Well I'd love to help out, but I'm still pretty much a novice at the language.  With that caveat, I'm willing to do whatever's needed.

It would be awesome to have your help. I will just email some of the other people who have been working on the Polish and get them to join in the discussion so we can work out what most needs to be done next. Thanks!

It would be awesome to have your help. I will just email some of the other people who have been working on the Polish and get them to join in the discussion so we can work out what most needs to be done next. Thanks!

I'd echo what dbailey has said below - I'm currently doing Basic Polish (A1).  Finding it really good, especially with the addition of some of the video clip mems that Truxton-Magda has/have posted (it's the declensions in Polish that worry me!).  However, there are occasionally some pretty random words (eg. stork) which I suppose may have some particular Polish significance I'm not yet aware of, but which don't really seem likely to be important enough to feature in a basic list of about 400 words!I don't know enough to be able to comment on the language itself, but I'd be very happy to contribute to building up useful word lists/phrases etc.

I'd echo what dbailey has said below - I'm currently doing Basic Polish (A1).  Finding it really good, especially with the addition of some of the video clip mems that Truxton-Magda has/have posted (it's the declensions in Polish that worry me!).  However, there are occasionally some pretty random words (eg. stork) which I suppose may have some particular Polish significance I'm not yet aware of, but which don't really seem likely to be important enough to feature in a basic list of about 400 words!I don't know enough to be able to comment on the language itself, but I'd be very happy to contribute to building up useful word lists/phrases etc.

Hey, that list is a little hectic because I made it in quite a rush and tried to add as many common words as I could think of. I lot of the stranger words, like stork, were added because they kept popping up in my day to day life in Poland. I've read that about 25% of the world's White Stork population breeds in Poland and there are lots of garden gnome style storks in people's gardens.Suggestions are always great! I'm trying to improve the basic garden a little bit every week, but don't always have enough time. I also intend on starting an A2 level garden at some point. Dbailey has been adding some more basic words and I've been trying to add sound, which is the most important thing for me. This can take me a bit, because it's sort of time consuming to record all the words with decent quality and upload them, but I'll be working on it constantly.The declensions are sort of difficult in Polish, but they get easier with time. I would really like to be able to add at least the genitive with the word and the first person conjugation for verbs in a way that memrise could quiz you seperately. I also want to create a few gardens for the cases themselves (I already have one for the genitive and the locative, but they need redoing). I think this would be a big help in that direction. I wrote to memrise, but haven't heard back yet. I could just enter these in the pronunciation field for now and then it would quiz you on it as that, which you could always turn off and on. Let me know what you think. But definitely the best thing would still be to get a good basic level book. I highly recommend "Cześć, jak się masz?" I think it's on amazon, but pretty pricey there. You can also order it from www.universitas.com.pl, but I'm not sure if their page is translated into English--it should be though.If you do start a list, I'll try to check it and add sound when I get a chance. Hopefully the Polish section will get better. I'll be working on it when I get time.

I'm really sorry if you thought I was being critical - I wasn't!  And - you see - there obviously was a significance to the stork!!  I love this course, and really my only criticism is that I find the whole website a bit clunky to find my way around.  Yes, the pronunciation is really important - I had some CDs which (I've found from sessions with a Polish girl each week) were less than accurate a lot of the time..  Or perhaps I should say, the teacher allowed rather sloppy pronunciation.  What I find helpful is to have the nominative of the word and then - where appropriate - an example with a preposition, which was why I said I found the video clips you posted so useful.  The image has stuck of that boy talking about his egg!!Have just checked Amazon, and will start saving!

I'm really sorry if you thought I was being critical - I wasn't!  And - you see - there obviously was a significance to the stork!!  I love this course, and really my only criticism is that I find the whole website a bit clunky to find my way around.  Yes, the pronunciation is really important - I had some CDs which (I've found from sessions with a Polish girl each week) were less than accurate a lot of the time..  Or perhaps I should say, the teacher allowed rather sloppy pronunciation.  What I find helpful is to have the nominative of the word and then - where appropriate - an example with a preposition, which was why I said I found the video clips you posted so useful.  The image has stuck of that boy talking about his egg!!Have just checked Amazon, and will start saving!

... and have also checked the course list and seen your genitive case one!  As soon as I've got the A1 word list under my belt, I'll move on to that one.

... and have also checked the course list and seen your genitive case one!  As soon as I've got the A1 word list under my belt, I'll move on to that one.

