"Win a book autographed by Stanislaw Lem"

[Socrates]

Yeah, a pity about the editors, but hey, it's a labour of love to translate (at least for me).  I know a few fluent spanish-polish speakers, who've learned polish as a second language, so it's not entirely impossible.  But you will need a serious drive to do it as the grammar rules and tenses  are quite brutal in Polish.  On the other hand, by learning Polish you will be exposed to a vast wealth of amazing literature (both SF and not - Sienkiewicz, Gombrowicz, others).  As well, you will find yourself understanding much of Russian, Chech and even Croatian, as the languages are all very similar (which means you'll have no problem learning them, and which therefore means that you'll be exposed to a part of the world which is quite unlike any other on our globe).  Think of the benefits, and think of the drawbacks - perhaps a year of study to reap the benefits of multilingualism and to gain an understanding of Poles and Slavs altogether.  
Good luck,
Cheers,
Socrates

[Sternenfisch]

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

In Germany, we got the luck, that most of Lem's works are translated in German.

[innate]

At one point in this thread, Terminus mentioned http://portalwiedzy.onet.pl/tlumacz.html for translating words. What are some others?

My primary resource has been a PDF dictionary from pitt.edu. When I can't even make a guess from that, I give the word to portalwiedzy, which probably gets at least half of them, but I want to get them all!

[Terminus]

Until recently, we've had http://www.e-dict.pl/ also. It's quite cool and comprehensive, but I dunno if it's still online.

[innate]

Thanks. Their redirection was misbehaving for me, but from the page source I found that http://www.dict.pl/plen works. It still didn't know my super-tricky words, but that's okay.

[Terminus]

What are those ? (the tricky words...)

[innate]

nomotetycznych
lewaloaskiej
wychynęłaby
przezeń
jecie

I'm kind of embarrassed that I can't get those last two.
My source seems to have been scanned in by somebody and proofread imperfectly, which doesn't help matters. I don't have nearly enough of a vocabulary to recognize typos.

[Deckard]

This question was addressed to Terminus, but since I have a little time now, I'll try to answer it:

wychynęłaby
przezeń

These two words seem to be logically situated (I'm not sure if that was your purpose), because ...wychynęłaby przezeń... sounds grammatically correct. Wychynęłaby comes from wychynąć (it's not a common word, and that's why it can be hard to find it in a regular dictionary) which is very close to wychylać (to lean out). So wychynąć says to appear slowly and soon stay visible or available for a period of time. It can be also translated into emerge from something. Przezeń is also rather seldom used word which could be translated into "through something". Moreover is has to be used in a very specific context. So wychynęłaby przezeń would suggest that something (of a feminine gender) would emerge from something. Jecie is taken out of context but it looks like it's a part of a sentence similar to: wy jecie coś - you eat something. So it comes from the verb jeść which means to eat.

PS.
Do you really learn Polish?

PPS.
Terminus please extend or correct my explaination if you want. I'm sure some thing can be improved or clarified in more detail.


CU
Deck

[innate]

Thanks, Deckard!

wychynęłaby was found in „z której ludzkość wychynęłaby zdziesiątkowana”. I'm assuming that zdziesiątkowana means "decimated". Would it mean then the decimation proceeded slowly but the effects lasted for a long time?

przezeń was in „tak aby przemawiała przezeń niejako sama Natura”, where "through" sounds reasonable enough. Is it sort of like an adjectival form of przez?

jecie was in „wprowadził po jecie „neutrina””, which makes sense, but I quote it anyway as an excuse to ask how one nests quotes in Polish.

Am I learning Polish? Well, I'mtrying to. Slowly. It'd be great if it were as generally useful for me as learning English has been for you guys, but...I tell myself that everybody needs a pointless hobby or two, right?

[Deckard]

wychynęłaby was found in „z której ludzkość wychynęłaby zdziesiątkowana”. I'm assuming that zdziesiątkowana means "decimated". Would it mean then the decimation proceeded slowly but the effects lasted for a long time?

Yep, you're right. In my opinion the given sentence would be translated into "from which humankind would have emerged outnumbered".

przezeń was in „tak aby przemawiała przezeń niejako sama Natura”, where "through" sounds reasonable enough. Is it sort of like an adjectival form of przez?

Yep, you are again right. przezeń is like przez.

jecie was in „wprowadził po jecie „neutrina””, which makes sense, but I quote it anyway as an excuse to ask how one nests quotes in Polish.

OK. I get it now. In doesn't make any sense. It's  a mistake. It was not jecie but pojęcie. pojęcie  is an idea. So your quote in fact means "he introduced a conception/idea of a neutrino."

Am I learning Polish? Well, I'mtrying to. Slowly. It'd be great if it were as generally useful for me as learning English has been for you guys, but...I tell myself that everybody needs a pointless hobby or two, right?

You're doin' that all by yourself or you've got some teacher?

CU
Deck

[Terminus]

No, Deckard, there isn't much I coud add to what You've said.
... the "po jecie" story gave me a good laugh

And now for sth completely different: the man with the tape recorder in his brother's nose.

The world:

nomotetycznych

is a declined form of the world 'nomotetyczny'. It comes from the name "nomologia" - the kind of science, called nomology in english.


Nomology, as far as I know, deals with the rules of science, rules of reality. (In this sence physics is nomological, because it discovers the laws). The contrary to nomological sciences are idiographical ones (dealing with events that are nonrepetative).

[Terminus]

As for the 'ewaloaskiej ' I am almost sure that such world doesn't exists. It must be another mistake. You would do right to give us the context in which you found this creature

[innate]

pojęcie: Ah, okay. It had to do with mass disappearing, and I was
thinking 'eat'...'consume'...that maybe it was saying something about the mass getting 'consumed' by neutrinos flying off...

You're doin' that all by yourself or you've got some teacher?

By myself.

I'd never heard of nomology.

lewaloaskiej:

Jesteśmy bliscy Sumeryjczykom, ale moralność człowieka kultury lewaloaskiej przeraziłaby nas.

[By the way, I don't want to give the impression that I can simply look at the quotes that I've been pasting in and remember what all of it means. I know the endings for verbs/nouns/adjectives to some degree, and I know the conjunctions and prepositions and things reasonably well, but I can't remember too many nouns or verbs...]

[Terminus]

Now mind that

ewaloaskiej is not the same as lewaloaskiej.

(The latter being what you wrote today).

As for 'lewaloaskiej' , ti comes from the word 'lewaluaska', it's an adjective to describe a phase in the stone age. The 'lewaluaska' technique was used to break flint stones in a specific, unordinary way. The word itself comes from the archeological site in france.
I have no idea about the equivalents of such a word in english.

[innate]

The latter being what I wrote both times, actually.
France, huh? Maybe if I repeat it to myself a few times, the equivalent word will come to me (assuming there is one)...

[there's Levant/Levantine. Looks like it's only used for a region, so people say "the Levantine Neolithic/Paleolithic/whatever". It sounds similar enough, anyway.]