Yes, that's very true. For me English is missing like million words simply because in Polish we have the possibility of creating new ones at will. Also, although there is a remarkable number of synonyms in English, there’s almost none for elements of nature, parts of body, and endearments. It makes writing anything romantic extremely difficult. Additionally, in Polish we never repeat a word within three subsequent sentences unless for emphasis, so I suffer every time I have to use “he” or “she” twice within a sentence. Writing in English is still easier for Poles than speaking it. We simply don’t have the same sounds. French is much easier here. But I think the most difficult thing is translating from Polish to English. It’s much easier the other way. Polish has or can have most of the grammar structures that are present in English, but English has very little of those that are in Polish. I generally think that English and French are very similar to each other, so you can get some idea how much different Polish is.

Also, Polish is a morpheme rich language. We can move words around, we can drop subject, object or even verb. We don’t have to use so many words at once. Our one word contains much more information. But then there is much more words in general. I.e. the mere word “two” takes 13 different basic forms, and yet there can be many more. It contains the message about gender, or whether it refers to people, things, or animals, and can also provide speakers’ personal attitude to it.

Laura keeps adding words while editing the story! Really! Why one would need so many words! She recently counted that there are over 70 chapters in the story, and I bet that there would be twice less if not all the words she keeps adding.

Oh well, here’s some short example of how Polish works. The word KOCHAC means TO LOVE. All the below examples are in feminine gender:

Kochalam – I was in love
Zakochalam sie – I fell in love
Pokochalam – I started to be in love
Ukochalam – I have chosen someone dear to love
Ukochiwalam – I was choosing someone dear to love
Odkochalam sie – I stopped being in love
Odkochiwalam sie – I was trying to stop being in love
Podkochiwalam sie – I had a crush on someone
Nakochalam sie – I satiated myself with love
Kochalam sie (z) – I was making love
Kochalam sie (w) – I was in love but not seriously
Przykochalam sobie – I found someone to make love with
Przykochiwalam sobie – I was finding various people to make love with
Dokochalam sobie – I found someone extra to make love with
Dokochalam sie – it can be ironic, meaning that I became sick with love
Kochalabym – I would be in love
Pokochalabym – I would fell in love

Ok, I’ll stop. I could simply go on and on, and it’s not even that we have to use the exact word kochac for all the meanings, but it’s possible to play like that with every word, and create new ones. Even if normally they might not be used in the language at all their meaning still would be clear for a reader. We can do the same with nouns, so the number of endearments is practically infinitive, and it’s a faux pas here for a boy to refer to his girlfriend anything he used to call his former girlfriends, and such a lapse would certainly result in a lonely night.

The sex scenes are yet another thing. There are many more words to use here for good steamy sex – the words in English are usually either ugly or medical, and not many really. But if someone wants to write a sensual erotic scene in Polish they usually wouldn’t use any parts of body in the description, nor any synonyms for making love. I.e. in “Pan Tadeusz” Mickiewicz very graphically described full intercourse without using one word for parts of body. It’s just possible to make other words meaningful enough to convey the same message, but it all very strongly works on readers’ imagination and by that is much more stimulating than a direct description. But when translated into English it seems that Tadeusz just went for a walk.

Now, do you feel sorry for me? I’m still trying to find out how English writers deal with it, but I haven’t yet read anything what would work at least a bit similarly. I’ve been reading some English erotic poems to learn from them, but it still doesn’t seem the same. And now I also wonder if I really have to make English more like Polish, LOL

On the other hand English is much more concise than Polish in all the business-marketing sphere. It’s much easier to make a business presentation in English. We simply never developed our own language in this domain, no doubt because of lack of free market. So Polish here is full of English words, which are then re-made and re-created in all the possible ways. Sounds quite funny.

Sylwia