Last week in class we took up, at least preliminarily, the concept of aspect in Polish verbiage, yet another of the complexifying features of Slavic language. A technical grammatical term distinct from tense, indicating how the speaker thinks about and portrays an action, one of the chief determinants of an action’s aspect is whether it is completed or not, a factor that can look very much like the action’s place in time, that is, tense. All very confusing, grammar. In English, we use the same verb, with a variety of helping verb constructions, to communicate both tense and aspect: “I read,” “I read,” “I was reading,” “I have been reading,” “I had been reading,” “I had read.” In Polish, most verbs actually consist of verb pairs: one that expresses continuous, repeatable, or incomplete actions (imperfective) and the other that expresses discrete or completed or complete-able actions (perfective). For example, czytac is the verb form one would use to say “I read,” “I’m reading,” “I was reading,” and “I will be reading,”—continuous, repeatable, a hopefully infinite activity, to read. However, if I want to communicate that I not only read last night but finished Sienkiewicz’s Pan Wolodyjowski, I would use the perfective verb przeczytac. Two verb forms instead of one with a simple identifying prefix doesn’t seem so bad, but of course, there isn’t a single prefix, prze, but multiple prefixes; other verbs use suffixes, others infixes, and others still engage verb forms that seem to share nothing but the same alphabet: mowic, “to speak,” and its perfective counterpart powiedziec. Huh? You just have to memorize.
After eight months I measure my progress in the language not by points or grades, correct answers or errors, but by the diminishing perplexity and intellectual outrage with which I confront the living linguistic arcana. Okay, I’ll deal with it.
This week Hoffman’s entire cinematic film version of Sienkiewicz’s trilogy arrived, and I watched Pan Wolodyjowski last night. The trilogy, like the boxed set of Chopin, runs to eleven hours. Having previously watched Ogniem i Mieczem in class, I’m over half way home. I haven’t much to add to my previous comments on both books and their filmography. I note that the actor who played my namesake, Karol Borowiecki, in Promised Land, Daniel Olbrychski, plays the mistreated, under-appreciated, and ultimately impaled ataman, Azia, long lost son of the Turkish ruler Tuhey Bay, in Pan Wolodyjowski. It’s a tough scene, but tougher in the book. And the facial hair of the 70s, the 1670s I mean, still inspires me to reverence my inner Cossack (or Emperor Tamarin). My early outgrowth, though, suggests more Bolshevik intellectual than Zaporozhdy free-booter. And heavens, what used to be salt and pepper is mostly now a chin of salt.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Mastery
I spent much of this Saturday afternoon translating a little over one typed page of Polish text, ten short paragraphs on various subjects of Polish folklore. After typing up my final draft, I took a break to watch the Masters on CBS. With the international field doing rather well through round three, moving day, yet no Poles were on the leader board. In fact, I’m not sure any made the cut, or even entered. Golf is not yet big in the old country.
But in one of the commercials for some tech sponsor (IBM?), a youngish traveler inspeaks a question into his iPhone (or some comparable gadget) in English, which duly translates it into Italian and voices it to a village local. The spark of human connection. Technologically mediated transnational communication, almost instantaneous, almost miraculous. A student of mine had previously warned me about such developments. I suspected then, and continue to do so now, that translation technology, however advanced, might be slick enough for simple inquiries, but will not, in the near future, be able to handle anything more nuanced, and certainly not Polish. If I’m not already mistaken, I may be sooner than I think; however, assuming that one day it will be as good as now dreamed, what are the implications? Consider the time, energy, money, life I have invested so far to achieve my modest progress. Why not just download? When does old school become positive obsolescence?
But then I reflect that the point of my second-language learning isn’t, first and foremost, to do, to converse, to actually communicate, but to be. And if I downloaded the translation app to a device I have not yet conceived any intention of purchasing, my device would become instantaneously more Polish than its owner.
