Are Croatian, Slovene & Serbian still mutually readable towards Poles despite them also being Slavic languages? Apart from the hilighted words, can they understand the details?
Are Croatian, Slovene & Serbian still mutually readable towards Poles despite them also being Slavic languages? Apart from the hilighted words, can they understand the details?
Enough to grasp the general context (something about the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima killing dozens of thousands of people), but not enough to get all the details. As for cyryllic, it’s not universally understood in Poland and hasn’t been taught in Polish schools for a very long time.
Edit: I feel I need to correct myself: it’s not that cyryllic is not taught in Polish schools at all, but rather’s it’s not included in mandatory curriculum and as far as I know not all schools offer Russian/Ukrainian courses.
Pale-Boysenberry1719 on
I get the general idea, certainly more than highlated words. Nothing from serbian tho due to the alphabet
Alarming_Way_8476 on
I can understand ‘neselektivno’, ‘ubila desetke tisuca ljudi’, ‘spremenila zivljenja prezivjelih’ ‘ orozja/oruzja’ and the words in red but the rest not really.
sacredfool on
I also speak Czech so I might not be a representative sample but even with that advantage it’s pretty hard. The middle text is easiest because the conjugation follows familiar patterns. I can understand it but I might miss important details.
Generally though, from my stay in Croatia and Macedonia, it takes about 3 weeks to get used to the major differences and then it becomes much easier.
YogurtclosetSalty754 on
Details? No, in either of the 3 text. Nobody under 30 will be able to read a word from the Serbian one. And few of the highlighted words make no sense too.
Vertitto on
had not for highlighted keywords that make context clear i wouldn’t be able to say what it is about
The_Realest_Rando on
Not this, however an example of mutual readability would probably be the song ‘Mama ŠČ’ by the band Let 3 (yes, the one from Eurovision 2023)
Krodkrot on
I can understand the general meaning, not all details, but more than highlighted. I can read Russian, so I can somewhat read Serbian, but it’s not exactly the same.
Eat_the_Rich1789 on
As a Serb who learned Polish i can tell you that it is understandable on only the basic level.\
Like before I got fluent I could understand only basic stuff like – good day, some plants etc .
But nothing too complex
As for the Slovene lol even us Serbs and Croats can’t understand them
FYI Serbian and Croatian are basically the same language, and Serbian uses both Latin and Cyrillic script
Sphiniix on
When trying to understand these similar languages you go off mainly by tone and vibe of spoken words, so it’s more difficult to decipher text than translate speech. I don’t know how to pronounce foreign spelling or read cyrillic, so I can’t understand 1st and 3rd paragraphs aside from some single words that only use familiar letters. I think I get the gist from the 2nd paragraph, though middle part of 2nd sentence looks like word salad to me.
The text talks about singular atomic bomb, which killed hundreds of thousands of people either directly or by inflicted wounds and radiation. The remaining ruins(?) are left as a reminder of this atomic attack, and survivors created a museum in memory of peace in Hiroshima, which reminds of the horrors from the nuclear explosion. There is also a quote, a motto of the museum(?) that I think means “Never again Hiroshima”?
I’m curious how much I managed to get right!
Lumornys on
As a native Polish speaker with basic Russian knowledge, I understand maybe 75% of the text.
Better the second language than the first.
zamach on
It’s not readable to me, though if I knew the actual pronunciation of these words, I’d probably understand a LOT MORE just because these languages all gave their own sets of special symbols that represent specific sounds that exist in both, but are not represented by the same visual symbol.
HackZy01 on
Croatian? No, Slovene makes some sense though
szumfalweterze on
My try at translation by only reading the texts :
Atomic bomb nondiscriminately took lives of more than 10 thousand people and deeply broke and changed the lives of the surviving ones. (…) reports of survivors in Wednesday’s media material from the museum of peace in Hiroshima brings the world the horror and inhumanity of nuclear weapons (…) “Hiroshima never again”
Fer4yn on
Super easy to learn for any polish person due to the vast similarities. Also it’s super easy to learn cyrillic for polish people by first learning Bosnian and then switching to Serbian like I did XD
Al_Caponello on
Native Polish speaker (with B1 Russian) I can understand pretty much 60%+ of this text in each language
IvoryLifthrasir on
I’m Polish but my fiance is Serbian, so from time to time I’m exposed to Serbian, and on daily basis back when I was visiting him in Serbia (before he moved to Poland) and whenever we are going to visit his family.
So for starters, unless some1 in Poland studied Russian (or any other language with Cyrillic) as a kid, they can’t read any of the Cyrillic. I know that Serbian Cyrillic is different, but good part of the letters is shared. My personal knowledge of Serbian Cyrillic allows me to read only my fiance’s name and surname, “пекара”, “аеродром”, “Србија” and “Београд” (I guess you can all tell why). So the bottmost text for me one is unreadable, even though *for the most part* Cyrillic is 1 letter = 1 sign.
Now going for Bosnian and Croatian, they are equally as understandable for me. In some parts Croatian is more understandable, in some it’s in favour of Bosnian. But given the existence of highlighted words (which originate in diff language and thus, are similar in Polish) and some words that i know already or are simply similar to Polish (ljudi, svetu, živote, nečovječnost for example), I understand what the text is about.
Now going back to what I said above, after I’m exposed to Serbian continously for a week or so, I actually start picking it up. Not much in speaking but after a week or two I actually do understand what my fiance’s family is talking about for the most part for the reasons mentioned above – words originating from different languages, resulting being the same/v similar in Polish and in Serbian, similarities in language (e.g. voli = to like, woleć = to prefer; czarny and crna) or literally same words (ulica, klucz and ključ). Of course there also fake friends (e.g. trudna = difficult (PL), trudna = pregnant woman (RS)) and when these come into play, I lose track on what the talk is about
You can hmu with more questions if that sates your curiosity in any way
JackieMortes on
For me, out of all Slavic languages, I think Czech and Slovak are the most “understandable”
annacosta13 on
I think us Poles do better at understanding Czech language
pierogi_juice on
I get it, but it’s so long and goofy it kinda weirds me out.
