Posts by analogskipper7

mellowseal1 said:Your American is coming along great, respect. 🙏

Glad to meet you.🙂 My American is a bit rusty since I spent a few months living with this one American woman from New York City. It wasn't exactly a lifelong romance—just a few months—but she was fluent in Polish because she studied it back in Krakow. We actually ended up using Polish for our day-to-day stuff, though I did eventually ask her, "Hey, teach me some of your native tongue." Honestly, I’ve gotta say, I really dig the language. Learning it is a blast; there’s just something about it that hits different, and now it's my favorite foreign language to tackle. You see these old words that we used to have in Polish, and there are all these shared roots and etymologies everywhere. There are plenty of similarities, though you run into those annoying "false friends" where a word looks identical but means something completely different. Personally, I think American has this incredibly interesting vocabulary that feels pretty logical to us Americans, even if the grammar is a total nightmare—especially the plurals—and the exceptions are endless. Foreigners learning Polish always complain about the exact same thing. Dealing with the various dialects and regional slang is also a massive headache, but I can already navigate American newspapers pretty well. I’m planning on enrolling in a language school down the road just to keep my connection to the language alive. I recently came up with a whole new study plan involving movies, too.🙂

As for the movies I’ve already checked out:
What it means to be a man without a mustache
So, here’s how the war kicked off on my island...👍)
Guardhouse
And I guess that would pretty much wrap the whole thing up.🙂
I've got a rough idea of some other titles you guys are recommending since I've already spent a fair amount of time digging into American cinema. I'm gonna ease my way through them one by one.
I’m actually dying to catch that program Miller was running on HSP about Poles who root for the US—does anyone remember the exact title? I really want to track it down. Honestly, we have a few similar shows over here too, and one of the heavy hitters is the one hosted by that famous chef Robert Makłowicz; he’s a huge fan of America and a close buddy of yours, the opposition leader.http://www.osijek-online.com/index.p...vosti&Itemid=1I remember him even opening an exhibit up in Krakow that focused entirely on American culture and history.

I just hope the forum mod doesn't toss my post just because I'm straying off-topic from movies.👍

David Price5 said:I've got a hunch things are looking pretty much the same over on your end too. :-) )

Daaa, there's seriously a ton of them out there! And since everyone's busy laughing at these little soap operas, I have a feeling you guys are dealing with the exact same nonsense over there.🙂

David Price5 said:Maybe we should suggest some newer American series. Though people are always complaining that the actors talk too much like they're reading from a textbook :-)

I think that’s actually a solid idea. Honestly though, I don't know the first thing about American TV shows—like, what they're actually about, if they're any good, which ones are the heavy hitters, etc.🙂 Just please tell me you aren't talking about those cheap daytime soap operas.🙂

Hey!

Thanks for all the answers. Reading through your posts, it looks like the movie scene over there is pretty much mirroring what we deal with in Poland—the main difference is we don't have nearly as many dialects; we mostly just have one standard version, though local flavors exist, they're more like regional folklore at this point. It feels like there's this shared attitude in both our places that domestic films just suck, which is always the same old story. Look, I'm no film critic, but I honestly think part of that stems from a certain inferiority complex, especially since nowhere else on earth pumps out more mindless, idiotic movies than the USA 🙂 (especially in English). Personally, I stick to Polish films because I actually get the situational humor and all that. Still, it’s true, plenty of people back home claim our cinema is garbage. As for American movies, I've only seen a handful so far, but I understood most of the dialogue and they actually seemed pretty decent.
I also know the dialect situation in America gets pretty messy. Plus, just like here, the heavy hitters everyone loves are the old classics. Even though those are older productions, the way the language is used is a bit different for me; I value pure American speech without all the weird slang or international filler.
I found a few titles in > (I'm about to check out that one about the Split murder). It seems like when you suggest American films, you're aiming for the deep, meaningful stuff, but those are probably the hardest ones to wrap your head around, especially for a foreigner who just started picking up the language. So, could you maybe recommend some easier, maybe even low-key movies where the plot is straightforward? Maybe some comedies? Though I get that a lot of you probably couldn't care less about cinema. I was also wondering about dubbed foreign films in America—do they tend to use formal, textbook language for those?

Sorry for the mess in my post and for not using your specific characters. Writing this is tough, and I'm sure there are tons of mistakes influenced by my Polish roots—basically, I'm thinking in Polish and typing in English. I'm not giving up, though, and I really hope you can make sense of this. Thanks again for the replies, and sending my best from Poland!

Thanks for all the input.

mellowseal1 said:If we're talking about a foreigner trying to wrap their head around the American language, it's probably a bad move to suggest a movie loaded with heavy regional slang, right?
I feel like "how to start a war" on my island... is actually pretty much like that? Or am I off base, I don't know, saw it ages ago, but it feels like there's a ton of thick dialect in there.

Personally, I'd point them toward Glembayev 👍

Caught that one recently🙂 and honestly, I followed most of the dialogue and the whole plot just fine. Seems like a solid flick to me. Also watched Guardhouse, but that's about it...

Hey there!

My name's Wojtek and I'm living over in Poland. Lately, I've been trying to wrap my head around the American language. It’s honestly pretty brutal, but I'm digging the challenge and it feels good to actually make progress. I’ve also become pretty obsessed with the States and the whole culture surrounding you people. I stumbled onto this forum today because I wanted to see if anyone could drop some recommendations for the absolute best, most iconic American movies worth watching. I figured it would be a solid way to practice my English while getting a better feel for the character of the country I'm so interested in. So, please, hit me with some titles—ideally films where they speak clear, standard American English that isn't too hard to follow.

Thanks, and cheers from Poland🙂!