reply to Mr. Forth:

I read the piece to which you sent me the link, and I found this passage:

All cults, whether sacred or secular, thrive on indulgence in the psychology (and the emotional rituals) of hope, rather than on actual demonstration of counter-egoic and really ego-transcending action.

What is the difference between this “indulgence in the psychology [. . .] of hope” and what Adi Da offers? His form of TM simply offers the hope of getting in touch with true reality.

I suppose, to some degree, as an atheist I would agree. Any time we seek from a religion something beyond what we experience in our senses, quantitatively confirmable through science, we are indulging in “the psychology [. . .] of hope.”

Further, I would go so far as to say that Da is exploiting this “psychology [. . .] of hope” to build up his own cult. And for the record, I am using “cult” in the sociological sense of the term. Like Jim Jones (though I don’t know that Da will go so far), he has holed himself up in a remote corner of the world and refuses contact with outsiders.

Concerning this, Ken Wilber asks,

[Da’s] claim, of course, is that he is the most enlightened person in the history of the planet. Just for argument, let us agree. But then what would the most  enlightened World Teacher in history actually do in the world? Hide? Avoid? Run? Or would that teacher engage the world, step into the arena of dialogue, meet with other religious teachers and adepts, attempt to start a universal dialogue that would test his truths in the fire of the circle of those who could usefully challenge  him. At the very least, a person who claims to be the World Teacher needs to get out in the world, no? (www.beezone.com)

Indeed, what does the Dali Lama think of Da? How is he received in, say, India? Yes, yes, I know that some notables (most disturbing, Allan Watts) have given credence to Da’s claim, but as far as I know, true spiritual leaders don’t have much to do with him.

When I wrote this, I was still unaware of the extent of Jones’ claims to be God. As such, it’s a little flawed, for there does indeed exist a Gnostic element in Daism – the knowledge that a fat New Yorker is God.

Now, as far as this and some connection to that horrid The Da Vinci Code, I still fail to see the  connection. Gnosticism was not about mystical meditation but instead knowledge. “Gnosis” means “knowledge,” not meditation. The Da Vinci Code attempts to rehabilitate the idea of the sacred feminine – goddess worship, in other words – and not Christian mysticism. If that’s what Brown were trying to do in writing “DC” he would have written about, say, Father Pio. Instead, he wrote about Mary Magdalene, the “proper” object of veneration in Christianity as it was originally formulated.

In closing, I’d like to thank you for your emails, and encourage you, if you are involved in Adi Da’s cult, to get yourself out as fast as possible.

I never heard from Mr. Forth again. I suppose he realized that time trying to convert me was not time well spent, and I imagine he’s off emailing other people who submitted reviews of The Da Vinci Code to Amazon.com.The Ultimate Sell: YourselfOne question remains: to what degree does Franklin Jones believe his own nonsense? There are two equally disturbing possibilities. The first is that he simply knows that he’s a charlatan and realizes it’s all a big scam. This seems unlikely, for a conscious con-man, no matter how good he is, eventually slips up.The second possibility is that he thinks he is God. This simply means he belongs in an asylum. Indeed, the only difference between Franklin Jones and the probably uncountable number of Jesuses, Buddhas, Thors, and Jehovahs sitting around in state hospitals is that  Jones hasn’t been locked away. You can almost imagine a large nurse reassuring a pajama-clad Jones, “Yes, Mr. Jones, I know that my salvation rests on perfect contemplation of you. Now be a sweetie and take your medicine . . .”

Looking

Saturday 19 June 2004

Looking for a verse for our wedding.

Libation

Friday 18 June 2004

There are several drinks one associates with Poland. Surprisingly, tea is one of them. I say “suprisingly” because tea is too English to fit into Polish society, but fit it does.

But who wants to read about tea?

Coffee is another story altogether. In Poland they drink their coffee Turkish style. They simply put coffee grounds in a cup and add water.  No filter, so there’s a sludge (not to be confused with sledz) in the bottom of the cup. My friend’s uncle does strange things with his coffee grounds: He eats them.  He puts eight or nine teaspoons of sugar in his coffee (or rather, he pours a little water of his sugar and coffee ground mixture), then eats the stuff at the bottom of the glass.

“Glass?  Don’t you mean, ‘cup?'” you might be asking yourselves. No, I mean glass. Most often coffee is served in a glass, much like we would drink soda from in the States. In other words, there’s no handle. I think it is actually rather dangerous, because it’s very easy to burn my tender hands holding a glassful of hot coffee. But most Poles just grab the glass, and don’t wince at all.