But in one of the commercials for some tech sponsor (IBM?), a youngish traveler inspeaks a question into his iPhone (or some comparable gadget) in English, which duly translates it into Italian and voices it to a village local. The spark of human connection. Technologically mediated transnational communication, almost instantaneous, almost miraculous. A student of mine had previously warned me about such developments. I suspected then, and continue to do so now, that translation technology, however advanced, might be slick enough for simple inquiries, but will not, in the near future, be able to handle anything more nuanced, and certainly not Polish. If I’m not already mistaken, I may be sooner than I think; however, assuming that one day it will be as good as now dreamed, what are the implications? Consider the time, energy, money, life I have invested so far to achieve my modest progress. Why not just download? When does old school become positive obsolescence?
But then I reflect that the point of my second-language learning isn’t, first and foremost, to do, to converse, to actually communicate, but to be. And if I downloaded the translation app to a device I have not yet conceived any intention of purchasing, my device would become instantaneously more Polish than its owner.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Niestety Marek
In the most mundane places—Slavic language textbooks, circa 1981—and amidst the tedious practices of Slavic language acquisition, auditing and memorizing dialogs, one can sometimes detect or envision the great dramas of life, or the small and poignant ones of love, unfolding subtly as they sometimes do into a full flowering of frustration, inconsequence, and dismissal.
Now of course, our dialogs have no real narrative structure to them. They were crafted to introduce and explore various vocabulary and grammatical concepts and have little real continuity apart from that provided by solid, second-language pedagogy and the spoken word one might encounter on a Polish street. No plot, no story, no intrinsic literary merit. And yet ….
And yet there is character. Enter Marek, our male voice through 14 chapters to date and 33 dialogs. Marek expresses a not overly bright persona—more gumby than twit—unkempt, rough around the edges, a little touchy, testy, but not irredeemable—in other words, a guy. Rumor has it that he sometimes recorded under the influence. His delivery flows naturally, off-handedly, if sometimes slurredly, so that he would appear to hold us, his second-language audience, slightly in contempt, as if to say, “this is the real thing, get used to it.” According to the text, he has a sad, funny-looking setter named Gypsy or Pirate, but is otherwise no ladies man, a Polish expat from the late Communist era.
Dear Marek initiates occasionally absurd exchanges (for example, the contextless chat introducing reflexive verbs: “You’re bored here probably”/”No, I’m not bored at all”/”I’m surprised that you’re not bored”/”Why, I’m really having a good time”) that are received and graced by two female voices. The junior feminine, Agata (I love the name Agata, have a Polish cousin by that name) rolls through the exercises proficiently, matter-of-factly, crisply, naively. The other female, the first, has no name, let’s call her Ona, though we might refer to her as Agata’s older, wiser, perhaps all-too-wise sister. She allures. She engages both Agata and Marek with the patter of an experienced elementary school teacher: musical, reassuringly intoned with playful highlights, a sardonic and, yes, supercilious intelligence, with a timbre of milk and miod, “honey”. She infatuates with a word, a phrase at most, and though Agata receives one tweak of abuse, Marek absorbs multiple rebuffs more or less upside the head. Poor Marek, who has a thing for Ona and absolutely no clue and no chance.
In dialog 1B, he greets her informally, succeeds in striking up a conversation, only to realize that he’s late and has to hurry off. In 3B, trying to ingratiate himself by complimenting her on a colleague of hers, Marek learns that she’s known this fellow from childhood (od dziecinstwa) and that “he isn’t as nice as it seems.” Okay. By 5A he has bought tickets to a very interesting film; she’s already engaged. In 5B, Ona’s too tired to go to the concert, to which he responds, “Lately you’re constantly tired.” In 5C (Chapter 5 is the nadir in this non-relationship), she has to study. Marek bewails his plight in the most pathetic line to date of his two-year role, “No, to kiedy bedziesz WOLna?” (“Well, then when WILL you be free?” though in the Polish, the stress falls on the word “free.”) The outburst is both completely embarrassing and a little heart-breaking. “Nie wiem,” she says (“I don’t know”), “moze jutro, moze pojutrze,” (“Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after”). Her nonchalance devastates all but the dimmest. She patronizes him a bit in 9C, complimenting his Polish, though it is, in fact, his native tongue. She stands him up in 12D, thinking the film was “dzisiaj” (“today”)—innocently, beautifully, sexily chirped—when it was, alas for poor Marek, “wczoraj,” (“yesterday”). He had waited two hours for her. What man has not endured that pain: the spurned Everyman? (n.b. Professor Swan misses an opportunity here to introduce expletives.) And last week, in 14B, confessing no especial interest in newspapers or what’s going on in the world, Marek takes a swift one in the intellectual shorts: “Well then you’re even more boring than I thought.”
