Thoughts, ramblings and other stuff

After watching Chuck episode 4.

I was bit shocked when I suddenly heard Polish spoken. After Carina says something I heard Sarah say:
”Tylko jak rzucisz jak twoja mamusia”
It means:
“Only if you throw like your mommy”
So I checked on the internet and Carina, who is played by Mini Anden - a Swedish supermodel, and she says in Swedish:
"Om jag slänger nycklarna till dig, kommer du tappa dem då?" - "If I throw you the keys, will you drop them?"

So the full dialog is
”If I throw you the keys, will you drop them?”
“Only if you throw like your mommy”
Funny, cute and uses both actresses natural abilities.

I of course felt compelled to check up on Yvonne Strehovski because I’m rarely able to understand the (so-called) Polish spoken by foreign actors. I couldn’t understand Jennifer Garner in Alias. Even Meryl Streep in Sophia’s Choice was for most part unintelligible to me.
Howerver this sentence was great – especially “mamusia” – the “si” sound is very hard for non-natives – English speaking people usually say “shi” instead. So I was very impressed.
I of course suspected Yvonne Strahovski had something to do with Poland because of a surname but I knew she was Ausralian so thought long time ago, doesn’t matter. Then I checked her bio and it says she speaks Polish. Well quite a lot Poles emigrated to Australia in the eighties, among them actors and singers, enough to make a community. I suppose it’s easier to make your kids learn the language if you speak it at home and among neighbours and friends.
And I also found out her real name is Strzechowski (strzecha means thatch – like in thatched roof) – she change it to make you pronounce it properly. She’s my hero. I hate English (American) pronunciations of Polish names. It twists my tongue and I’m usually unable to repeat it. I mentally correct it every time
Even the Chuck’s surname Bartowski – it should be said Bahr – TOHV – ski. Not Bartałski. See ‘ł’ – is the letter we use for that sound you say when you see ‘w’. And ‘w’ means ‘v’ sound – like in German. So former Polish president and Peace Nobel laureate Lech Wałęsa surname is pronounced Vah-WEN-sa not whatever way you read Walesa when you see it. And you should always stress the second syllable from the end.

Bartowski would be so much easier for me to hear if they changed name to Bartovski. Strzechowski is harder because English doesn’t have anything like the 'rz' sound so she just used ‘r’ as close enough. Other are easier – you can simply exchange ‘w’ for ‘v’ and ‘ch’ for h (it’s not ‘k’ and we use ‘cz’ like in Czech Republic for ‘ch’). It looks strange written this way but I could probably recognise it over the phone.
Oh and Wachowski (like the brothers) – Vahovski.
Sipowicz (like the NYPD character) – Shipovich.

Such change of names to spelling that would be correctly pronounced used to be very popular in Poland. We used Szekspir instead of Shakespeare and Szopen instead of Chopin. Nowadays it’s getting out of use – with written word being more important then spoken one. It’s the alphabetical indexing. And internet searches.

The other funny thing is that if she was born in Poland her name wouldn’t be Strzechowski. That’s for males. She would be Strzechowska.
See most typically Polish surnames (or rather ones that are internationally recognised as such) are really adjectives. In Polish (as in most other European languages) all nouns have gender – male, female or neutral e.g. ship is male, sun is neutral and death is female. So all adjectives have three forms male, female and neutral. Male usually ends with ‘i’ or ‘y’, female with ‘a’ and neutral with ‘e’, ‘ie’ or ‘o’. Many adjectives have the “–ski” endings e.g. “niebieski(/a/e)” – “blue”. Mostly however “–ski” is for adjective meaning someone’s possession like “kowalski (/a/ie)” - “smith’s” (now you know why it’s the most popular Polish surname ;) ) or “braterski(/a/ie)” – “brother’s”.
Surnames ending with ‘–ski’ or ‘–cki’ behave like adjectives – change ending depending on the sex of he person. So for female it ends with ‘–ska’ and ‘–cka’. I snickered everytime they said Lewinski.

BTW ‘–cki’ ending doesn’t mean ‘–ki’. If we write a letter you are suppose to say it. And ‘c’ is a ‘ts’ sound like in Tsar. Or if you prefer like ‘tz’ in German like in Gretzki (‘grecki’ means ‘greek’). So Jonathan Lipnicki is not Lipniki – that sounds really stupid.

Sorry for rant.