Life / Beatles Songs with Polish Lyrics [5]

but if you look for the Animals covers, Kult did the House of the Rising Sun with Polish lyrics (not a translation though, just different words)

Life / Must See Movies in Polish? [65]


some more information would be helpful :)

Language / What does "czy" mean? [37]

if you want to ask the simple question:
Is this/that Mr. Jacek's wife? / Is she Mr. Jacek's wife?
then:
Czy to jest żona pana Jacka? / Czy ona jest żoną pana Jacka?

czy - simply put, serves to form a question whereas in Egnlish you use only subject-verb inversion (she is, is she? he has done, has he done?), without any special adverbs (where, who, what, when, why etc.), If you have a problem with using "czy" think of an English question transformed that way (to indirect question)

Is she coming?
I don't know whether/if she's coming.

so "czy" corresponds to "whether/if" in composed sentences.

EDITED

Language / The only polish word a foreigner won't ever say correctly :P [113]

w czasie suszy szosa sucha

Life / Must See Movies in Polish? [65]

and also in a more recent thread: https://polishforums.com/archives/2005-2009/life/see-movies-18357/

UK, Ireland / Some EXAMPLES of salaries of Poles working and living in the UK. [49]


LOL, that's a funny statement, poor, vulgar football players from Premiership, everyone knows how much they earn, how rude of them.

Life / Must See Movies in Polish? [65]

there's been a thread not so long ago with a similar question, browse the subforum for more recommendations :)

Travel / What weekend is Easter in Poland [4]

lol, it's not :)
Western Christian traditions (Catholic, Protestant incl. English Church) = 23-24 March 2008
Eastern Christian traditions (Orthodox, both Greek and Russian with satellite churches) = 27-28 April 2008.
Poland is predominantly Catholic, so 23-24 March 2008 are the legal days off.

News / Poland in coming 5 years [48]

I'm sure he knows the word, he just can't comprehend the concept :)

Language / The only polish word a foreigner won't ever say correctly :P [113]

mgła [fog] is quite difficult for many foreign speakers :)

UK, Ireland / Polish people in UK not reporting crime. [26]

how can you be illegal in UK, if you're Polish?

Language / The only polish word a foreigner won't ever say correctly :P [113]

I know one Polish word with only "special" letters, (in Nominative), and it's

"żółć" [bile/gall], but of course it's not that bad to pronounce.

but words that are phonetically challenging don't have to include too many Polish letters, it's the sounds order untypical to other languages that makes them hard to say. Most Poles (native speakers) can't pronounce correctly "jabłko" [apple] - we rather say it as "japko", or "głupi" [stupid/dumb] - in a relaxed speech it sounds like "gupi"

Language / The only polish word a foreigner won't ever say correctly :P [113]



I have to agree on the last part :)

1/ no words in Polish begin with "ą" (neither with "ę" or "ń")
2/ "źę" - that's totally impossible, before vowels "ź" becomes "zi"
3/ I don't recall any words that would have the sequence of "ćł", or "ńż"

but keep trying :)

Life / Babies names - spelled similarly in Polish and English [29]

with the "weird" English pronounciation and Polish spelling - no name sounds exactly the same :)
nevertheless some popular Polish names are similar to most European countries, I chose only some of those that don't have any special Polish letters in them, so there's no problem with spelling in England:

(remember that Polish "w" is like English "v" sound)

GIRLS

ANNA
MARIA
BARBARA
TERESA
MONIKA
ALEKSANDRA
MARTA
NATALIA

EWA (pronounced Eva)
ZOFIA
JOANNA
MAGDALENA
IRENA
HELENA
BEATA
DOROTA
KAROLINA
JUSTYNA
RENATA
ALICJA
PAULINA
SYLWIA
WANDA (pronounced Vandah, unlike the fish called Wanda)
AGATA
ANETA
IZABELA
EWELINA
PATRYCJA
EDYTA
KLAUDIA

=========

BOYS

TOMASZ
MARCIN
MAREK
ADAM
HENRYK
ROBERT
MATEUSZ
JACEK (pron.: yatsek)
KAMIL
ROMAN
JAKUB
ARTUR
EDWARD
DAMIAN
DAWID
SEBASTIAN
DANIEL

Travel / Krakow to mielec - the cheapest way? [5]

hitch-hiking :)

probably by bus, but I don't know the prices.

rda.krakow.pl/pl/detale.php

Przystanek: [type in Mielec]
check "odjazdy z Krakowa RDA" [departures from Krakow Bus Station]
choose date [Data] and hour [Godzina]
click: szukaj... [search...]

if want to go by train:
pkp.com.pl
(also in English)

Life / Age of students of High School in Poland [7]

old system (changed a few years ago)
a child born in 1990:
- 1997 szkoła podstawowa (for 8 yrs.)
- 2005 szkoła średnia (zawodowa for 3 yrs./liceum for 4 yrs./technikum for 5 yrs.)
[if you pass the maturity exam (matura/egzamin dojrzałości) in your liceum/technikum, you can take entry exams at uniwersytet or other type of high school (in the Polish sense of the word)]

- (on average) 2009 - uniwersytet or akademia (for 5-6 yrs. depending on what you chose to study)

new system
a child born in 1990:
- 1997 szkoła podstawowa (for 6 yrs.)
- 2003 gimnazjum (for 3 yrs.)
- 2006 szkoła średnia (zawodowa for x yrs./liceum for 3 yrs./technikum for 4 yrs.)
[after matura in your liceum/technikum]
- (on average) 2009 - uniwersytet or akademia

