fun in threes, sometimes fours
My wife and I spent the weekend in Krakow. Saturday we went for a stroll in Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter.
As I've mentioned before, Jews in Poland occupy a strange position. There are very few left in Poland today, and that's why we were able to find ourselves in an old synagogue on a Saturday.
"We shouldn't be here," I thought.
"This should still be in use. We should feel as if we're intruding, coming into the Jewish quarter on a Saturday as bumbling tourists."
I recently wrote about Polish plurals and the strange fact that there are two forms.
That was only the tip of the iceberg. The easy part of the language. Today -- how to make a Polish sentence meaningful. Or "how to make sure you say 'The dog bit John' rather than 'John bit the dog.'"
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:
English does indeed have a bit of declension. Some examples:
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.
Thanks to Oliver for the correction. Originally I'd mistakenly claimed that German has five cases.
An inflected language uses cases to differentiate functions and forms. Greek and German have four cases.
Polish has seven:
These changes even occur to names, providing a clear example of the complexities of Polish grammar. We'll use "Bill Clinton" as a direct object, indirect object, object of a preposition, etc, and see just how insane Polish is:
| Case | Example |
|---|---|
| Nominative case | To jest Bill Clinton. (This is Bill Clinton.) |
| Accusative case | Lubię Billa Clintona. (I like Bill Clinton.) |
| Genitive case | Szukam Billa Clintona. (I'm looking for Bill Clinton.) |
| Locative case | Myślę o Billu Clintonie. (I'm thinking about Bill Clinton.) |
| Instrumental case | Rozmawiam z Billem Clintonem. (I'm talking with Bill Clinton.) |
| Dative case | Dałem Billowi Clintonowi. (I gave Bill Clinton... s'thing.) |
| Vocative case | Wzia…łes›, 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 dałem."
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.
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.
Aside from that nonsense, there are various considerations for exceptions. Is it a masculine alive noun? Does it end in "a"?
is a little different than its American counterpart. We’re used to express lanes and in-and-out shopping. In some supermarkets now, you can theoretically do all your shopping without interacting with a single employee. Just swipe your ATM card at the self-check-out and off you go.
Not so in rural Poland.
Until recently, even the notion of a self-service shop was unknown. Shops were organized like the old general stores we see in westerns: a counter, with all the goods on one side behind the owner, with you on the other.
Such was the setup in Poland when I first arrived. I went to the store and instead of shopping, told the shopkeeper what I wanted, and she ran around behind the counter gathering my purchases. It was strange at first, but excellent for my early language acquisition.
There are more and more self-service shops in Poland these days, and virtually all the shops in larger towns and cities are self-service.
But the old mentality lingers:
Despite its inconvenience, I miss the old shops. You had to interact while you were shopping, and as a foreigner, the more the better.
"I'm not anti-Semitic, but I just don't trust Jews."
I was sitting in a bar with an American friend and a Polish acquaintance when the Pole, in utmost seriousness, said that. He could not be made to see the inherent contradiction in what he'd said.
"I don't really know many Jews, but I don't like them."
Thus said another Pole to me, explaining a situation he'd had earlier that week in Krakow with someone who was "obviously a Jew." He too maintained he's not anti-Semitic.
Jews in Poland occupy a strange position. Before the Holocaust, "Poland's Jewish community numbered 3.5 million, which represented 20 per cent of world Jewry and 10 per cent of the pre-war Polish population." (Source) Today, Jews number less than twenty thousand in the whole country. Most people in modern Poland have never even met a Jew.
There were so many Jews in Poland thanks to Casimir the Great's opening the borders and accepting Jews in the Middle Ages when they were being expelled from many other countries in Europe. When they began prospering, the Poles began resenting them and their success.
Contemporary anti-Semitism in Poland is fueled by far-right parties like "Liga Polskich Rodzin" ("The League of Polish Families") and the populist party "Samoobrona" ("Self-Defense"), both of which overtly and covertly blame Poland's present economic woes on Jews. They deny that there are only about sixteen or so thousand Jews in Poland, and with some on the fringes insisting that President Kwasniewski himself is of Jewish descent.
Others blame the Jews for the Second World War, saying that Hitler was particularly brutal to Poland because of the large number of Jews here. The "logic" there is baffling, but I've personally heard the argument at least once.
Anti-Semitism is not just a problem in Poland, though. Jean Marie Le Pen's surprise success in the French elections some time ago showed that nationalism and rabid xenophobia find fertile ground even in supposedly liberal France.
Anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe. A supposedly suppressed UN report that blamed "a new wave of Antisemitism on Muslim youth and on anti-globalization activists" (Listen to the NPR Report) shows that it's not just right-wing, neo-fascists who are spreading the ancient, illogical hate of Jews.
People talk of how to reduce anti-Semitism and other forms of xenophobia, but anti-Semitism seems like a hydra. It's been around for so long and taken so many forms that it seems always to be changing.
Anti-Semitism is, indeed, everywhere, and has been for ages. And despite our "enlightened" times, it appears we might be heading toward another wave of increased anti-Semitism.
In Polish, there are two plural forms for every noun.
It works like this. For numbers 2 through 4, and anything number that includes those numbers (i.e., twenty-two, thirty-five, but not eleven, twelve), there is one plural form; for numbers 5-10, there is another plural form.
“Huh?”
Exactly.
An example might help. “Piwo” is “beer” in Polish. “Two beers” would be “dwa piwa.” “Four beers” would be “cztery piwa.” But “five beers” is “pięć piw.” But at “twenty-one” (yes, I know — who needs to know how to say “twenty-one beers” in Polish?), it would change back to “piwa.” Until you decided to get really wasted and go for twenty-five, at which point you would order “dwadzieścia pięć piw.”
Another example: “Roll” in Polish is “bułka.” “Two rolls” is “dwie bułki.” At five we get the switch again: “pię bułek.” At twenty-one, it goes back to “bułki.”
Further, if you want to use a plural noun as a direct object in a positive sentence, you use the first plural form; if you want to use it as a direct object of a negative sentence, you use the second form. In other words, to say “I like rolls” you use “bułki,” but to say “I don’t like rolls,” you use “bułek.”
And Poles wonder why their language is so hard for non-Poles…
Any linguistic strangeness where you live?
What is it about the popularity lately of singing through one's nose? This one is the absolute winner, but it seems to be the "in" thing now.
I was at a bar here in Poland with a friend sometime when that atrocious Anastacia song "Paid My Dues" came on the radio. "Read all the lyrics, sorry though they may be
As Anastacia sang, my friend got that lost-in-the-moment look, then asked me, "What is this song about?"
"I don't really know," I replied. "I've never really paid much attention to it."
"But I don't get it. 'Paint my juice?' What is that supposed to mean?"
In Poland, separation of church and state doesn't exist, and priests teach religion courses in publicly funded schools.
Today I caught a student writing cheat notes on his arm for a quiz he was having in religion class!
"You realize that when you take a test and you cheat, it's the same as lying, right?" I asked him.
"How so?"
"Well, when you take a test, aren't you implicitly saying that you're taking the information only from your own knowledge?" I asked.
"I guess," he muttered.
"Then cheating is a form of lying," I concluded.
A thoughtful moment. "So?"
So, indeed.
For most of my life, I’ve awoken not having the slightest idea what I dreamt the night before. I could probably count on my fingers the number of dreams I’ve ever vividly remembered. Perhaps that’s why I’ve ever been terribly interested in dreams or their interpretation.
I’ve only once had a recurring dream. I was in second grade. It was not a time of anxiety for me, as first grade had been, and I was fairly optimistic about my prospects in life. Then suddenly, it began, and continued for at least four nights that I can remember. The same dream, every night – little or no variation.
I’m a court attendant, and I’ve recently been placed in charge of organizing a grand ball for our queen. I was given such a budget that I even did major redecorating in the ballroom, and had an enormous mirror installed on the ceiling. The chandeliers had been removed, and all the light was provided by candles along the wall. I oversaw the menu; I hand-picked the orchestra; I had a multitude of designers working on the decorations.
Finally, the evening of the ball. The guests arrived and were milling about in the ballroom, waiting for the queen’s arrival. And then – the fanfare. The queen’s footmen enter, with her close behind, elegantly dressed. “She is surely impressed with all this,” I think to myself. “It’s going to be the greatest ball ever.” And then I hear a creaking, splintering sound above us all. I look up to see that the mirror has broken apart and is falling in hundreds of pieces. I look at the queen – she’s not aware of what’s going on. I look back up, then back to the queen, thinking “Someone has got to get her out of here!” I take a step in that direction
and I always woke up at that moment.
Four nights. Maybe more.
Three of the seven classes had a test today on passive voice. You all know what “passive” means, right? You remember getting those papers back from your high school teacher with “passive” scribbled in the margin and wondering, “What the hell does that mean?”
My handy-dandy, five-step, active-to-passive transformation guide.
