Life / Ex-pat experiences Polish medical system. [4]

Same for me. Nurses and doctors were great, everything seemed efficient and no money changed hands. Rates better than when I had my appendix out in the UK a few years ago.

Law / I'm an ex-pats in Poland and I made profit from my new business [13]


Well done! Now the 2nd challenge it to not let the urząd skarbowy get their hands on it...

Law / Money transfer companies to/from Poland [11]

Today I needed to move £2000 from the UK to Poland. The GBP PLN rate on yahoo is 4.1006 right now (when I checked) which I used as my reference.

no1currency.co.uk website rate says 3.813
PostOffice.co.uk website says 3.7482
My bank (Cater Allen Private Bank) quoted me 3.9974
CurrencySolutions.co.uk quoted me 4.0736

The range between the worst (post office) and best (currency solutions) relates to a saving of 600 zloty. So thanks to ct11 and inkrakow for recommending CurrencySolutions.co.uk.

Life / Applying for EU passport... [51]

whoops! yes sorry Foreigner4 you're right. My bad!

If anyone's interested in the full detail here is what wikipedia has to say on it:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_nationality_law#Dual_citizenship

Life / Applying for EU passport... [51]


Yes, this is true.


No, this is not true.

It is simply that if you are (for example) American and Polish and have both citizenships and both passports, the Polish authorities will treat you as fully Polish.

Language / I know "się" is the only reflexive personal pronoun..but "jak się masz?" [34]

Great post Switezianka. BTW "catch up" means something totally different to "catch".

Life / Smoking in bars or restaraunts in Poland. This nasty habit continues... [27]

Theres a link here that shows the status of smoking bans in Europe but I am not convinced it's totally up to date: epha.org/a/1941

Regarding Poland they mention a ban in the news every now and then but I don't think anything concrete has been decided yet...

Language / Polish Acronyms & Initialisms [15]

yeah - my wife talked about an "ufo". Took me a minute to realise she meant a U.F.O

Law / Do EU members need RESIDENCE CARD IN POLAND [29]

technically yes. Other EU citizens can carry their ID cards but of course we don't have those (yet...)

Language / Polish Acronyms & Initialisms [15]


Ah yes that looks better ! :-)

Language / Polish Acronyms & Initialisms [15]

I think that is short for "i tak dalej" meaning "and so on"

another one is "m. in." - między innami - amongst others (think my Polish spellings are right !?!)

Language / Genitive case ("nie ma nic" vs "nie ma niczego") [71]


Careful, sometimes accusative in the affirmative depending on how you structure the sentence. In your example "czy masz czas?", czas is in the accusative not nominative.

Law / Do EU members need RESIDENCE CARD IN POLAND [29]

Can't tell you about getting a Pesel as haven't gone about it myself, but you don't need a Pesel to get a credit card. I don't have one and got a credit card from Bank BGŻ without too much hassle. Plus as per the advice of a couple of forum members here, I am in the process of opening an account with mbank.pl who seem to be quite foreigner friendly - their website is even in English! Although the site says you don't need a Pesel but the guy on the phone told me I did. Asked him to check with his manager and then he said that I didn't...

Law / Citizenship problems - my dad's name has Polish letters. Help! [12]

I am in the process of trying to get a Polish version of my UK birth certificate too. It is a total pain. I went to my local USC as instructed and spoke to the director. He said he didn't know what to do because British birth certificates don't have the parents' dates of births on them and the father's family surname. He said he that this info is required for the Polish document and so couldn't issue me my one. Said he needed to check and would call me back within a week. Of course I am still waiting....

Language / Genitive case ("nie ma nic" vs "nie ma niczego") [71]

The genitive of ojciec is ojca. In fact ocja is the accusative too so you have got 2 there for the price of 1.

Therefore "what's your father's name?" would be:

jakie jest imię (twojego/swojego) ojca?

Language / I know "się" is the only reflexive personal pronoun..but "jak się masz?" [34]

Basically "ty" means "you" (when you are addressing somebody that you know - familiar term) whereas "się" means "yourself". That is the simplified explanation.

But as I have written above się can also be used to mean other things and not just the reflexive (i.e. himself/herself/yourselves/yourself/themselves etc..). There are two other meanings:

1) Changing the meaning of a verb - e.g.:

uczyć - to teach
uczyć się - to learn (literally "to teach myself" which makes sense I guess...)
mieć - to have
mieć się - to feel, to be

2) to make impersonal constructs:

jak się pisze XXX? - how is XXX written?

Travel / Rate of Exchange in Katowice [16]

I presume you mean an ATM? If so then the rate you get depends on what your bank back home charges you, which varies.

I am with Lloyds TSB in the UK and their rate is pretty good, but I still can get a better rate by bringing cash and using the little 'kantor' booths.

