Life / Secondary school choices in Poland [11]

I'm afraid (or rather sure) that your daughter won't be able to learn Polish in 3 months (unless she's a real genius when it comes to foreign languages), so a public schools isn't an option.

45,000 PLN for a year seems much, but maybe you can afford it.
Do you want her school to be counted as 10th grade in the US (then some school recognized by the US schooling authorities is necessary, I guess) or just don't want her to sit at home and watch TV all the time (so she'll go to the 10th grade when you go back to the US)?

Life / How long can I survive with 60.000 zloty in Poland? [13]

It really depends on the exchange rates of złoty in the future, because it's been becoming always stronger for the last few years (not long ago 1 USD = 3 zł, now it's only 2.20 zł, a British pound from about 6.50-7 zł has fallen down to 4.20 zł, euro is relatively strong, but it also lost to Polish złoty). I'm not expert (or even interested) in exchange rates, so I can't say you what the trends will be in the next 12-24 months.

btw, if you put 60,000 zł in a savings account (for example in ING Bank Śląski), you'd get about 185 zł intersts each month (equal to about 84 USD at current rates). And you will be allowed to take out any amount of your money once a month without losing the interests. So it's about 3.75% a year, those 14% interest in Turkey look much more attractive, but you need to include the inflation in your calculations, if Turkey has a low inflation (3-4%), then it's probably a good idea.

But I'm afraid it's not tha case, here are Polish exchange rates for the Turkish Lira from this year (average values):
lira turecka
Jan, 1 TRY = 2,0892
Feb, 1 TRY = 2,0344
Mar, 1 TRY = 1,8378
Apr, 1 TRY = 1,6784
So it's losing its value, it seems. It has lost 20% since the beginning of the year, so your 14% interests from a Turkish bank would mean -6% (minus 6) in Poland,

If you want to check USD, GBP and Euro rates to Polish złoty, here you can find average monthly rates from this year:

nbp.pl/kursy/archiwum/wagi_archiwum_2007.xls
nbp.pl/kursy/archiwum/wagi_archiwum_2006.xls
nbp.pl/kursy/archiwum/wagi_archiwum_2005.xls

The files are in .xls format, so you need Microsoft Excel (or a similar program) to open them.

Life / How long can I survive with 60.000 zloty in Poland? [13]

it's really hard to tell how long you can survive on 60,000 zł in Poland, I know people who spend that much in 6 months and people who could live on that money for +4 years, it depends on how much you spend at your home, I guess the differences in prices between Poland and Turkey aren't that big (but I only guess, I've never been to Turkey).

Food / COFFEE BRANDS IN POLAND & ELSEWHERE? [17]

I usually drink Astra (brand, because their name is confusing, the company named Astra makes also cheaper/worse coffee brands), 100% pure Colombian arabica. I buy ground coffee, too lazy for whole beans (someday I'll buy a coffee machine that uses whole beans though).

I also like Lavazza and Illy (both Italian, Lavazza is easy to buy, Illy less easy in a small town like mine, or almost impossible), but they cost a bit too much (18-20 zł for 250 grams, while Astra only 10-12 zł for 250 gr).

Life / Opening a savings accounts in a Polish bank [27]


I'm not sure, my younger brother just opened an account a few months ago, but he already forgot what he needed :)
For Poles it's certainly a "dowód osobisty" (the main ID card with photo and PESEL number), but he can't remember if a second photo ID was required (in that case a driving license would be enough). I think we (and of course foreigners) could also use a passport instead of dowód osobisty.

To take money out from the bank dowód osobisty (or a passport) is enough, driving license probably not.

Language / How to use zakończono, znaleziono, etc in context [5]


yes, it's usually used more in the narrative language than in a dialogue.

Life / Opening a savings accounts in a Polish bank [27]

Really? Damn, I knew something was wrong.


I'm sorry I've read your question in a wrong way.
I didn't notice the word "savings" or rather got confused by the part when you wrote about "taking out cash whenever you wish" :)

1/ Savings account (lokata oszczędnościowa) - in Poland it is usually an account where you put your money for a longer period (3, 6, 12 months for example) and take it

out at the end of this period.
Then you don't pay fees. But if you (for some reason) need the money before the end of the declared period, then you pay fees like for a current account.

2/ Current account (rachunek bieżący or some similar name) is an account where you keep your money and you're allowed to take it out at any time (in cash at the counter, from an ATM, using a debit card, like Visa Electron or Maestro to pay in shops etc.). A debit card can be used to pay up to the amount of the money you have on your account (or up to a fixed limit, usually for safety reasons), it's not a credit card, and the payment is immediately charged on your account.