Vodka

I’m not sure I’d ever drunk vodka straight before I came to Poland. Since coming to Poland, I’ve drunk a fair amount of it (comparatively speaking), but I still don’t like it.

Vodka accounts for many of the little surprises I’ve noticed around here — missing fingers, for instance. Many men in Lipnica have part or all of one or more fingers missing. I knew fairly early on that this would be a result of carelessness in one of the many sawmills in the village, but I thought, “Come on, simple carelessness doesn’t account for it.” Then I saw a man covered with wood chips and sawdust come into a shop and buy a half-liter of vodka.

As far as straight drinking goes, though, Poles, while they out-drink Americans to a lip-numbing degree, are teetotalers in comparison to Russians. I once saw a documentery in Poland, called Z?ota Ryba (“The Golden Fish”), about vodka in Russia. It showed a home distillary that produced 140 proof (i.e., 70% alcohol) vodka that even Grandma was tossing back by the full glass (Not a shot glass, mind you, but the size Poles use for coffee and tea.), without a chaser.

Poles make their own vodka too — to a degree. It’s a tradition to use pure spirits to make wedding vodka. (Kinga’s father and I made it for ours.)

Still, buying spirits and dilluting them is one thing; making your own spirits is quite another.

The Linguistics of Vodka

Vodka in Polish is “wódka.” A perfectly normal word, but its derivation is strange.

First, a bit about diminutives. A grammatical “diminutive,” for those who don’t know what it is and don’t want to look it up, is used to denote the smallness of or fondness towards a particular thing.

In English, we don’t really have them. We might preface some noun with “little” (as in, that’s a nice little dog), or even use “little” in conjunction with “cute” or “sweet.”

In Polish, though, you actually change the word, usually adding “ek,” “ka,” or “ko” to masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns respectively. In the example above, a Pole might say “piesek” as the diminutive form of “pies.”

Poles have diminutive forms of first names as well. You seldom call a friend named Piotr by that name, but instead use “Piotrek,” or if you’re his mother, “Piotru?.” It’s similar to the change from “Thomas” to “Tommy,” I suppose.

Now, back to “wódka.” If you notice, it ends in “ka,” meaning it is, in fact, the diminutive of some feminine noun. What word could that be? Why, it’s none other than “woda,” or “water.”

Beer

I’ll never forget the first time I saw it: standing in a shop at seven in the morning, waiting to buy something for breakfast, I watch a man come in, buy a beer, down it in one long gulp (for lack of a better word), put the bottle on the counter and walk out. Seven in the morning.

It’s safe to say that beer is viewed somewhat differently in Poland than in the States. In fact, when someone in Poland says, “I haven’t drunk in two days!” I take that to exclude beer. “I haven’t drunk vodka in two days,” is what he probably means.

Matura Results

Sunday 13 June 2004

Matura — that’s something that happened that I haven’t mentioned. This year we failed nine. NINE!! On the first day we had four in a row that just sat there like rocks. Both the Ws were mumbling dolts when they managed to get something out (all three — I know A was related, but still), and there was one more we failed, though I can’t remember whom. Four in a row. It was amazing. Then Danuta got to fail that ass in 4b — W or P, I can’t remember which, though I think it’s the latter. Two from class 4d as well.

Then last week, Monday through Wednesday, we had the practice matura. It’s been hell grading it, but I’ve survived so far. I still have about seventeen to finish, and then I have to go back with 2b and 2c and grade the short writing, but that’s relatively quick and painless. But I have basically stopped writing in the margins — it just takes too much damn time.

I prepared a sample matura answer for them:

Dear Bob,

I hope you are doing well. I apologize for not writing, but I’ve been very busy at school and I haven’t had any free time. All I do is study, study, study.

“What am I studying?” you ask. English. You see, in Poland we have to take exams to graduate from high school, and one of them has to be in a foreign language. I chose English because I hate German. Who can speak a language with words three kilometers long? Anyway, one of the reasons I’m writing you (you see — it’s not just because I’m nice) is to ask you to send me some materials in English to help me study. Anything will suffice: magazines, newspapers, old books.

