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Comment by mootothemax | Hacker News Reader

So does all Polish software ask for you gender the first thing you do when you log in?

I don't know - one of these days I'll finally get the guts to change my laptop's language to Polish.

Fortunately, this rule only applies to the past and future tenses, so you're safe if you can keep to present tense.

The only translations I've worked with have been Facebook-based, where, by and large, the person's gender is already known.

Elsewhere, I've seen things written in a bit of a hacky manner, e.g. the above written as: Właśnie wygrałeś/aś.

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I'm from Poland, and I've got quite a lot experience in using Polish software. Using male forms is the norm, nobody writes "wygrałeś/aś" within the software.

Americans might consider it sexist, but it's the only practical solution to the issue. So, "Właśnie wygrałeś" is actually correct.

I'm from Poland, and I've got quite a lot experience in using Polish software. Using male forms is the norm, nobody writes "wygrałeś/aś" within the software.

I can't speak for proper games you run on a laptop, but I've seen that form in several places. Admittedly, it could well have stood out to me as I wondered "What on earth..."

Americans might consider it sexist, but it's the only practical solution to the issue.

Heh, on a separate but kinda-related note, I wonder how much of this is related to some of Polish's other grammatical rules? If a group of women were in a pub last night, they could say byłyśmy, but if there was a single man there, it becomes byliśmy.

It seems that there are one set of grammatical rules for women, children and animals, and another set for men. It's fascinating!

It's quite common to write in asexual form, like 'Wygrana!'.

Also there are a lot more pitfalls regarding slavic languages, for example in polish, there are few plural forms (2 users, 8 users = 2 użytkownicy, 8 użytkowników, etc).

It's quite common to write in asexual form, like 'Wygrana!'.

Isn't "Wygrana" just the noun, rather than a verb? So the nearest equivalent in English would be "Win!" rather than "You Won"?

When you first mentioned "asexual form," I was thinking something like "Wygrało," but "It Won!" sounds a bit impersonal to me. Not sure whether that's better or worse than assuming the reader's male.

Also there are a lot more pitfalls regarding slavic languages, for example in polish, there are few plural forms

That's an incredibly fun one. If it ends in 2, 3 or 4 and isn't 12, 13 or 14, you use the nominative plural ending, otherwise the genitive plural ending. At least... I think that's for nouns in nominative and accusative cases, right? My head quickly starts spinning when I think about these.

"Wygrało" would be incorrect (it should be "Wygrałoś" in this case, and even then it's only grammaticaly correct if you communicate with small kid, and sounds very weird even then).

You can also say this using "person" - "Osobo używająca ten program - wygrałaś" ("To person, who is using this software - you have won"), "Osoba" is always female, and can mean anybody. But this is very formal and weird, too.

Wygrałoś

Wow, that's a completely new form to me! Do you know any examples of where I can find it - or even a description - as my usual online sources are failing me :)

I like your word-hack using Osoba! I'm loving learning Polish, it's a real eye-opener about how languages can work.

"Wygrałoś" (You-neutral have won) is made from "wygrało" (It have won) in the same way "wygrałaś"(You-female have won) is made from "wygrała"(She have won), or "Wygrałeś"(You-male have won) is made from "wygrał"(he have won). In Polish kid is neutral gender, so you theorethically could use "wygrałoś" when speaking with a kid. But nobody uses that, so it sounds strange ven for native speakers. I don't remember ever hearing it.

But nobody uses that, so it sounds strange ven for native speakers. I don't remember ever hearing it.

Heh, I was just curious as I hadn't seen that form anywhere :)

That said, the Polish Wiktionary wygrać entry (http://pl.wiktionary.org/wiki/wygra%C4%87) lists it and a couple of other new-to-me ones as "forma potencjalna", so I guess it's possible in theory, but as you say, just not used.

And obviously I declined "program" wrong, should be: "Osobo używająca tego programu - wygrałaś".

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