Oh, no offense taken. I'm just glad to hear some input! I'll be trying to add some more examples, but it might be a bit. Also, I checked and I think (not absolutely sure) that it's cheaper at www.universitas.com.pl even with the shipping, but for the price abroad, you might find something just as good. There was another series for beginners that I heard was good, but I can't think of its name now--I'll try to find it though. Check out Dbailey's garden too-I'm going to try and finish the sound for it tomorrow. Good luck with your Polish! All the best!

This idea for adding the genitive or the first person declension in the pronunciation field is a great one. If you start adding it in then I can change the setting so that it will start testing it. I can also change the label so that it is called "genitive / first person" or similar. Can you think of a better label?Let me know and I can set that up at once. If anyone doesn't want to be tested on the genitive etc then they can just press "ignore genitive" and then they won't be bothered by it. So it should be a really neat fix.

This idea for adding the genitive or the first person declension in the pronunciation field is a great one. If you start adding it in then I can change the setting so that it will start testing it. I can also change the label so that it is called "genitive / first person" or similar. Can you think of a better label?Let me know and I can set that up at once. If anyone doesn't want to be tested on the genitive etc then they can just press "ignore genitive" and then they won't be bothered by it. So it should be a really neat fix.

"Genitive / first person" sounds good! I started adding some to the listings this morning, so feel free to change the label. Thanks!

"Genitive / first person" sounds good! I started adding some to the listings this morning, so feel free to change the label. Thanks!

Also, I've been trying out the basic garden since I added a good bit of genitives and conjugations, but it refuses to test me on them. I've turned the pronunciation button on and off several times, but it doesn't seem to want to work. Tried using the other learning options multiple choice set to pronunciation, but that goes to test you and then returns to the garden without actually testing you on any words.

Also, I've been trying out the basic garden since I added a good bit of genitives and conjugations, but it refuses to test me on them. I've turned the pronunciation button on and off several times, but it doesn't seem to want to work. Tried using the other learning options multiple choice set to pronunciation, but that goes to test you and then returns to the garden without actually testing you on any words.

Sorry, I had not yet enabled the testing. It should now be working. Let me know how you get on!Best wishesBen

Sorry, I had not yet enabled the testing. It should now be working. Let me know how you get on!Best wishesBen

Just checked it and it's working great! Is there any way to add a separate audio upload for the genitive? This would really make it great, but I don't know if it's possible. Thanks again!

Great - no, Im afraid that there isn't an easy way to add separate audio for the genitive etc. We might be able to work something soo to put other audio files into mems, so that you could add audio into, for example, the "extra information" mem box. But that is going to take a little while to get live on the site. I will keep you posted. 

Great - no, Im afraid that there isn't an easy way to add separate audio for the genitive etc. We might be able to work something soo to put other audio files into mems, so that you could add audio into, for example, the "extra information" mem box. But that is going to take a little while to get live on the site. I will keep you posted. 

Hi - I am enjoying the course - thanks!Could you explain how the genitive works here and how to use the testing - I am getting confused!

Hi - I am enjoying the course - thanks!Could you explain how the genitive works here and how to use the testing - I am getting confused!

Hey, I'll try to add another topic box in the forum on the specific uses of the genitive, so check back in a little bit, and hopefully I'll have that up! But the testing is fairly simple once you get used to it. When you first see the word, it should have the genitive form of the word to the right side next to the audio. Later, after you have learned the word, it will start to test you on this form along with the basic, nominative form. When the question mark above the box where you type in the word is orange, type the genitive form, but, when it is green, type the basic form. I'll try to get the other topic up with an explanation of what the genitive is used for as soon as possible!

So reopening this conversation. I started by going through the conventions for Czech as it is a slavic language as well. A copy and paste and then a little find and replace gives us the following:

1. Adding Entries

a). Always make sure they don't already exist first.

b). Part of speech should be added for every word in the "part of speech" field. 


c). Don't use capital letters except for proper nouns.


d). Adding alternatives is done through the tab labeled "other".

1. Nouns

a). Add the Polish Noun to the Polish field.

b). Add the English translation (with the indefinite article) to the "English" field.

c). Add the English with no article as an "alternative English," and prefix it with an underscore _ .


d). Add the English with the definite article as an "alternative English", and prefix it with an underscore _.

NOTE: Do not do this if by removing the article, you change the meaning of the word (ie, a little should not be alternatively listed as “little”.