It’s important that I do well on my exam because I want to study English after high school. I’m thinking about being a translator. If I do well on my exams, I’ll have a better chance of getting into a good university. Of course, if I were rich, I could just come live with you in England for a year and then I’d be fluent.

I recently started thinking about what I’m going to do for vacation. I know that nothing can compete with that amazing vacation we had last year: two weeks in Fiji. What a dream! I guess once in a lifetime is enough. Anyway, do you have any plans? Perhaps we should do something? Maybe somewhere in Europe?

I’d better be going now. I hope to hear from you soon.

Regards,
XYZ

P.S. I heard Mark got a new job as a photographer. His dream job — I’m sure he’s still smiling. Send him my regards and tell him I’ll be looking for his photos in the Times!

Unfortunately, it’s too long. Oh well.

I’ve determined, though, that these kids just don’t know how to write, and that that’s my fault. I have to give more writing assignments, even though I don’t want to. And I have to get them to a point where they can begin checking their own work.

Polish

Friday 11 June 2004

Polish is, beyond a doubt, the most difficult language I’ve ever attempted to learn. In a way, that’s not saying much: I “studied” Spanish in high school and French in college; living in Boston, I began learning a little Russian until the novelty wore off; in Poland, I decided to learn some Greek. But Polish puts them all to shame.

Polish is difficult and strange — even Poles will admit that. The pronunciation is tongue-warping and the grammar is unbelievable.

I recall an instance when four teachers — three German teachers and an English teacher — were writing an official letter of thanks and spent a good three to five minutes discussing how a particular word should be declined (i.e., which ending should be used). One of them looked at me and said, “You see, Gary, you’re not the only one who has problems with this hopeless language.” In fact, I’ve often seen teachers who are preparing some formal paper or task asking the Polish teachers whether something should be this way or that in a given case.

What follows is a basic outline of why Polish is so difficult.

Declension

In English, word order is an essential grammatical element. We know in the sentence “The dog bit John” that the dog did the biting, and not John, from the position of “The dog” in the sentence.

Polish, however, is an inflected language and that means that word order has no effect on the meaning of the sentence. In Polish, you could just as easily order the words, “John bit the dog” without any change in meaning. For that matter, “Bit John the dog” and “The dog John bit” are possible as well.

So how are they differentiated? By their ending. In Polish (in all highly inflected languages) you indicate a word as a direct object, an indirect object, a subject, or whatever by adding a suffix according to a given pattern.

An example may help. Imagine in English that subjects ended in “-doj” and direct objects ended in “-aldi.” Our sentence would then look like this: “The dogdoj bit Johnaldi.” In that case, “Bit Johnaldi the dogdoj” would have the same meaning, as would the following:

  • “Johnaldi bit the dogdoj.”
  • “Johnaldi the dogdoj bit.”
  • “The dogdoj Johnaldi bit.”
The genitive case singular ending of “non-alive” nouns, either -u or -a, is decided by the morphology of the noun, not by its meaning.
Polish: An Essential Grammar by Dana Bielec, page 109.

English does indeed have a bit of declension. Some examples:

  • “-ed” to a verb to make it past tense
  • “-s” to make a noun plural
  • “-ing” to make a verb a gerund (i.e., “Swimming is a healthy activity.”)
  • “-er” and “-est” in the comparative and superlative forms
  • “-‘s” to denote possession (i.e., “Samantha’s mother left for Switzerland.”)

By and large, though, English is not an inflected language. “The dog bit John” and “John bit the dog” are very different sentences as a result.

An inflected language uses cases to differentiate functions and forms. Greek has four cases. German, I believe, has five.

Polish has seven:

Case

Use

Nominative caseThe subject of a sentence
Accusative caseThe direct object of a positive sentence
Genitive caseTo denote possession (i.e., “That’s George’s bag.”)
The direct object of a positive sentence for some verbs
The direct object of a negative sentence
For quantities of five and above (more later)
Locative caseTo specify location after certain prepositions
Instrumental caseTo denote the method or tool used to do something
Dative caseThe indirect object of a sentence
Vocative caseUsed in addressing people (i.e., Did you take it, George?)

These changes even occur to names, providing a clear example of the complexities of Polish grammar.

