Temat: szkoła

Kiedy używać zaimków względnych (relative clauses)?

English loan words in Polish

Have you ever thought where the word “horde” in English comes from? Yes, you are right. It is Polish word “horda” that means the disorganized crowd of people – only with slighty changed spelling. Nevertheless, let`s not have illusions about importance of Polish loan words in English – they are just a tiny fraction of the linguistic borrowings from English into Polish. Even a brief glimpse on the on-going process of creating new vocabulary gives clear answers to the question: Why are there so many anglicisms in contemporary Polish?

It is easy to notice that most of the borrowings relate somehow to the world of technology, information, mass media and – on general – contemporary world. On the other side, there is a massive group of loan words referring to the ”pop world” of teenagers as well as other aspects of their culture. The answer to the question: Why are the Polish young people so willing to use anglicisms in their everyday talks instead of native words? might not be so simple.

“Internet from its very beginnings was English – friendly”, says Piotrek, an internaut from the little village in Mazovia countryside, “no surprise nowadays, when I want to be brief and communicative I use IMHO (in my humble opinion) instead of Polish equivalent for it or ROTFL (rolling on the floor laughing) instead of emoticons which drive my pals mad.”

His classmate, Paula, has distinctly different opinion to Piotrek:

“To be honest, most of my friends can hardly speak English, they have no idea about reported speech, passive voice or relative clauses – but what do they do speaking Polish? They say: Babe, I spent all evening yesterday in a chatroom. Thanks. Sorry. You`re welcome. Give me a call. Have you got some cash? and so on, I could go for the whole day like that, I guess. They don`t assume how ridiculous they are!”

Some linguists predict nowadays it is inevitable for the Polish language to be more and more inundated with English words. Is it really as inevitable as night follows a day or death and taxes? I hope not. Eventually, there are the young people who can speak their mother tongue perfectly. Moreover, they can speak foreign languages very well, too. But they can easily distinct both of them.

Uwaga!
Przed większością zaimków względnych (przeciwnie niż po polsku) nie stawia się przecinków. Wyjątkiem są sytuacje, w których podajemy dodatkowe informacje o osobie lub rzeczy. W takim przypadku zaimek względny nie wskazuje o kim/o czym mówimy. Druga osoba już to wcześniej wie!

Przyjrzyj się przykładom!

1) My cousin Anna, who attends the same school as Piotrek, doesn`t like word loans in Polish much.
Informacja o tym, że Anna chodzi do tej samej szkoły co Piotrek jest wtrącona, rozmówca i tak wie, o którą Annę chodzi.

2) Piotrek told me about his fleeting converstation, which took part in The English Centre.
Piotrek opowiedział mi o swojej krótkiej rozmowie – tylko dodatkową informacją jest to, że rozmowa miała miejsce w Cen­trum Angielskim, zaimek bezpośrednio nie określa tej rozmowy. Uwaga! To samo zdanie można sobie wyobrazić bez przecinka, wtedy znaczyłoby, że to jest „ta krótka rozmowa z Centrum Angielskiego” – informacja znajdująca się po which określa w tym przypadku rozmowę, a nie jest tylko dodatkowa.
Last but not least
W zdaniach, w których stawiamy przed zaimkiem względnym przecinek, nie używamy that.

 

Zapożyczenie i zaimki względne w angielskim

  • which – który (używamy w odniesieniu do rzeczy), np.
    English is the language which is spoken not only in England.
  • who – który (używamy w odniesieniu do ludzi), np.
    The people who use many anglicisms have sometimes problems with Polish.
  • that – który (używamy w odniesieniu zarówno do ludzi, jak i do rzeczy), np.
    There are some poeple that don`t make language mistakes.
  • where – gdzie, np.
    There are some places where you cannot hear English.
  • whose – czyj, kogo (do kogo należący), np.
    This is the man whose dictionary was found last week.
  • whom – kogo (bardziej formalne niż “who”), np.
    He is the boy whom I interviewed about English language.