NOTE: The underscore, means that it will be accepted as a correct answer but will not be displayed as a meaning during a learning session (which other alternatives will be, very soon, once two-way testing has been introduced.)

e). Add the gender in the gender field. (ie not in parenthesis after the word!)

f). For part of speech, choose "noun"



1. Adjectives

a). add the Polish singular dictionary form.


b). add the English translation.


c). add the gender specific Polish alternatives (each as a separate entry) . eg: if the word is dobry, add also dobra, and dobre as "alternative Polish" entries.

d). for part of speech, choose "adjective"



1. Verbs (infinitives only)

a). add the Polish imperfective infinitive and the Polish perfective infinitive, separated by a comma.

b). add the English infinitive (with the 'to')

c). add the English form without the 'to' in the English alternatives

d). for part of speech, choose "verb"

1. Adverbs

a). add the Polish adverb into the Polish field

b). add the english translation

c). for part of speech, choose adverb

1. Prepositions

a). add the Polish preposition

b). add the English translation(s)

c). add the case(s) that the preposition may take into the "special properties" field.

d). for part of speech, choose preposition

1. Phrases and Short Sentences

This section is meant for short prepositional phrases, like “w ogóle”, greetings, like “dzień dobry”, “jak się masz?”, and just general short sentences, like “nic nie szkodzi”, etc etc. a). add the Polish phrase or short sentence

b). add the english translation

c). If it makes sense to do so, as a Polish alternative, add the sentence again without personal pronoun.

d). for part of speech, choose “phrase”

e). when adding phrases, it is useful to add similar, but different phrases at the same time, and to add them as "confusables" of each other. This will mean that the multiple choice tests for each sentence are made a bit harder.

1. Other

This section is meant for anything which does not fit into parts 1 to 6, this would mostly mean one or 2 or so words, of a conjugated verb, noun, adjective etc... If in doubt, feel free to discuss on the Polish forum.

a). add the Polish entry

b). add the english translation

c.) for part of speech choose “conjugated”

1. What guidelines should moderators follow?

if you are adding a word:
 a). make sure it isn't there already

b). if a word with the exact same spelling means two different things, add it as two separate words

if you are cleaning up a word:
 a). get rid of any errors (this includes errors in accents - the website recognises both with and without accents so there is no need for the non-accented versions!).


b). get rid of anything that appears twice



c). do a general clean-up to get rid of things that don't fit in with the conventions described on this page


d). note that 'alternatives' are listed under the tab 'other'


e). if adding an alternative (either Polish or English), add it as it appears on its own main page (so, following these conventions)

Thoughts?

Great, I have added a bit of standard text to the front of those and edited out a couple of bits that were out of date. Otherwise they should be ready to go. PLease let me know if you have any suggested edits. Apologies for not having got these up sooner, and thank you all for your excellent input. http://www.memrise.com/topic/polish/conventions/

Thanks!

Ben

I haven't been to active on the Polish section as of late, but I have a couple of thoughts / questions.

First of all, I don't quite get point of adding the English alternatives with the underscores and the definite and indefinite articles. I've seen it done in other sections and it doesn't seem to change anything. As you're never quizzed on the English translation, it seems redundant, but maybe there is something I'm missing. This also applies to adding alternative translations to the English alternative section where they are almost impossible to see. Any thoughts?

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, there are a vast amount of words whose meanings overlap with themselves and with their English translations. These words are synonyms with very similar meanings. This makes it hard to differentiate between them when given only an English translation. Because of this, I have attempted to add the Polish synonyms which could most easily be confused in parenthesis next to the English translation. For example, both kartofel and ziemniak mean potato, so for the English translation of kartofel I have "potato (ziemniak)." If you just add ziemniak to the Polish alternative list, you don't know which answer is really expected from you when quizzed. This has worked quite well for me so far, but I don't know what other people think of it. I also have tended to add (starts with "z") after the English translation to help clarify which word is meant when confusion is possible, that way I know to type ziemniak and not kartofel. This problem seems most acute when dealing with more advanced vocabulary, but does come up with more basic words (like ziemniak and kartofel).

One last problem I've had related to this overlap of meaning (in German though, not Polish), is that sometimes the English translation isn't really very satisfying (for example, Nebenfrau in German), and it's easier to simply define the word in it's own language then to translate in English. This tends to be quite rare, but at an advanced level it does pop up here and there. Don't know if there's any point in adding this to the conventions, but it does seem to be useful at a very advance level.

I think this is everything I have to add. Let me know what you think! Thanks! Truxton

Well, I really meant for this to just open up the discussion, not necessarily be published right away. But I guess this will help us get a move on to getting proper conventions.