I wonder if that’s how Polska thinks about me, or will, eventually.
Now of course, our dialogs have no real narrative structure to them. They were crafted to introduce and explore various vocabulary and grammatical concepts and have little real continuity apart from that provided by solid, second-language pedagogy and the spoken word one might encounter on a Polish street. No plot, no story, no intrinsic literary merit. And yet ….
And yet there is character. Enter Marek, our male voice through 14 chapters to date and 33 dialogs. Marek expresses a not overly bright persona—more gumby than twit—unkempt, rough around the edges, a little touchy, testy, but not irredeemable—in other words, a guy. Rumor has it that he sometimes recorded under the influence. His delivery flows naturally, off-handedly, if sometimes slurredly, so that he would appear to hold us, his second-language audience, slightly in contempt, as if to say, “this is the real thing, get used to it.” According to the text, he has a sad, funny-looking setter named Gypsy or Pirate, but is otherwise no ladies man, a Polish expat from the late Communist era.
Dear Marek initiates occasionally absurd exchanges (for example, the contextless chat introducing reflexive verbs: “You’re bored here probably”/”No, I’m not bored at all”/”I’m surprised that you’re not bored”/”Why, I’m really having a good time”) that are received and graced by two female voices. The junior feminine, Agata (I love the name Agata, have a Polish cousin by that name) rolls through the exercises proficiently, matter-of-factly, crisply, naively. The other female, the first, has no name, let’s call her Ona, though we might refer to her as Agata’s older, wiser, perhaps all-too-wise sister. She allures. She engages both Agata and Marek with the patter of an experienced elementary school teacher: musical, reassuringly intoned with playful highlights, a sardonic and, yes, supercilious intelligence, with a timbre of milk and miod, “honey”. She infatuates with a word, a phrase at most, and though Agata receives one tweak of abuse, Marek absorbs multiple rebuffs more or less upside the head. Poor Marek, who has a thing for Ona and absolutely no clue and no chance.
In dialog 1B, he greets her informally, succeeds in striking up a conversation, only to realize that he’s late and has to hurry off. In 3B, trying to ingratiate himself by complimenting her on a colleague of hers, Marek learns that she’s known this fellow from childhood (od dziecinstwa) and that “he isn’t as nice as it seems.” Okay. By 5A he has bought tickets to a very interesting film; she’s already engaged. In 5B, Ona’s too tired to go to the concert, to which he responds, “Lately you’re constantly tired.” In 5C (Chapter 5 is the nadir in this non-relationship), she has to study. Marek bewails his plight in the most pathetic line to date of his two-year role, “No, to kiedy bedziesz WOLna?” (“Well, then when WILL you be free?” though in the Polish, the stress falls on the word “free.”) The outburst is both completely embarrassing and a little heart-breaking. “Nie wiem,” she says (“I don’t know”), “moze jutro, moze pojutrze,” (“Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after”). Her nonchalance devastates all but the dimmest. She patronizes him a bit in 9C, complimenting his Polish, though it is, in fact, his native tongue. She stands him up in 12D, thinking the film was “dzisiaj” (“today”)—innocently, beautifully, sexily chirped—when it was, alas for poor Marek, “wczoraj,” (“yesterday”). He had waited two hours for her. What man has not endured that pain: the spurned Everyman? (n.b. Professor Swan misses an opportunity here to introduce expletives.) And last week, in 14B, confessing no especial interest in newspapers or what’s going on in the world, Marek takes a swift one in the intellectual shorts: “Well then you’re even more boring than I thought.”
I wonder if that’s how Polska thinks about me, or will, eventually.
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