Travel / Rate of Exchange in Katowice [16]

I normally just bring sterling with me from the UK and use the little 'kantor' cubicles that you find in town centres. Often they are the best rate and if you exchange enough you can haggle with them.

Life / How easy is it to get into trouble with the Police in Poland? [26]

I have had a few dealings with the police in Poland:

Once because I was the witness to a crime - in this case I am sure the investigating officer was bribed by the offender because at the start he told me he was sure he would get a conviction, and then suddenly he was writing letters to the procurator to get the case dropped. Of course I have no proof but even another office said he thought something smelled somewhere.

Once because I was stopped for speeding and once because I was stopped by customs who were total jobsworths and called the police because my documents weren't in order. In both cases the officers were great, I was friendly with them and so they were friendly with me and just let me off.

Once because my number plates were stolen in Gdansk. Nothing came of this (no surprise). But a bizarre site to see police officers in uniform at the front reception desk smoking (doesn't Polish law forbid smoking in offices except designated rooms?).

Finally once for my karta pobytu interview. Local officer who was very friendly and helpfu. Tried to get me to join their local football team!

I would say that some officers are great, and some not so great just like police the world over I am sure...

Travel / Renting vehicles and maps in Poland [11]


With a name like CasualSeks this sounds like a high risk girl :-)

Travel / Renting vehicles and maps in Poland [11]


Sure, what about the Audi S series such as the Audi S3?

Language / The Dative Case [62]


I see what you are saying but think you are just confusing the issue.
Towards doesn't always imply dative anyway, sometimes it is accusative depending on whether there is motion towards or not (e.g. in German)

Life / Shattered dreams. Poland is more expensive to live than the UK. [23]


Possibly because chains such as Tesco aren't so well established (yet) in Poland, and their branches are smaller in Poland. In the UK the little shops like greengrocers and butchers have been largely killed off now by the big supermarkets but it hasn't got to that stage in Poland.

Yeah Tesco isn't as good quality here as it is in the UK, although they have an up-market sister store - Savia - which stocks Tesco products but are pricier

Language / The Dative Case [62]


Actually I was quoting that from a book, but now I can't lay my hands on which one it was (I took it from my notes from when I was learning about it)

Travel / Going to Kędzierzyn-Koźle in August [10]

I lived in Zdieszowice which is about 18km away from Kędzierzyn-Kożle 18 months ago.
I wouldn't describe it as a city, it's just a town and not a particularly big one. There isn't much particularly worth writing about it in my opinion, it's pretty drab looking, aren't many shops, quite unremarkable really. I am sure there are a few bars as with any town but I wouldn't expect much more than that to be honest.

Opole is much bigger, it's a bit of a university town. I am sure there will be more nightlife there...

Language / The Dative Case [62]

In English we rely on prepositions to tell us who does what to whom, in Polish you don't always need a preposition:

Ben daje książkę Osłowi

Remember (-ę for fem. acc. singular). To be honest I don't know what the rule is for the masculine singular dative ending (-u or -owi). Certainly names of people seem to be -owi. It might be you need to learn the ending with the word. Most other things seem to be -u. Most monosyllabic words tend to take -u (e.g. brat -> bratu)

I am going to guess (but I don't know off hand) that usually osioł takes -u, but when treating Osioł as your name -owi is used.

Maybe a native here can help...

Language / The Dative Case [62]

The dative is generally used to show the receiver of something or indirect objects, hence it is used with the verb to give amongst others.

For example "Ben gives the book to the donkey" - Ben is nominative, the book is the object being given (hence accusative) and the donkey is the receiver so will be dative.

Also some verbs where you might not expect it use the dative such as "to help", so literally you are saying "I help to you" rather than "I help you", but I guess that is logical because you give help to someone (and it's the same in German too).

Law / Citizenship problems - my dad's name has Polish letters. Help! [12]


I don't think that's going to be possible. I have the same problem - my Polish surname originally has an n with the dash (ń) but of course as I was born in the UK my documents don't have the dash.

I have an official translation (done here in Poland) and the translator said he couldn't add the dash because he can only write the name exactly as it appears in the original. Apparently I have to write to some office in Warsaw to follow this up, but as yet I can't be bothered with the inevitable hassle.....

Language / Accusative Case [44]

spot on Krzysztof!

Language / Accusative Case [44]


Woah careful - you are getting confused. Noc is feminine as you say. Therefore it will never by used in a masculine or neuter form. Nocy is not the masc form and noce is not the neuter form - there are no such things as a masc/neuter form of a feminine word.

Your dictionary is probably showing you how to form the genitive and plural.
Each dictionary is different - mine just says "Noc - f, nocy (G. plur)" so I know that nocy is the genitive plural.

As mentioned, best to learn the gender with the word as there are a lot of irregularities.