I'll tell you how it works for me:
I'm not talking about all the banks in Poland, because there may be big differencies in their offers.

I have a current account and a savings account (both in ING Bank Śląski :)

I pay the bank monthly 11 złoty of fees for running my current account (8 zł is for the account and 3 zł for a Visa Electron debit card). There are some additional fees though (unfortunatelly, I don't remember them, because I avoid any operations that are payable extra) for taking out cash at the counter, for using ATMs belonging to foreign banks (cash from an ATM belonging to ING = 0 zł fee, from ATMs of most other Polish banks = 4 or 5 zł, at least last time I used a foreign ATM) and probably for other operations. What is free (or rather included in the basic fee of 11 zł a month);

- using debit card with ING's ATMs,
- using debit card in shops or for online payments (but not all debit cards can be used for this, Visa Electron - not),
- money transfers to other accounts (yours or someone else's) in ING.
- money transfers to other accounts (yours or someone else's) in all Polish banks, but only if made via their online system (maybe phone system too, but I'm not sure, I use only internet banking).

I also have a savings account in the same bank.
But I don't have any passbook to it.
I can transfer the money to my current account, if I need them.
The advantage of "OKO", that's how they call it in my bank (Otwarte Konto Oszczędnościowe, open savings account) is that you can take out money once a month without breaking the contract, so you will keep the interests on the remaining money, without paying any fee.

Interests on a savings account are changeable, currently ING offers (in reality) 0,385% a month (so having a 20,000 zł, equal to about 4,750 pounds, you get 77.12 zł of interests a month, minus 19% for taxes, because there's a 19% tax on savings interests in Poland, so effective interests (19% of 77.12 zł = 14,65zł, rounded up to 15 zł, because tax systems accepts only payments rounded up/down to a full złoty) would be 77.12-15= 62.12 zł a month (from 20 thousands zloty savings), about 0.311%. Those interests will be added to your account each month, so next month your earning will be a little higher (because you'll have 20,000 zł + 62.12 zł as a basic amount).

Edit:
As I mentioned before, the banks in Poland may have very different offers, so you must check several different banks (for example those that have a good web page in English) and choose what is best for your needs.

Life / The strangest things in Poland [468]


Indeed, those can be nasty, especially during very hot periods (I guess it helps much their breeding), I remember one summer in Poznań, when the city was plagued the whole month of June.

Still better than scorpions and some killing spiders :)

Life / Opening a savings accounts in a Polish bank [27]

No, I was just saying that you have to check carefully what bank suits your needs, because every bank gives you some freebies and charges you for other things. Some banks charge for taking the money at ATM machines, some for taking the cash at the counter.

The monthly fees for running your account can vary too.

Language / How to use zakończono, znaleziono, etc in context [5]

The verb forms ending in -ono are impersonal forms (i.e. where the subject of the sentence is unknown or at least not obvious, or very general). They often interfere with passive voice (where you may actually know who is the logical subject of the sentence, but choose the passive voice to express that it's not very important).

There are a few ways of creating impersonal forms and passive voice in many languages (I don't know what your native language is, is it English?):

In English mostly:
1/ "to be" + participle of the verb
(An umbrella has been found in the bin.)
they + verb
(They say it's still cold at this time in Norway.)

In Polish:
1/ być/zostać + participle (used as adjective, with declension) form of the verb
(Parasol został znaleziony w koszu na śmieci.)
1a/ particple ending in -ono (without declension)
(Znaleziono parasol w koszu na śmieci.)

2/ verb in 3rd form plural
(Mówią, że o tej porze w Norwegii jest jeszcze zimno.)
2a/ verb in 3rd form singular + się
(Mówi się, że o tej porze w Norwegii jest jeszcze zimno.)

Life / Opening a savings accounts in a Polish bank [27]

Alternatively a gun and a good escape plan may suffice.

Well, many Polish banks charge you a fee (not sure about BZW though), if you want a small amount of cash from the cashier.
It's usually better to use an ATM card (in my bank I can draw up to 5,000 zł daily from an ATM, so if I need more than that limit, I can go to the counter and there's no fee).

Work / Polish Language Courses at Polish Universities [14]


There are two universities at Lublin, are you both talking about the same?
KUL - Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski (Lublin's Catholic University)
and
UMCS - Uniwersytet Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej

Travel / Krakow Most fashion city of world 2007 [14]

No, not anymore. Our King moved the capital to Warsaw quite recently.