1. What is the main verb?
2 .What tense is the main verb in?
3. What is the direct object?
4. What is the verb “be” in the tense from question two?
5. What is the past participle of the verb from question one?
And then — 3+4+5=passive voice
If you’re a non-native English speaker reading this, I’m sure you don’t need this explained.
And that’s the irony of it all. In many ways, non-native English speakers know grammar much better than thoseof us who grew up speaking the language.
There’s a whole side of our native language that we native speakers don’t naturally know. For example, if I were to challenge most Americans to construct a sentence in present perfect continuous tense in the subjunctive voice, there might be a bit of head scratching, even thoughthey would understand the sentence, “I would have been writing this forever if you hadn’t helped.” (Yeah, thatexample is a bit awkward, but it works.)
When I first came to Poland to teach English, I had no idea about many such things. For instance, what’s wrong with the sentence, “I have done it yesterday”? Several years ago, though I was an English major in college, I would have had a hard time explaining. Now, it’s simple: “I have done it” is in present perfect tense, and present perfect tense is used for the indefinite past. “Yesterday” is fairly definite, I would say.
Back to the issue at hand: passive voice. A sentence is passive if the subject is not the “doer” of the verb. For example: A ball was thrown. They ball had nothing to do with the action — it indeed received the action. The active would be something like, “My mother threw the ball.”
Today’s test was designed to check students’ ability to change sentences from active to passive, as well as to decide when a sentence should be passive and when active. Some samples from the test:
Correct answers:
Some involved just putting the verb in the correct tense. Sort of.
Among the English-to-Polish translation (a rarity in my tests) were “tree sap” and “unleaded.” Results, thus far, are less than spectacular.
I’ve lived in Poland now for over six years, and there’s a custom I still haven’t come to terms with — the handshake.
In the States, we shake hands only when we first meet someone, or when we’re in some very formal environment. In Poland the handshake is much more common.
In short, you should shake hands with someone if:
You shake hands in bars, when you arrive at work, when you pass on the street. Kids shake hands; old men shake hands with young men; directors with teachers — everyone shakes hands.
Some examples:
But it’s not so simple as that. You’re only supposed to shake hands when you first meet each other. Other encounters during the day don’t get the shake.
Traditionally, you’re not supposed to offer your hand to a woman. Indeed, in a really traditional, formal setting, men still kiss women’s hands in Poland.
I’m still not sure when I’m supposed to offer my hand and when I’m not. Rather, I forget. I walk by an acquaintance on the sidewalk and I realize three steps too late that I only said “Czesc” and didn’t offer my hand.
As far as kissing women’s hands go, well, I just keep away. It seems too cavalier (pun intended) for me to do it.
But I kiss men here. In fact, I’ve kissed every single male teacher with whom I work. The three peck, right-cheek, left-cheek, right-cheek-again mwa-mwa-mwa kiss. The triple peck is used in congratulatory situations: name days, weddings, etc. and it’s the most difficult for me, an American, to get used to. After all, while I really like my director, I don’t want to kiss him on a regular basis. But from time to time, at a teacher�s meeting, we give a birthday gift to one of the teachers and then we all line up and mwa-mwa-mwa.
At our wedding, Kinga and I kissed almost all our guests . . .
This is going to be pretty disgusting. Fair warning.
Part of the preparation for my wedding to a Polish woman who grew up in a very rural area was a pig killing. My father-in-law bought a pig from a farmer some months before the wedding, and then about two weeks before, it was time to kill and dress the pig.
I shot some birds with a shotgun when I was little; I killed a mouse out of mercy because my cat was torturing it -- I've never seen anything quite that big killed before.
My father said "pig" is the wrong word. "It was a hog," he says.
I'll spare the gruesome details for now. What astounded me was the behavior of the butcher's grandchildren. I was sick to my stomach a few times (but taking pictures nonetheless), and they were running around as if it were a Baptist picnic.
And they sat for a moment, and I was able to get the above picture.
Ever wonder what an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) textbook looks like? I certainly did as I was preparing to come to Poland for the first time back in 1996. After all, how often do you get to see a textbook teaching something you already know fluently? Naturally, after four and a half years' experience, I've seen and used more textbooks than I care to remember. I thought I'd share a little about the books I've been using.
Most units tend to be thematic. For example, for practicing modal verbs such as "should," "must," and "have to" (among others), this particular book (and many others) use the idea of advice and "Doing the right thing."
