"Win a book autographed by Stanislaw Lem"

[Angelika_Darksky]

Learning german is easier than the slavonic and caucasian languages and most of the roman ones, too, i believe! It doesn't have this strange letters with ^ above (or something else, or under it, or crossed through it *g*) and a clear structured grammar. Also a clear pronounciation (which isn't the case in englisch and frensh).
*g* enjoy!

[peskanov]

Maybe it is (easier), but certainly the pronunciation is a problem for a person who speaks Romanic languages. I speak Spanish, which has few phonetic sounds, and the correspondence between spoken and written is very simple.
However, English is quite dificult to pronounce just looking a text, and German seems equally dificult to me. Reading and pronouncing a word like "kartoffel" seems straightforward, but reading "Deutschland" is a puzzle to me. In Spanish, earing that word, I would write something like "dossland" or "doschland", but I would probably lose some nuances.

Lucky you, Germans can enjoy Lem's complete works in their native tongue!
I hope someday all books will be translated to English at least. I throw the towel with the Spanish translations, it's already a miracle we have around 17 books available.

[Deckard]

Yes, Polish is considered to be one of the most difficult languages in the world, but it is so beautiful... I wish you all good luck.
Well, I've started learning German.... hope I will make it...


CU
Deck

[Terminus]

I recently started to learn Arabic. Now, that's a trick... Polish seems so easy next to it

[Deckard]

Are you serious with this Arabic?  

[Terminus]

Yup Well, not that I intend to join Al-Quaida, but it all comes to the fact, that I love Arabian music, and I decided to learn some language in order to understand anything of the lyrics.

[Deckard]

Learning Arabic is like learning Chineese to me.  

[Terminus]

Naaa... it's not that bad. Writing and reading is the hardest part, all because of the complicated notification system. It surely is simpler than in Chinese, nevertheless... there are many attractions As in any semitic language, you write from right to left, writing only the consonants (the vowels are omitted, or (easy variant) their placement is indicated by some special marks).  Interesting thing is, that the shape of the letter depends on where it is situated in the word.

And the letters themselves are very beatifull, in my personal opinion. As a matter of fact, Arabic is (when it comes to rules and writing) very similar to Yiddish.

Of course, I am an absolute beginner.

This is the calligraphic art, with word Allah in the middle:


Cheers.

[Deckard]

Well, it's graphically interesting, I admit...

[Terminus]

Haha, yeah, one doesn't know where it starts and when it ends:)

[Shallya]

marhaba ; p
I have a friend (Samer) whose mother is from Palestina..father - Polish. He knows arabic as good as polish. He was learning "us" sometimes..if you'll have a problems Terminus, i give you his gg number.
heh..he could write notes on the table in arabic..and cheat on exams sometimes ; p   =)  

cheers

[Terminus]

Well thanks, that's cool. But how is he supposed to write me anything through gg? Where no arabic fonts can be displayed? Anyway, that's nice of You, I'll keep that in mind.
cheers

[Sternenfisch]

Anybody knows an good Internet course to learn to read polish?
 

Thats ironic like E.W. Heine.
After you get the book, you can't read it.
Is there maybe an edition in a language, you can read?

[Ritch]

Is there maybe an edition in a language, you can read?

I only read spanish and english, so teh answer is no (besides the excerpts translated by Frank Prengel)

Its a pity there are no english version  ; I really wonder why most of the Lem non fiction have not been traslated to english yet


On the other hand, my book do not have utilitary value only ;-)

[Terminus]

Simply not every of Lem's books gets translated & published (word published should be emphasized, as I've heard from Socrates, even when one translates a book to English he cannot find a willing publisher) , because the editors are afraid they're not gonna make any profit out of it.