Talk:Polish phrasebook

Formatting

Is there any smart (and accepted) way to put more text on a page? For example to have 'Pronunciation guide' displayed in two columns?

Scrolling several pages to find something is rather annoying. I believe that if somebody prints phrasebook, can be also a bit unhappy because of number of pages used (and carrying them and searching among them). -- (WT-en) JanSlupski 17:25, 14 Apr 2004 (EDT)

I have copied this question to Wikivoyage:Travellers' pub. Please answer there. -- (WT-en) JanSlupski 12:54, 15 Apr 2004 (EDT)

• Ok, I've made an attempt to redesign layout of phrasebook. In general I want to test if two-columns display will be acceptable. You can check out (and comment) on User:(WT-en) JanSlupski/Projects/Polish_phrasebook -- (WT-en) JanSlupski 12:12, 19 Jan 2005 (EST)

Past issues

Polish phrasebook

Ok. Somebody must start.

So I'm going to start Polish phrasebook.

I'll try to add at least 10 phrases every day, and slowly fill the template I just copied.

And some day (I hope with help of others) that text & all template comments will disapear.

Now, move ahead (slowly).

Please note, I have no skills in writing, or so, so fill free to correct all mistakes you find (especially pronunciation may be weak)

The above comments were added by (WT-en) JanSlupski when the page was first created at 12:23, on 6 Apr 2004. I think the phrasebook has reached a stage where they can be removed. -- (WT-en) Huttite 06:37, 10 Apr 2004 (EDT)

Yep. Actually, they can be removed any time. We don't usually have editorial comments on article pages; that's what talk pages are for, after all. --(WT-en) Evan 14:07, 10 Apr 2004 (EDT)

Comments now removed from article -- (WT-en) Huttite 18:35, 10 Apr 2004 (EDT)

---

About the pronunciation guide:

1. In American English, father and lot are the same sound. In British English, they are different (ignoring the many dialects in both). Which way are you pronouncing them?
2. Do you pronounce boot and look the same?
3. In English, when r is pronounced, it is retroflex. (Different dialects drop different r's, thus I saw an eyesore in one dialect sounds like I sore an eyesaw in another.) In French, German, and Dutch, it's gargled. AFAIK all other European languages use the trilled or flap r. What sort of r do you pronounce red with?
4. Is ch closer to English heat or Russian хитро? -(WT-en) phma 00:16, 16 Apr 2004 (EDT)

Answers:

1. Ok, I would say that 'a' is as America, Alamo, etc.
2. Nearly? Ok, I know that me with my not-so-good English miss much details of pronunciation, that are absent in Polish. So as I said I'm not the best person to create phrasebook and especially pronunciation. I hope, somebody will correct it some day. When I have a chance, I will try to work (live) on these examples with some American or Englishman.
   By than I would say that 'u' & 'ó' is as moon for example...
3. My knowledge of technical aspects of pronunciation is very weak, so I'm unable to say what category it is. For sure it is quite different than in French. Maybe that will help you understand, that there is large number of people with speech defect that cannot pronounce 'r' right.
4. Again, I don't see much difference between these two. Historically 'h' & 'ch' was different sounds. Currently they are ponounced identically (maybe in some dialects there is still slightly difference). hotel, horse...

I found some Polish online course, that I cannot use directly, as it is copyrighted, but it may help you understand way of Polish pronuncioation.

• http://golem.umcs.lublin.pl/users/ppikuta/lessons/lessidx.htm

And huge thanks for your help... -- (WT-en) JanSlupski 11:32, 16 Apr 2004 (EDT)

Online dictionaries

Cjensen, that was a bit of an overreaction: full-featured online dictionaries are a useful resource and not something a phrasebook can hope to replace. Examples of kickass ones include Lexitron in the Thai phrasebook and WWWJDIC in the Japanese phrasebook.

I do agree that three are too many: somebody who speaks Polish should choose the best of the bunch. And we don't need self-proclaimed dictionaries on somebody's homepage that contain only 500 words or whatever. (WT-en) Jpatokal 04:11, 7 Mar 2005 (EST)

Well, I read the phrasebook template where it said the learning more section was for stuff like classes or textbooks. So it was really about learning the language. So it seems like a dictionary does not fit in the current definition. However, if in your opinion dictionaries are helpful, you have my complete support to edit the template to add dictionaries.