Language / Accusative Case [44]


I guess I know what you meant, but to be precise there's such thing for adjectives of course (they have all 3 gender forms, but the dictionary mentions the masculine only) and for nouns too (of course only for some nouns, basically those that refer to male/female people: lekarz-lekarka, uczeń-uczennica etc. or animals: lew-lwica, osioł-oślica etc.)


Plenty of them :)
There are several different endings (just like in Polish) to create a noun from and adjective, even in the examples I gave earlier 2 of the English words were created that way:

-ness
(adjective vile, noun vileness)
-ence/ance
(adj. important, noun importance)
-ism
(adj. imperial, noun imperialism)
But I don't see why you're asking me about English, I'm definitely not an expert :)

Life / Kazik songs [10]

Starting now, you'll be receiving an e-mail from rapidshare everytime a new file is uploaded for you.

Finished their second album (Posłuchaj to do ciebie), now starting the third (Spokojnie).

Done. Uploaded all the 3 first records.

Life / Kazik songs [10]

Ok, I'l do it tomorrow, because going to sleep right now (and packing then uploading the file takes some time), will send you in 100 MB chunks (maximum upload allowed for free users on rapidshare), so I won't have to send each song separately.

The password will be the same as for the test file (don't delete this song, so I don't need to resend it).
And be patient, those 3 records are 1,1 GB, with my connection (upload 128 kbit/s) it will take some time (50 MB/hr, so in total 22 hours, and I can't block my connection all the time, but I hope to finish on Sunday).

Btw, I tested it today and you can burn a regular audio CD with those files, at least using Windows Media Player with Nero plug-in (maybe some other software works as well, but I don't have any so I can't make tests).

EDIT:


It's not the problems with sending files, they arrive unmodified by the rapidshare servers.
The reason could be some nasty Microsoft protection built in the WMP, I was able to burn an audio CD, but maybe the software "knew" I'm the owner of the files, and now on a different computer it's impossible?

I'm really not good at this. If you know any other software (freeware or shareware or trial version, but fully functional), I could use it too, just tell me what and where to find it.

As I said I'd be doing it tomorrow.

Travel / Warsaw or Wroclaw / Poznan travel [20]

train

Travel / From Warsaw to Wroclaw with kids? [3]

Bus 175 is the cheapest way from the airport to the railway station.
Taxis are tricky: there are two kinds of them, the cheaper usually are from Taxi Corporations (you can see they have short telephone numbers like 9222, but someone who lives in Warsaw could tell you more, because I visit that city rarely and in my own car, so I don't use taxis), there are also more expensive "freelance" cabs, their fares can be much higher, better to avoid.

Polish railways in English:
rozklad-pkp.pl/bin/query.exe/en
(also German and French language exist)

on the image attached there's a frame (grey background, bottom of the page) it indicates the distance (471 km), and prices (129 Polish złotych for 2nd class, 180 złotych for 1st class) for this specific connection (if you choose other trains the price will be different), unfortunatelly, I don't know how old a child can be to not have to pay for the ticket.

• 
  train
  

Life / Kazik songs [10]


ok, I uploaded 1 song (just for testing purposes) for you.
You should shortly receive an e-mail from rapidshare.com (free hosting service) with the link to the file for download (it's the song Totalna stabilizacja, in WMA loseless format (ripped with Windows Media Player 9.0), packed to ZIP format, protected with a password. I send you the password via Personal Message on this forum.

On rapidshare you first choose the Free option (unless you're a Premium user, then you don't need my indications), then wait for about 90 seconds, then you're asked to enter a code (letters or numbers) and you can start the download.

Language / Accusative Case [44]


I guess your teacher doesn't want to overwhelm you with too much theory as it can be discouraging, so for now you're OK doing exercises like this (when they say you what adjective/noun case to use), when you master all the 6 case endings (in singular and plural, for all the 3 genders), then the time will come for another level of exercises, where you'll have to decide by yourself what cases are required after a specific verb.

EDIT


There's a large group of feminine nouns ending in a soft consonant (usually -ść, -dź)

for example:
wiadomość (news)
znajomość (knowledge, acquaintance)
podłość (vileness)
doniosłość (importance)
those are usually created from an adjective (wiadomy, znajomy, podły, doniosły)

spowiedź - confession (from the verb spowiadać)
gołoledź
(but niedźwiedź - a bear - is masc.)


Yes, although it's hard to say if those surnames really become adjectives (from the logical point of view), but their declension is identical to adjectives, so grammatically we treat them as adjectives.

