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[Bogey]

[NilSatis82]

[Bogey]

[scottie1113]

[Bogey]

sorry if I came across as cantankerous.

yes, Polish most certainly differentiates between he and she.

Can you give me the exact quote/error made?

I"m curious exactly how you explain the error(s). In my experience it's basically impossible to explain other than to say - in _____ (insert language here) we say this differently.

when learning Spanish I had similar issues (literal translation from English) and it's simply thru repetition and familiarity that one simply learns and accept such things.

I never quite learned the trick (always taught) to "force yourself to think in the new/other language"

[Bogey]

[Kofola]

In my experience Slav speakers in general confuse s/he. It even occurs in advanced speakers - when they are tired, for example. I think it's because Slav languages are pro-drop ie they often omit the pronoun. I have to confess that my languages are Slovak and Russian, but I'm guessing this applies to Polish too.

eg Povedala mi to, aby som tam neisla zbytocne.
- (She) told me so (I) woudn't waste my time going there.
Nevies kolko je hodin?
- Do (you) know what the time is?

Although it is true that they use the pronouns to emphasise,

eg. Co ja viem?
What do I know?

the neutral standard phrase would drop the pronouns. The problem then is that when speaking their natural instinct is to associate the gender/person with the inflected verb and not with the pronoun and so that is where they make mistakes.

I have a similar problem with gender when speaking Slovak. Since there is no gender in English, assigning gender is not instinctive for me. The real problem is where there is no noun and the gender is therefore implied .

eg. The other day I was helping someone stamp their tickets and I asked her 'este jednu?' Except that we were talking about tickets (listok - masculine) and so I should've said 'este jeden?'

Similarly, at the opticians he asked me if the lines were clearer on the red or the black. I said 'na zelenej' (implied noun being 'farba') and he replied 'Aha na zelenom'. To this day I still haven't worked out what the implied masculine/neuter noun was!!

[Bogey]

[Richfilth]

Bogey, once you actually come over here and try teaching, you'll understand the point of this thread. Before that, it would help you to be a bit more appreciative of the years of experience us teachers in Poland already have, banging our heads against desks trying to correct the errors listed above.

Being familiar with the L1 language is a very small element of being a succesful teacher, and whilst it may contribute something of an understanding of the nature of your students' mistakes, it is still considered a cardinal sin to use any of that language in the classroom, from a TEFL perspective.

Poles are not really taught anything of language aquisition; their high schools use a brain-hammering method where they moronically repeat "komu-czemu-we-do-this, kogo-czego-we-do-that," without ever being taught to question why. This isn't a Polish-specific problem, as many EFL teachers have resorted to the answer "we do this because, just because," which never helps the student learn. This is usualy why they cannot resolve their Polishisms when learning English; they're never shown another way of thinking about things. This parroting is a tolerable method for kids; a terrible technique for teaching adults.

Consider the two pronouns "on" and "ona." One of their possessive forms are "jej" and "jego". Intuition would have us believe that "on" pairs with "jej" and "ona" pairs with "jego", but that's not the case. It's things like this that makes Polish frustrating for foreign learners, and gives an insight onto the s/he confusion other speakers have learning English.

Try teaching first, then you'll understand where we're all coming from.

[Bogey]

[Richfilth]

The on/jej ona/jego thing comes from our ability to apply patterns that might not be relevant to the situation (such as why three-year-old speakers say "eated.") In this situation, it's simply word length; the feminine pronoun has one letter more, so you would the possessive to function in the same way.

This is a feature of many languages, especially in the European family where the final letter of any word is particularly information-heavy, such as denoting gender. It explains why Poles have arbitrarily denoted a mug as male and a cup as female; their final letter demands that you treat each object as such, whatever external appearance those objects have.

Gender in Polish is a slippery game (despite the natural world only having three, Poles have managed to work out a fourth; or at least, two types of men,) and this is another clue towards the s/he problem.

The final, albeit rare, case is that English itself has some engendered objects. Aeroplanes, ships and cars, for example, are usually treated as feminine among English speakers, which goes against the grain for Poles.

I've glossed and generalised here, and I'm sure both Polish and English speakers could point to contradictions in what I've just said; however, I'll pre-empt all that by explaining that that is what makes these languages particularly irksome for their respective learners.

[scottie1113]

Bogey: re the he/she thing. We hear it every day at all levels. You'll have to experience it to believe it. Today I heard , and I'll abbreviate the conversation, "my mother made dinner. He is a good kitchen". The other students quickly corrected the speaker so I didn't have to. This was in an FCE class, but I've heard the same he/she mistake in every class I've had this week, regardless of level.

Too many examples to mention, and it's illogical, but believe me, we hear it every day at all levels.

Just wait until you step into the minefield of phrasal verbs, but that's more a function of vocabulary than grammar, though the two are intertwined. Do you listen music or call to you friends on your mobile? They do.

The "must to do/should to do" is also common. When they start to learn English in their schools, they're taught by Polish teachers who teach them flexibly that all English verbs are followed by the infinitive. "I like TO drink beer" etc. Ergo, "I must to do something" is just how they say it. Don't believe me? Spend one day in a classroom and you'll hear it a dozen times, again at all levels. Unbelievable but true.

BTW, Richfilth is out in left field with his comment about beating our heads on our desks, at least for me. I prefer to use the wall for myself and beat their heads on their desks.

[Jack Walker]

[hrvatski]

[Bogey]

Jack Walker, I already apologized for coming across as cantankerous.

I'm also most certainly not going to tell any teacher currently teaching in Poland what they do or do not hear or what they "should" hear.

All I am saying/said is that I remain confused by these mistakes. Perhaps if I were on location I'd get a better understanding of why the he/she one is made but I unfortunately remain confused. If I were back stateside, I'd chat up my parents or cousins or some fresh immigrants about their views/comments on such matters. However, I'm not stateside.

I should also fairly point out that unlike you guys there, I didn't "learn" Polish. I acquired it as a baby/child does, because it remains my first language (despite English having surpassed it as my best language, a long long time ago due to all my education beyond 4th grade occurring in the US). Fortunately, conversation with my parents remained and remains to this day exclusively in Polish or I probably would have forgotten the language a while ago.

That's why I don't have these "intuitions" you guys speak of, and cannot relate to your thought processes. The grammatical intricacies of the Polish language as well as simple pronounciation with all those consonant clusters you guys surely enjoy are simply already "wired" into my brain.

Again, I don't mean/didn't mean to come across as antagonistic, just trying to learn/understand as I browse the forum.