And if we are allowing dictionaries, then yeah, everything you said about too many and someone needing to choose is totally right. My original intent was to just revert the self-proclaimed freelang extlinks (since they were obviously not carefully chosen), it was only upon reading the template text that I killed all. If you're willing to edit the template, I'll be happy to go through my reverts and restore dictionaries which were carefully chosen. -- (WT-en) Colin 15:14, 7 Mar 2005 (EST)

I've added the text to the template. -- (WT-en) Colin 03:19, 8 Mar 2005 (EST)

• http://portalwiedzy.onet.pl/tlumacz.html

I believe this one is good one. I use it regularly myself as a first chocie, so would recommend it. Also is the only one from listed that has French and Hebrew, and often offers some context or use examples. Unfortunatelly they started to charge money for some advanced translations (with use of specialistic dictionaries). If they go any further I would "revoke" my recommendation. Also is a bit slow often.

• http://translatica.pwn.pl/

PWN is one of the largest and oldest Polish scientific publishers. Have large experience making dictionaries as well. Their's translating of sentence seems (after a few tries) work reasnoable well. Completeness seems to be ok. This is valuable especially that I haven't seen much of such services that can do Polish.

• http://www.dict.pl/plen

Couldn't find any info what that project really is (seems to be some kind of community suported, but not "open"), but queried for a few difficult words, and I'm satisfied with the results. Also have some selection of phrases. Has some words that Onet's doesn't (at least one ;) and is ritcher than PWN's. What seems to be nice is downloadable Java midlet (for PDA or cell phone), with dictionary. Although didn't test it yet.

• http://www.freelang.com/dictionnaire/polonais.html
• http://www.freelang.net/dictionary/polish.html

These are not on-line, so usefulness is limited. I'll try to test and see how they look like after I boot to Windows (what I don't do very often). Up to your decision if downloadable dictionaries are still at all acceptable. From other hand, it is rare to find good, free dictionary, that you can use on laptop while traveling.

BTW. I got two different spellings from these dictionaries. Completeness, or completness. Which one is correct? Or is it US vs. UK spelling issue? --(WT-en) JanSlupski 14:58, 7 Mar 2005 (EST)

completness is a spelling error. -- (WT-en) Colin 15:14, 7 Mar 2005 (EST)

Please

• rz is not "a mixture of r and ż". It's the the third time somebody puts this nonsense in the article.

• The letter y (not the vowel y) is called "the Greek i" in Polish and in many other languages, (e.g. French) because it was the letter that the Romans used to transliterate Greek. But it is general knowledge, not specific to Polish and not important to a traveller.

• Please do not write about spelling in a section called "Pronunciation". Besides, no person is going to be learning spelling from a travel article anyway, so I doubt it'd be helpful.

• Czech is not any closer to Polish than Ukrainian is. On the contrary, Ukrainian has more shared words with shared meanings, whereas words shared between Polish and Czech tend to have different meanings in each language.

Thank you for understanding that. (WT-en) CandleWithHare 11:09, 27 October 2006 (EDT)

Audio files

Hi non-polish, just added some pronuntiation files, but please help place them right Borys Kozielski (talk) 21:12, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Maybe something like this:

phrase	descritpion	translation	pron.
Hello	Informal - Cześć (Tch-esh-ch)	Cześć
Hello	Formal - Dzień dobry (Jeyn Dob-ry)	Dzień dobry

Borys Kozielski (talk) 21:27, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello! It's a good idea, but our long-standing practice is that audio files are not allowed in WV's phrasebooks. The reason for this is that WV's travel guides should never include anything that cannot be printed - travelers should be able to use them in places and at moments when they are not connected to the Internet. ϒpsilon (talk) 14:17, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

ϒpsilon has accurately described standing Wikivoyage policy. Therefore, audio links in the phrasebook should be removed, and will be. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:53, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

And I did remove them; however, I have yet to find the discussion we previously had on audio files. I believe it was in a talk page for another phrasebook. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:06, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Here is one very old thread. Here and here are two newer discussions where many participants support adding audio clips to phrasebooks. ϒpsilon (talk) 11:19, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Ah yes, Image files. I was looking at the talk page for External links. I support linking audio files, but there is no consensus in favor of doing so, so far, so we can't do it "experimentally" in article space. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:21, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Yup, I remembered it because of the video discussion on the same page. ϒpsilon (talk) 17:36, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Alternative banner for this article?

Banner currently used in this article

Suggested new alternative banner

I created a new alternative banner for this article (I initially created it first and foremost so that it would be used at the top of the parallel article in the Hebrew edition of Wikivoyage, yet I later decided to also suggest that the English Wikivoyage community would consider using it here as well).

In my opinion, it would be much better to have a banner that better represents the Polish culture (traditional Polish dancing in the national costumes of Poland) for the article that focuses on the Polish language than showing Polish architecture.

Which banner do you prefer having at the top of this article? ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 13:14, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

I prefer #2. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 22:28, 30 September 2018 (UTC)