This also applies to:
- surnames with -cki/-cka and -dzki/-dzka endings (for example Nowacki, Niedźwiedzka)
- surnames that are "pure adjectives" (fro example Cichy = silent, Czarny = black, Biały = white) although this case is more complicated, Polish laws allow people with surnames that are "pure adjectives" to choose if they want it with normal declension (Maria Czarna, Marii Czarnej, Marię Czarną etc.) or without any declension, then the Nominative male form is used in all cases, also for women, (Maria Czarny, Marii Czarny, Marię Czarny etc.)


Rather not, but there are nouns that follow the adjective declension pattern (for example "uczony" - I'm sure I wrote about it not long ago in one of your threads).

Life / Kazik songs [10]

I have the first 3 records of Kult (from the mid-late 80's), but not Kazik alone, not exactly my thing, though I like his solo songs, just not enough to buy them :)

Language / Accusative Case [44]

it's the verb that decides the case of a noun or adjective+noun group, czytam requires Accusative, so both will be in Acc. forms.

Czytam ciekawą powieść.

Language / What's the difference between 'swoje' & 'moje'? [35]

I just posted something on "swój" yesterday, take look at that: polishforums.com/donkey_diary-41_22972_0.html#msg438723

Language / The words kres, skraj, granica - synonyms? [10]


na brzegu rzeki
You're right, also:
brzegi jeziora
nad brzegiem morza
(it's generally used with for any water basin's edge, you can't use the word "krawędź" or "skraj" here)

brzeg is just another word for "krawędź", and can also be used when saying about an edge of a rectangular surface, for example "brzeg stołu" "edge of the table).

As I said before choosing between synonyms from a dictionary can be hard, you need some experience and sometimes quite a good knowledge of the language (of course there are also simple cases, when a foreign word has one translation only, but this isn't a rule)

Food / What's is in this Polish can? [29]


Maybe he wanted to give you his meat, but got confused with the slang?

I think it may sound too vulgar, sorry :)

Language / Pronunciation difference between Ź and Ż / RZ [83]


because there's NO difference in the basic pronounciation of "rz" and "ż", so many people with writing disorders don't know which one to use (although the rules are taught at schools, some people just get confused).

In many positions within a word/sentence, rz/ż are pornounced as "sz".

Language / The words kres, skraj, granica - synonyms? [10]

Using a dictionary isn't as simple as one might think :)
I always have a good laugh reading some texts in English written for example by a Chinese - they have the tendency to choose a random word from a dictionary and use it in a completely wrong context.

Language / The words kres, skraj, granica - synonyms? [10]

I agree with the above explanations and now my 2 cents (or "moje 3 grosze").
The normal (most common word) for "the end" is koniec,
There's also one more synonym that you left out: kraniec

skraj is used for example in "na skraju lasu", "na skraju/obrzeżach miasta"
granica can also mean limit, the word "limit" is also used in Polish, but usually in a financial context (for example "limit wydatków" - limit of the expenses, "mieć limit kredytowy" - to have a credit line open with a fixed maximum amount, I don't know how to say it more precisely in English, probably simply "to have a credit limit").

In maths you can use the word "granica" or "limes" (limes = limit in Latin) for example of a function (granica górna/limes superior = upper limit of a function; granica dolne/limes inferior = lower limit of a function)

some fixed expressions
być u kresu sił - to be exhausted, at the limit of one's forces
Kresy (maiuscule K) or Kresy Wschodnie - Poland's eastern lands in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and between WWI and WWII, now Ukraine, Belorus.
kresowiak (plural kresowiacy) - a person from "Kresy"

przekroczyć granicę - 1/ (literally) to cross a border, 2/ (figuratively) cross the limits, overstep, go too far

na krańcu świata - at the end of the world (end meant in the geographical sense)

koniec świata - end of the world (in the apocalyptic sense)

żyć na krawędzi - to live on the edge

well, I guess "skraj", "krawędź", "obrzeże" fall into a separate category (edge, bound, periphery, boundary)

Travel / Gdansk and Krakow travel -- need tips [21]

rozklad-pkp.pl/bin/query.exe/en

some examples (Wednesday, 11th June 2008):
InterCity train
Gdańsk Główny dep. 5:35
Kraków Główny arr. 13.00 (duration 7:25)
Gdańsk Główny dep. 7:25
Kraków Główny arr. 15.00 (duration 7:35)
Gdańsk Główny dep. 9:25
Kraków Główny arr. 17.00 (duration 7:35)
Gdańsk Główny dep. 15:25
Kraków Główny arr. 23.00 (duration 7:35)

if you don't travel by IC, then the journey would be longer (even 10,5 hrs, and you have to change trains in Warsaw)

Food / What's is in this Polish can? [29]

Still plenty of tins without ringpulls (introduced here maybe 10 years ago?) in Poland, but this one looks like some tourist food, so it's more practical this way.