There are certain groups of easily-confused words, and some activities are aimed at improving students' ability to choose the correct word from a similar pair. This particular book is written specifically for Polish students, and so that influenced the word choice (in other words, they might not seem like similar words in English, but they are in Polish translation, so . . .).
There are three tenses in Polish; there are twelve in English. When to use which tense can be somewhat confusing for students. Even remembering how to make them all can be difficult, so sometimes we have "easy" lessons that just make students think about how to make the tenses. (This particular exercise uses Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner," a rather popular song in Poland, making this one of the most popular lessons I've ever taught.)
Obviously, the most basic element needed to be able to use a foreign language is an adequate vocabulary.
Teaching English in Poland presented some special challenges. For instance, articles: when to use "a," when to use "an," and when to use "the." Polish doesn't have articles, so the sentence "Id? do sklepu" could be translated "I'm going to a shop" or "I'm going to the shop." Teaching students when to use which was initially very difficult.
The most difficult part, though, would be orthography: getting kids to remember that the dark part of a 24-hour period is "night" and a medieval soldier is a "knight" and they're both pronounced the same.
Today I went with Kinga (my wife, for the uninformed) and my father-in-law to Kinga’s brother’s house, which is being built just outside of Krakow. Kinga’s brother is now out of the country, so my father-in-law is taking care of the building process while he’s gone.
The house is “standing raw,” to translate directly from Polish. This means that the walls are done, the roof is done, and it’s ready for the interior finishing.
Houses here are built out of blocks and concrete, not the tooth-pick contracting familiar in America. My friend who spent some time in American working in construction said, “A house like that wouldn’t last a week here. The father would come home drunk one night and destroy the whole thing!"
Recently, the concrete for the floors was poured. There was to be five centimeters of concrete on each floor, poured over ten centimeters of Styrofoam insulation. We went to check that that was done.
“You can’t trust anyone here!” says my father-in-law. When he really gets ranting, he likes to say,
“This country has no right to exist!” and “Poland must be the richest country in the world, because everybody’s stealing and cheating, and yet there’s still something left to steal.”
So Kinga and I measured the area of all the floors while her father drilled random holes in the concrete to check its thickness. The upstairs was fine, but the downstairs floors were one centimeter too thin.
“It’s ridiculous we have to do this,” I muttered as we went throughout the whole house and measured everything. I was talking to my father-in-law about this, and he said, “Oh, it’s surely the same thing happens all over the world.”
And suddenly, we litigation-happy Americans looked pretty good, because, as I said to him, “At least in the States, you could take this guy to court for not fulfilling the contract. What can you do here?” I asked.
“Not much. We’ve already paid.” The point of all the measuring was this: the same company is supposed to come and finish the walls as well, and the hope of negotiation is what motivated the day’s measuring.
But what struck me was the fact that no contractor here has a reputation for being honest.
As my father-in-law said, “You can’t trust anyone here.”
“Michele asks in a comment if it’s “not MORE difficult to cheat in the field of English because of the essay style answers that are required?” Perhaps in theory, but remember: essays require vocabulary, which is conducive to cheating.
Explaining how students in Poland cheat leads naturally to explanations as to why they do it.
One of the reasons, I think, is the sheer number of courses they take every year. Here’s a list of courses for one third-year (senior) class:
That’s not possible courses — that’s the required course work. As opposed to the American system, where you have physics only your final year, with chemistry your junior year and biology as a sophomore, they have all three sciences throughout high school. Of course they don’t have each course every day. For example, senior students have four hours of English a week, and so they meet Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday — like the university scheduling system in the States. Still, that’s an insane amount of studying every week.
A second cause, put forth by a teacher, was historical. “Teachers during communism were seen as the Establishment, and so it was a way to fight the establishment.” Sounds weak. I don’t buy it.
Option three: the rote memory required by many teachers necessitates it. This might have some merit. I know teachers here sometimes simply dictate from a book and the students just write down everything and vomit it back up the next lesson. Admittedly, I do something similar when I give vocabulary quizzes — and I give an obscene number of such quizzes. “Without words, all the grammar in the world won’t help you!” tell the kids.
Choice four, which is the most logical now: as a fellow English teacher put it, “We let them.” Pure and simple. I do my damnedest to stop them from cheating, and I sometimes fail them for even a glance to the side (and that’s no exaggeration — I do it early in the year with first-year students, usually with a not-so-important grade, to set a precedent), and I take no excuses. And yet they still cheat.
The cheating won’t disappear soon, I’m afraid. I always use as an example the cultural attitude in the States towards cheating, but I know that that is slowing being eroded and that more and more students are cheating in the States.