Further to my last post on moving suffixes on past tense forms what about detaching conditional endings? Is this an archaic practice or a recognised grammatical one?
Dana Bielec in 'Intermediate Polish' writes:
All conditional endings can be detached from their verbs. This can make a long verb more manageable. Detached endings usually stand seperately after the first stressed word in a sentence or clause. Np

Jaki kupiłbyś samochód ? ---- Jaki byś kupił samochód
Tutaj nie chcielibyśmy mieszkać----Tutaj byśmy nie chcieli mieszkać.

Thanks for reading

Hi, Wixer! I'm really glad to hear you again. You haven't got many questions because you are almost a native Polish speaker ;), aren't you?





Both form are used and common.


I hope you'll drop by a little bit more often :)...

_________________
b_o_b

Hi Bob I'm a long long way from being fluent in Polish I can assure you I do take a lot of my questions to the local Polish shop where they are most helpful. It's also a good excuse to buy some Polish beer. It's good to hear from you too. Thanks for your help

"Conditional endings"... I'd never guess these are fomally called so...

@wixer
Yes, both forms are commonly used BUT longer verbs (with CONDITIONAL ENDINGS ) look better, while short ones sound better. This is not a rule though...

And out of curiosity - why are You so eager to learn Polish? Where did that come from?

_________________
Still getting there...

Thanks for your answer madman. I'm trying to learn Polish because lots of Poles live in my home town and I just thought it would be nice to be able to speak to them in their own language. This I try to do and they are quite impressed. It's apparently rare for English speakers to learn your language. I studied German for a number of years but Polish is on a completely different level. Much more difficult. Thanks for your interest in me and my questions

Yes, I quite agree with madman_xxx and these forms with conditional endings are maybe a bit more formal and used more often in formal, written Polish, and when the speech is not colloquial or is not stylised to be such.

And I guess I've also forgotten about the matter of pronouncing and stressing of these long forms. It's good that bag_of_bones remembered us about that, isn't it, Wixer?

By the way, how great it is that a person who is quite eager for knowledge can learn here so many interesting things!

Wixer, for me you can ask lots of so riveting queries. If only I will know the answer, I will help you with pleasure!

Thank you lioness translator to be. Indeed , this is a quite excellent site. Since starting to learn Polish I have learned much from many kind and helpful people who use this forum. I'm sure you will appreciate that it can be quite difficult to get the help you need to learn Polish. Eg. You can find French , German or Spanish classes at most colleges in England , but finding a Polish class is not so easy. It's the same with text books on Polish grammar. There just aren't that many around. So this forum gives me a unique opportunity to ask my questions. I look forward to your comments on my future posts and if I can help you, or indeed anyone, with your English , then I will gladly do so if I can

We should start a new topic, where You'd write in Polish and we'd write in English And correct each other

_________________
Still getting there...

It's a good idea but I'd struggle to write much in Polish

or you could start another thread where you complement each other all day long to the tune of : jolly good old boy, jolly good.

_________________
tele powder hound.

I find it amusing that you think people still say ' jolly good old boy' Indeed, I'm not sure that many ordinary people have ever said that in the history of the English language Maybe the upper classes in the late 19th, early 20th century.

The reason for it is that in many English books for Poles there are plenty of idioms and phrases which are no longer used. I remember myself learning idioms which where popular in Britain in the 70s or 80s Try downloading any such book and check for yourself. Besides ppl have to learn stuff which they never ever use in the native language like some proverbs for instance even if they are said to be used in contemporary language. U would sound weird mate if you used them.

I am aware of what you say coffeefreak and as someone who's knowledge of your language is very limited, I would not normally presume to criticise in any way shape or form the English used by Polish speakers on this site as I am not qualified so to do . Indeed, on the contrary, I have always been , and still am , hugely impressed with the standard of English which people such as yourself have attained. I have said this many times on this forum. However , I made my rather flippant remarks on this occasion , because I detected a hint of sarcasm in the previous post which I deemed to be unnecessary . Hence my reply which was not really meant as a criticism as such . In fact I am suitably impressed that the writer knows expressions like ' jolly good old boy' I apologise unreservedly if I have offended anyone

Now that's some English you don't use every day, eh? Anyway, don't worry about bbanjo. His professionalism hardly ever allows him to chill out a bit, hence his irony at the very sight of warmth between old pals.

And remember you put accent on the FOURTH to last syllable in words like "zje-dli-byś-my", "zro-bi-li-byś-my", and as for words in the first plural person of the past tense, you put accent on the third to last syllable (like "przy-szliś-my", "wy-szliś-my").

_________________
Nierób z zawodu, tłumacz z zamiłowania.

To be honest I would compare this fourth to last syllable stress to the use of 'jolly good old boy'. Namely, nobody uses it, or hardly anybody. I mean, I personally do use it but, in my opinion, saying that you should use it and that ppl who don't use it speak incorrectly is just some sort of language discrimination. I'm not saying that Kuj2 is suggesting that but many ppl do. And now, what I think is that every language is a living organism and is changing and we can't stop it. Lack of this kind of stress is just language developement, that's what I think.