22 Comments
not really
No
Enough to grasp the general context (something about the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima killing dozens of thousands of people), but not enough to get all the details. As for cyryllic, it’s not universally understood in Poland and hasn’t been taught in Polish schools for a very long time.
Edit: I feel I need to correct myself: it’s not that cyryllic is not taught in Polish schools at all, but rather’s it’s not included in mandatory curriculum and as far as I know not all schools offer Russian/Ukrainian courses.
I get the general idea, certainly more than highlated words. Nothing from serbian tho due to the alphabet
I can understand ‘neselektivno’, ‘ubila desetke tisuca ljudi’, ‘spremenila zivljenja prezivjelih’ ‘ orozja/oruzja’ and the words in red but the rest not really.
I also speak Czech so I might not be a representative sample but even with that advantage it’s pretty hard. The middle text is easiest because the conjugation follows familiar patterns. I can understand it but I might miss important details.
Generally though, from my stay in Croatia and Macedonia, it takes about 3 weeks to get used to the major differences and then it becomes much easier.
Details? No, in either of the 3 text. Nobody under 30 will be able to read a word from the Serbian one. And few of the highlighted words make no sense too.
had not for highlighted keywords that make context clear i wouldn’t be able to say what it is about
Not this, however an example of mutual readability would probably be the song ‘Mama ŠČ’ by the band Let 3 (yes, the one from Eurovision 2023)
I can understand the general meaning, not all details, but more than highlighted. I can read Russian, so I can somewhat read Serbian, but it’s not exactly the same.
As a Serb who learned Polish i can tell you that it is understandable on only the basic level.\
Like before I got fluent I could understand only basic stuff like – good day, some plants etc .
But nothing too complex
As for the Slovene lol even us Serbs and Croats can’t understand them
FYI Serbian and Croatian are basically the same language, and Serbian uses both Latin and Cyrillic script
When trying to understand these similar languages you go off mainly by tone and vibe of spoken words, so it’s more difficult to decipher text than translate speech. I don’t know how to pronounce foreign spelling or read cyrillic, so I can’t understand 1st and 3rd paragraphs aside from some single words that only use familiar letters. I think I get the gist from the 2nd paragraph, though middle part of 2nd sentence looks like word salad to me.
The text talks about singular atomic bomb, which killed hundreds of thousands of people either directly or by inflicted wounds and radiation. The remaining ruins(?) are left as a reminder of this atomic attack, and survivors created a museum in memory of peace in Hiroshima, which reminds of the horrors from the nuclear explosion. There is also a quote, a motto of the museum(?) that I think means “Never again Hiroshima”?
I’m curious how much I managed to get right!
As a native Polish speaker with basic Russian knowledge, I understand maybe 75% of the text.
Better the second language than the first.
It’s not readable to me, though if I knew the actual pronunciation of these words, I’d probably understand a LOT MORE just because these languages all gave their own sets of special symbols that represent specific sounds that exist in both, but are not represented by the same visual symbol.
Croatian? No, Slovene makes some sense though
My try at translation by only reading the texts :
Atomic bomb nondiscriminately took lives of more than 10 thousand people and deeply broke and changed the lives of the surviving ones. (…) reports of survivors in Wednesday’s media material from the museum of peace in Hiroshima brings the world the horror and inhumanity of nuclear weapons (…) “Hiroshima never again”
Super easy to learn for any polish person due to the vast similarities. Also it’s super easy to learn cyrillic for polish people by first learning Bosnian and then switching to Serbian like I did XD
Native Polish speaker (with B1 Russian) I can understand pretty much 60%+ of this text in each language
I’m Polish but my fiance is Serbian, so from time to time I’m exposed to Serbian, and on daily basis back when I was visiting him in Serbia (before he moved to Poland) and whenever we are going to visit his family.
So for starters, unless some1 in Poland studied Russian (or any other language with Cyrillic) as a kid, they can’t read any of the Cyrillic. I know that Serbian Cyrillic is different, but good part of the letters is shared. My personal knowledge of Serbian Cyrillic allows me to read only my fiance’s name and surname, “пекара”, “аеродром”, “Србија” and “Београд” (I guess you can all tell why). So the bottmost text for me one is unreadable, even though *for the most part* Cyrillic is 1 letter = 1 sign.
Now going for Bosnian and Croatian, they are equally as understandable for me. In some parts Croatian is more understandable, in some it’s in favour of Bosnian. But given the existence of highlighted words (which originate in diff language and thus, are similar in Polish) and some words that i know already or are simply similar to Polish (ljudi, svetu, živote, nečovječnost for example), I understand what the text is about.
Now going back to what I said above, after I’m exposed to Serbian continously for a week or so, I actually start picking it up. Not much in speaking but after a week or two I actually do understand what my fiance’s family is talking about for the most part for the reasons mentioned above – words originating from different languages, resulting being the same/v similar in Polish and in Serbian, similarities in language (e.g. voli = to like, woleć = to prefer; czarny and crna) or literally same words (ulica, klucz and ključ). Of course there also fake friends (e.g. trudna = difficult (PL), trudna = pregnant woman (RS)) and when these come into play, I lose track on what the talk is about
You can hmu with more questions if that sates your curiosity in any way
For me, out of all Slavic languages, I think Czech and Slovak are the most “understandable”
I think us Poles do better at understanding Czech language
I get it, but it’s so long and goofy it kinda weirds me out.