But, but they always mean that one phoneme. I think that English where one letter can has several different pronunciations is much harder. Polish spelling convention just makes it harder to write, it's true, but reading is easy. You just need to remember all the 42 signs (single and double letter) and that's it. Not like memorizing whole words in English where it seems pronunciation often doesn't have much to do with spelling

I'll be waiting for your review of Narrenturm. I always though this is a book/series you'd really like



I think the story in Geralt books with all the political references and human nature insights is good but it's the ending that makes it absolutly great to me. I just wonder, when (if) it's finally published as whole in English, how many people will scream deus ex machina on the whole Nilfgaard thing. And that is something I love the most. However, I, once again, am getting ahead. I'll wait till you read it.



He takes horseshoes from the fire with his bare hands and wears black. How can he not be cool?




Language is a large part why the books are so much fun to read in Polish. However this comes in a large part from cultural context as the language used it based on the language used in Henryk Sienkiwicz's Trilogy. Sienkiewicz mostly invented that version of Polish but still when anyone in Poland thinks about how Polish sounded like in old times (late medieval/ renaissance period especially) this is what we think.

As almost everyone in Poland was exposed to Trilogy one way or the other Sapkowski didn't have to explain that all this happened in a past setting. We would know, just from dialogue, even if there was no other clues like swords, horses etc. It also makes the setting much more familiar and ordinary then fantasy (especially foreign) usually seems.

I don't think any of this can be translated but I think that the translations that can, at least partially, render the fun of the original are more successful. Having a great translator is largely responsible for Pratchett's popularity in Poland.

BTW I know you've read Sienkiewicz, are his books stylized in English?