Case

Example

 
Nominative caseTo jest Bill Clinton.This is Bill Clinton.
Accusative caseLubi? Billa Clintona.I like Bill Clinton.
Genitive caseSzukam Billa Clintona.I’m looking for Bill Clinton.
Locative caseMy?l? o Billu Clintonie.I’m thinking about Bill Clinton.
Instrumental caseRozmawiam z Billem Clintonem.I’m talking with Bill Clinton.
Dative caseDa?em Billowi Clintonowi.I gave Bill Clinton… (s’thing).
Vocative caseWzi??e?, Billu?Did you take it, Bill?

Because of declension, the word order doesn’t make any difference. For example, if you want to stress that you gave it to Bill as opposed to George, you could say, with the proper vocal inflection to stress it, “Billowi da?em.”

-a is a feminine ending, so such nouns[, which are masculine nouns but in fact have feminine endings,] are declined as feminine in the singular but as masculine in the plural.
Polish: An Essential Grammar by Dana Bielec, page 85

But learning Polish grammar is not simply a matter of remembering some endings, for all nouns in Polish have a gender (as in German, French, Spanish, etc.), so you have to learn a hell of a lot of endings.

  • Three genders
  • Seven cases
  • Singular and plural

So when you utter a Polish noun, there are forty-two possible endings, depending on whether it’s singular or plural, masculine, feminine or neuter, and whichever case is necessary.

And the exceptions, for some forms are exactly the same except in given cases.

  • The accusitive plural and the nominative plural of neuter nouns are identical, but feminine and masculine nouns are different.
  • The female genetive and locative cases are the same for singular nouns but not for plural nouns.

Aside from that nonsense, there are various considerations for exceptions. Is it a masculine alive noun? Does it end in “a”?

The genitive case [. . .] is used [. . .] For the accusitive case in (a) masculine singular/plural nouns denoting men and (b) singular nouns denoting living creatures [and] for the direct object of a negative verb[, as well as] after the number five and upwards.
Polish: An Essential Grammar by Dana Bielec, page 106

Genitive Case

My favorite case (I never thought I’d say that) is the genitive case — it shows just how absolutely, astoundingly, and weirdly arbitrary Polish grammar is.

To being with, the genitive case is used for the direct object in negative sentences (as opposed to the standard accusitive). In other words, if you say, “I don’t like cabbage,” the form of “cabbage” would be different than in the positive sentence, “I like cabbage.”

Lubi?kapust?.I like cabbage.
Nie lubi?kapusty.I don’t like cabbage.

It is also used for quantities of five and above. That means there are two plural forms. If you say “I ate two dinner rolls,” you use one form; if you say “I ate five dinner rolls” you use a different form. In English, it would be like saying, “Martin has four brothers.” “No, he has five brotherid.” The “dinner roll” example in Polish looks like this:

Zjad?em jedna bu?keI ate one dinner roll.
Zjad?em cztery bu?ki.I ate four dinner rolls.
Zjad?em pi?c bu?ek.I ate five dinner rolls.

But that’s not all. Once you get to twenty, it’s only for numbers that contain the actual with the word “five,” “six,” “seven,” etc. that use the genitive case. Returning to the dinner roll example, we see how the plural form switches back and forth:

Quantity

Form

1 – 4bu?ki
5 – 20bu?ek
21 – 24bu?ki
25 – 30bu?ek
31 – 34bu?ki
35 – 40bu?ek

Given all there is to think about, it’s no surprise that I once compared my speaking Polish to clear-cutting a forest, or strip mining.

Verbs

All Polish verbs come in pairs: an imperfective and a perfective form. The imperfective form is for actions not completed or for regularly occurring actions; the perfective form is for completed actions and one-time actions.

It’s like an attempt to make up for Polish’s lack of tenses, for Polish only has present, past, and future tenses. (English has twelve tenses, mind-blowing for beginners in Poland.) For instance, using the imperfective form in the past tense is equivalent to using past continuous in English: I was doing something (i.e., an interrupted, incomplete action).

The forms themselves can get crazy. The future tense of the imperfective form is created with the future form of “be” (i.e., “I will be” in English) with the past form of the imperfective form of the main verb itself. In other words, you literally say, “I will be went” in Polish, which is why that particular, odd construction appears often with Polish learns of English.

The perfective/imperfective pairing is all fine and good, but what it means from a practical point of view is that learners of Polish have to learn twoPolish verbs for every one English verb. Often they’re quite similar. “Do” for example is “robi?” in the imperfective form and “zrobi?” in the perfective form. But some of them are completely different:

 ImperfectivePerfective
to find outdowiadywa? si?dowiedzie? si?
to leave on footwychodzi?wyj??
to takebra?wzi??
to watchogl?da?obejrze?
(How the hell do I pronounce all that?)