Even with the proposal I made I had questions, like do we even need the articles in the English translation? Since Polish doesn't have them they struck me as unnecessary, but I thought I should get some feedback to see as the Czech moderators decided they were useful. I am happy to drop them, if there are no objections.

Until I read through the other conventions I didn't really think of using the alternative sections very much, except for things like synonyms. Needless to say, I don't feel very strongly about that section.

I don't have a problem with adding in polish synonyms to hint that you should use a different one. The only problem I had with this when I first encountered it was that I had no idea what it was signifying. Eventually I sussed it out, but for that reason I think (starts with "z") is clearer.

I'm clearly not that advanced, but I'm sure you are right that there are Polish words that describe concepts that aren't quite used in English. I guess as long as said concepts are only in advanced courses that wouldn't be too bad.

Also, the Czech wiki separates imperfective and perfective verbs. I like the way it is done here, listing the aspective pairs, but what should we do for the rare cases where the verb only has a single aspect?

Thanks, :Duan

Oh, and we should probably also add in mention about the genitive/first person field as well. So

2 e) add in the genitive form of the noun in the "genitive/first person" field.

And

4 e) add in the first person conjugation of the verb in the "genitive/first person" field.

@Truxton-Magda, good point on the English alternatives: the thinking here is that it would be good and people would like to test both ways in the future: particularly when testing from Polish audio to English for example. In order to do that well we first have to set the wiki up with the right entries so that the answers can be flexible. Does that seem fair?

our preference in general is to not use the disambiguating letters if possible - we are building tests to test from sample sentences which use words in context to test similar but subtly different words, and we would generally prefer to have clean entries in the wiki that we could then build more and more intricate tests for. I don't feel strongly about this though, and we could certainly go with this plan for now and then edit later if it gets in the way of a new way that we build to test this; ie we could wait till we have actually built those tests before worrying about it.

Defining words in the target language is a very interesting point. It is something that we would like to do in future, but it might take a little while to get this really integrated well.. we might need to add an extra field for "target language definition" - but that is going to cause complexities that we are going to need to wait a bit to sort out. APologies for that,

@dbailey, I have made those edits, please let me know if there are any other edits needed!

Thanks

Ben

@Benwhately, okay, sounds good. That helps to explain the whole underscore / article mystery. I'll probably keep using the disambiguating letters until the system changes and then I can tidy up my entries.

@dbailey, yeah, I was just trying to throw in some thoughts about what I noticed while creating longer vocab lists. I've been reluctant to set up any conventions because I was the only one adding to Polish for some time and wanted to keep the possibilities open. But I think everything in there basically sounds fine, and if there are any problems later on the conventions could always be updated.

I think the only thing lacking for the words in the basic polish garden section is the English alternatives with the underscores. Hopefully I'll get back to finishing the audio for that section in about a month or two. Haven't had a lot of time for it lately. Thanks for getting the conversation going again!

Not a problem, I'm good with that. Anyone feel free to chime in if you've got any more ideas on how the conventions should be updated.

Hello; I realize that this topic is not particularly active, but I would like to say as a newcomer that I would eagerly aid this effort. I grade myself a c1 level speaker, and am currently passing through and checking the b1/b2 lists for typos.

Cool, I created those lists a while ago and didn't check them as well as the Hobbit and władca pierścieni list, so there are probably a good couple of errors to find. I don't think those list have sound either, but the Hobbit and Władca pierścieni one does. I might try to add some audio eventually, but it takes some time to do the audio half decent.

I've noticed a few errors in the first 500 words of the b1 list, which I've recorded in the course's discussion. How to implement these changes? Here is a high five for creating these courses.

I just went through the list and they should be changed now. Thanks for the help!

The changes seemed to be made in the description, but the software still seems to want the old word. I will look at b2 now.

If there is any need for audio files for polish content, I'm for your disposal, just email me or so, and I can prepare some content as native Polish speaker. My email: kareth92@gmail.com

hey, I'd like to help promoting Polish, as I'm native speaker too. How far we are from making it a "featured language?". Also, I could prepare some audio samples for words - siemionides@gmail.com Cheers!

I'm learning polish and I want to say thanks to everybody who is contributing here :D

Uczę się po polsku i mowię dziękuję

If I can help somehow with Polish too, please contact me. I am also a native Polish speaker :) tosia.kielkowska@gmail.com

I can help too. You will improve your Polish and I my English ;) Writing or speaking with somebody in foreign language is the best way to learn. Sorry for my possible mistakes. My e-mail adress: bike9090@gmail.com.