Dzien dobry!

Dzien dobry, Fenika!

I want to speak Polish, but haven't managed to do it yet.

Polak, Węgier — dwa bratanki,
i do szabli, i do szklanki,
oba zuchy, oba żwawi,
niech im Pan Bóg błogosławi.

Dzien dobry from Hungary, "cousin".

Brawo dla Polaków! Moja dziewczyna jest kanadyjski, ale jej rodzina pochodzi z Mielca. Kobiety polskie są tak atrakcyjne.

And she typed that, not me, but I agree.

Try this dictionary.

Happy belated Constitution Day.

Ah, it's time to revive this thread.
35, male, married, 1 son, living in Warsaw
Miło was poznać.

If you read in Polish, I invite you to my homepage, there is a half-dead blog and excerpts from my novels.
HERE

I'm just going to jump in randomly, shout dobrý den and then jump out again. Not Polish, but living in the Czech Republic, but then the OP did say 'Slavic' as well. I am planning on learning Polish but I have to master Czech first. So just saying ahoj.

Fenika said:

Hello goldmund. I was just visiting Warsaw last month. I read Polish, but it's often a struggle. I'll see how I do with your blog

Ahoj, Zelenka! Nice to see you again. How are you getting settled in Czech? Prague treating you well?

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Settled in nicely, starting a new job next week (in training right now), trying out my language skills (or lack of same).

Don't trust similarities between Polish and Czech! If you ask for a fresh bread in Czech language, you'll get a week-old bun in Poland! ;-)

See, Fenika, it's a shame I posted so late -- we could meet in my proud capital.
My blog's not very interesting, just PR stuff. Check out my writing excerpts on the right of the main page (Straznik Parku, Wabienie Rekinow, Wszystkie zwierzeta...)

Fenika said:

It's not like the grammar is horribly complicated or anything

My Czech is terrible (I know less than a dozen words, unless they are very similar to Polish ), but with Polish at least, I've found it all looks and sounds so similar sometimes. But I can use that similarity when learning new words to kinda 'focus in' on the root sounds, even if they aren't based on the same root word stem. It helps, at least until someone starts talking really fast.

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I'm at a pretty basic level, can ask for stuff and vaguely understand what people are saying, if they speak slowly enough. I need to actually work on it more though, I've been very lazy in studying for the last while.

Fenika said:

Yeah, I never attempt to speak in Czech (except the odd single word). I just speak Polish and hope they understand enough. Sometimes they speak Czech and hope I understand enough. We might go back and forth a few times before hitting an impass.

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I feel slightly lucky that I have an east coast Scottish accent because it's helped an awful lot with pronunciation and some of the trickier letters, but annoying I'm still at the stage where I go to speak and go totally blank, yet five minutes later I know exactly how to say it.

I only did a tiny bit of Polish ages ago through an audio course, but I noticed I could read some of the labels in the Polish grocery in Glasgow after I started learning Czech. I'm going tomorrow though to get a book I saw on Czech verbs, try to get some vocab. I think my grammar is not so bad these days but I really need to extend my wordlists.

Dobry den!

Not a native slavic speaker, but I did study Czech and Slovak back in 1984-85 at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey. (Oh, please, I "HAVE" to go to Monterey, CA? Really? OK. *grin*)

Nowhere near as fluent as I was years ago, but I can still stumble through basic conversation and I (almost) remember how to conjugate verbs in all seven cases (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, subjunctive, objective and imperative. - I think that's them anyway. *sigh*)

Still have my class books and cassette tapes from DLI somewhere around here. Probably ought to go dig them out one of these days and see how much I've forgotten.

Aha! I knew I'd stumble my way here eventually! Dobry den!

My latest WIP (just finished as NaNo and now up for revisions) is loosely based on some obscure Polish mythology, and about half of it takes place in Puszcza Niepołomicka, about 25km outside of Kraków. My good Polish grammar is 20 years rusty. My bad Polish/English grammar learned at the feet of my family is rampant. Am hoping for some help in double-checking the few full sentences I use in flashback and/or dream sequences. I keep the Polish to a minimum, because while it's a beautiful language, I know Americans aren't fond of the footnotes, even in lit fic. I am, however, going to make them hopefully suck it up on the names of the Polish characters.

Dziękuję bardzo, in advance.

Fenika said:

Welcome, Bees. What Polish Mythology did you use?

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The Dziwozony. I put it in a blender with a dash of the Lady of the Lake from Camelot mythos and a splash of Bene Gesserit from Dune.

Ah, the forest creatures switch your babies for their own? I've used them, too, in my first novel They're an attractive bunch.

Please feel free to send me the Polish sentences, I'll correct them for you, if needed.

Yes, and no. I ignored the changeling idea, since it's only in some of the stories. I went with the idea that they killed male babies (selective breeding or killing male children) but what if one didn't follow along and raised that lone male child? And kept him hidden among humans until he reached maturity?