So what exactly is the level of mutual intelligibility between Polish and Czech/Slovak? And to what degree to Czech and Slovak speakers understand one another?
West Slavic mutual intelligibility
Look here for some answers:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=811292
also here
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=602746&page=3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Le Clerk View Post
From what I understand, it is easy for a Pole to understand Russian, and viceversa. Why would a Pole and a Russian need Slovio then? Even though a Pole would miss some Russian words and viceversa, why would they need to learn a whole new language just for a small percentage they cannot understand from the other language. These are just some practical impediments I see right now.
Not really. Slovak is easiest for us to understand. Followed by Czech, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and then Russian plus the south slavic languages. I can barely understand Russian, especially when spoken. I understand words here and there but as whole it's not really understandable. Slovak I understand about 95% of and can hold a conversation with someone no problem.>>
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=811292
also here
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=602746&page=3
<<
Quote:
Originally Posted by Le Clerk View Post
From what I understand, it is easy for a Pole to understand Russian, and viceversa. Why would a Pole and a Russian need Slovio then? Even though a Pole would miss some Russian words and viceversa, why would they need to learn a whole new language just for a small percentage they cannot understand from the other language. These are just some practical impediments I see right now.
Not really. Slovak is easiest for us to understand. Followed by Czech, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and then Russian plus the south slavic languages. I can barely understand Russian, especially when spoken. I understand words here and there but as whole it's not really understandable. Slovak I understand about 95% of and can hold a conversation with someone no problem.>>
I'm Slovenian and I don't understand Slovak.
I only understand Croatian/Serbain/Bosnian/Montenegrin and some Macedonian.
I only understand Croatian/Serbain/Bosnian/Montenegrin and some Macedonian.
I speak upper intermediate Czech and Polish, from my experience and asking people I would guess a Czech or Pole would understand about 60% of speaking if they slowed down for each othe. On paper much less because of different orthography (Czech's is far more logical to me). Czechs and Slovaks generally can communicate with a few rough spots from what I see; Slovak is aparently the bridge (most) language of the family as Poles claim to understand Slovaks very well but not Czechs. Most basic vocabulary and certainly basic verbs are very similar.
some examples: (Czech/Polish/English)
vratit/wracic/to return
otec/ojciec/father
pamatovat si/pamietac/to recall
then you have exact matches
dobry/dobry/good
slight difference superlative
nejlepsi/najlepsi/best
that aside one of the worst cases of false friends ever involve the Polish verb "to look for".
(Polish) Szukac=to look for
(Czech, the front s with hacek) Sukat= to ughh fornicate
they conjugate more or less the same and govern the same tense (Accusitive).
some examples: (Czech/Polish/English)
vratit/wracic/to return
otec/ojciec/father
pamatovat si/pamietac/to recall
then you have exact matches
dobry/dobry/good
slight difference superlative
nejlepsi/najlepsi/best
that aside one of the worst cases of false friends ever involve the Polish verb "to look for".
(Polish) Szukac=to look for
(Czech, the front s with hacek) Sukat= to ughh fornicate
they conjugate more or less the same and govern the same tense (Accusitive).
So how much effort would a Czech speaker need to make to be able to read Polish? Also, assuming one knows the Cyrillic alphabet, what do you think the likelihood would be that a Czech speaker would be able to understand other Slavic languages, at least when written?
The main difficulty for a Czech reading Polish would be letter combinations; pronunciation would be syllable stress (Czech is always first syllable and Polish 2nd to last). It wouldn't take too long for a Czech to learn the basic differences, but I can say that when you aren't used to letter combinations you will probably still make mistakes just from overlooking everyonce in a while.
a few sounds exist in each language that aren't in the other:
in Polish:
ą= think a very nasal pronunciation of "on"
ę= officially "eh-on" but really registers more as "ehn"
ł= basically an English "w" sound
The unique Czech sound is
ř= a half rolled r combined with a "zh"
These differences combined with how they have effected grammar make the whole mutual intellegibility question a bit confusing; the nomanitive forms and infinitives will be recognizable both in speech and on paper but certain forms of a word will deviate a good bit. For instance the "to be" verbs (Czech/Polish) "byt" and "byc" are instantly recognizable but third plural comparison "jsou" and "są" are far less similar looking.
I don't know Cyrillic, but I imagine it would be tricky; West Slavic languages have more complex grammar structures than East or certainly South Slavic languages. Still I've heard friends speak Serbian and can pick up on some basics in speech.
a few sounds exist in each language that aren't in the other:
in Polish:
ą= think a very nasal pronunciation of "on"
ę= officially "eh-on" but really registers more as "ehn"
ł= basically an English "w" sound
The unique Czech sound is
ř= a half rolled r combined with a "zh"
These differences combined with how they have effected grammar make the whole mutual intellegibility question a bit confusing; the nomanitive forms and infinitives will be recognizable both in speech and on paper but certain forms of a word will deviate a good bit. For instance the "to be" verbs (Czech/Polish) "byt" and "byc" are instantly recognizable but third plural comparison "jsou" and "są" are far less similar looking.
I don't know Cyrillic, but I imagine it would be tricky; West Slavic languages have more complex grammar structures than East or certainly South Slavic languages. Still I've heard friends speak Serbian and can pick up on some basics in speech.