Polish verbs, like verbs in French, German, Spanish, Italian, etc., change their form according to the person. English does too, but only in present simple: “I go” but “He goes.” In Polish, they all change. For present tense there are twenty different verb ending patterns, though they are, by and large, similar. For example, almost all first person singular (“I”) verbs in Polish end in “-?” or “-am.” Almost all third person plural forms (“they”) end in “-?” with some of the adding a “j” before it (i.e., “-j?”).

The past tense is another story altogether, for its forms are gender sensitive. For example, the first person singular form for a man takes the ending “-?em” and the first person singular form for a woman takes the ending “-?am.” The stem for this comes from the third person singular present tense form. It would be like taking “goes” in English and adding “-ed” for a man and “-eda” for a woman. Sam would say “I goesed” whereas Samantha would say “I goeseda.”

Occasionally the stem even changes between masculine and feminine forms. Stem for “go” in the past for a male is “szed” whereas for a woman it is simply “sz.”

The full pattern is:

Past Tense Conjugation of “i??” (“go”)*

 SingularPlural
MasculineFeminineMasculineFeminine
First personszed?emsz?amszli?mysz?y?my
Second personszed?e?sz?a?szedli?ciesz?y?cie
Third personszed?sz?aszedlisz?y
 * Literally “i??” is “to go once, by foot.”

In the plural forms, the feminine conjugation is used only when there areabsolutely no males in the group. One male, and you have to use the masculine form — a reflection of Polish society’s highly patriarichal standard.

Oddites of Polish Vocabulary

  • The words for “sky” and “blue” are related. Nothing particularly odd about that until you take into account that “heaven” and “sky” are the same words in Polish: niebo. This means that in church, when the priest makes reference to “our heavenly father,” he’s also saying, “our blue father.”
  • The words for “lock,” “zipper,” and “castle” are all the same:zamek.
  • “Wódka” (pronounced “vood-ka” — “vodka,” obviously) is related to the word “woda” (“water”) and could be translated “water-let” (as in piglet). (Read more)
  • There are at least six words that can be translated “go.” The difference lies in three factors:
    • is it a habitual journey or a one-time affair;
    • is it by foot or by vehicle;
    • is it a completed action or not?
  • The word for “door” (“dzwi,” pronounced “jrvee”) exists only in the plural form, like “trousers” or “scissors” in English (which, too, exists only plural in Polish). Other only-plural examples include the Polish words for:
    • birthday,
    • ice cream,
    • holiday,
    • back (i.e., part of the body), and
    • rake.
  • The words for “pigeon” and “dove” are the same, resulting in students coming up with an interesting construction: Pigeons of Peace.

The Other Hand

One great thing about Polish is it’s phonetic. There are some similar-sounding letters (for example “ó” and “u,” or “?” and “si”), but by and large, you don’t find the nonsense you find in English, where “g” pronounced like “j” one time, and like “g” another.

Similarities

For a language that likes to cluster a lot of consonants around a single vowel, Polish has a lot of word pairs in which the meaning is quite different (even completely opposite), but the orthographic difference is a single vowel, often simply the addition of “y”:

PolishPronunciationMeaning
przesz?o??pshesz-woshchpast
przysz?o??pshisz-woshchfuture
   
wej?cievay-shchebuilding entrance
wyj?cievi-shchhebuilding exit
   
wjazdvyazdvehicular entrance
wyjazdvy-jazdvehicular exit
   
wyk?advi-kwadlecture
wk?advkwadrefill
   

The most troublesome is przesz?o?? // przysz?o?? — when explaining grammar in Polish to first year students, one slip of the tongue and suddenly you have some momentarily confused students. “But I thought this was a pasttense, not a future tense!”

Of course if you’re driving, wyjazd/wjazd might be disastrously confusing . . .

All quotes are from Polish: An Essential Grammar by Dana Bielec, as well as details about declension. (You don’t think I could have written all stuff off the top of my head, do you?! I can’t remember all the details, and that’s why I speak Polish like an idiot.)

Information about verbs comes from Prawie Wszystko o Czsowinku (Almost Everything About Polish Verbs) by Dorota Drewnowska and Ma?gorzata Kujawske, as do the declension examples with Bill Clinton.

Both are excellent resources.