Life / What makes you proud to be Polish? [150]

welcome BelindaQ,

I can sense a long lasting friendship between you and Michal, you both love to spit some casual facts/fiction in your stream of (un)consciousness and talk randomly starting from the Polish anti-jew sentiment and ending at kiełbasa being not healthy :)

Way to go, girl, with such an artistic soul you'll be another star here

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

back to the topic (the question has been already answered, but I'd like to add an explanation for those confused about the lack of the genitive case in the quoted expression). That's what I read a while ago, so I hope I still remember correctly.

the used form is "nie ma nic", because originally (in much older Polish) the word "nic" was a Genitive case of some other word (I forgot the archaic Nominative form), so naturally it was correct in this expression, over the centuries the Genitive form "nic" took over and became the Nominative, with the new Genitive ("niczego"), but the expression "nie ma nic" was enough common to remain unchanged despite the fact that it was no longer in Genetive case.

that's why we rather also say:
nic nie wiem
nic nie powiem
nic nie widziałem (or niczego nie widziałem)
etc.

Here's your daily piece of useless linguistic knowledge of Polish :)

Food / Polish Ham - How to? [45]


it's cham [but of course in Polish "ch" is pronounced like "h"]
it means something like an arrogant bastard, in the past it meant rather someone from the lowest levels of the society hierarchy (usually a peasant)

Food / Maślanka and Kefir, Serek śmietankowy and Śmetana - the difference? [18]

to hancock's recipe I can only add that you should always leave some amount of your home-made yoghurt to start the fermentation of the new one (this way you won't need to buy some yoghurt at a shop every time).

Also, instead of a bowl, you can probably use a thermos flask (that's how it was made by someone I knew), so you don't even need to keep it in a warm place.

Language / Accusative Case [44]


here I come :)
I think we already had the full declination of donkey/jenny in some other thread (including the differences resulting furhter: RJ_cdn's example).
Anyway Osiol's examples (post #3) are correct.

The only problem is what RJ_cdn mentioned


The word "osioł" is quite popular for calling names in Polish, it means either 1/ someone very stubborn or 2/ someone a little retarded (or at least having trouble with understanding simple things) - with such meanings the word "osioł" behaves like normal "person"-noun

Examples with Dative case (Celownik)
Daj siana osłu (Give the donkey some hay)
Tłumaczyłem temu osłowi już dwa razy a on nadal nie potrafi pomnożyć 3 przez 7.
(I was explaining it to that retard already twice and he still cannot multiply 3 with 7).

Language / Share Perfective and Imperfective Polish verbs [105]

hey, we're not that bad :)
sometimes there's not much resemblence to each other in English verbs as well

be -was/were - been
go - went - gone

or even those:
teach - taught - taught
think - thought - thought
catch - caught - caught

Life / TCM [Traditional Chinese Medicine] in Poland [4]

TCM is rather Turner Classic Movies (a TV channel) :)

520 google results for "tradycyjna medycyna chińska"
603 google results for "tradycyjna chińska medycyna"

Travel / Do you need passport to travel to Poland or is id ok? [11]

If you're coming directly from a non-Schengen country (i.e UK), you may need a passport or an ID card, which, if I'm not mistaken, you don't have in UK.

Driving license isn't honoured in such cases, at least not a Polish one, but I guess it's that way with any driving license.

After we entered Schengen you can travel (for now by land only, from March or April also by air) without any documents, IF you're coming from another Schengen-country (coming as movement, not provenience, you may be a citizen/resident of any country, but once you had arrived to one of those European countries that belong to the Schengen treaty, you can cross the borders freely).

Language / półtora/półtorej - do they decline? [5]

Anyway, the incorrect use of "półtorej" (also for masculine nouns) is one of the very annoying (for my ear) mistakes made by Polish native speakers, quite common in recent years.

I guess it comes from the fact that the most common combination used is "półtorej godziny" (1 and a half hour), so people hearing it quite often automatically relate the form "półtorej" to all nouns.

So, don't be surprised if you hear/read Polish people saying/writing "półtorej roku" etc.

Language / Seeking a basic intro to the Polish Language [17]

Why would anyone learn Polish? It's a dying language that steals from Russian and English and all Poles will soon leave that poor country and emigrate to clean the toilets because they say it's better paid.

Learn Russian instead or Czech. Prague is a lovely city and very popular with foreign investors and Russian have a great culture (literature) and Poland only drunk singers dying prematurely, and at my home we don't listen to their music anyway, even my Polish wife doesn't like it.

(I couldn't resist - it's a game imitating other Polish forums posters, it's blatant who was in my mind, at least for those who have been around here for at least 2 weeks or so)

Life / Must See Movies in Polish? [65]

actually, I'm rather ashamed because I DID see "Czterech pancerynych i pies" (the whole series, more than once, as a child) - so stereotyped communist propaganda: idealized view of the Poles, Russians - other nations of angels on earth, Germans of course cunning evil (I don't object), but also stupid, one could wonder how they marched so deep into USSR, took France, endangered Britain etc., if they were such retards.

Language / Share Perfective and Imperfective Polish verbs [105]

yeah, rather a difficult task for a beginner :(
check the section Polish Grammar & Pronunciation - there's been a thread about it quite recently [in this thread - Admin].

Life / Horticulture in Poland [63]

you can find older oaks near Poznań: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogalin

Life / Must See Movies in Polish? [65]

a word of advice before watching Psy - it's really violent for my taste, although I like it, a decent action movie, but Psy 2 is just a sheer bloodbath, rather shallow, so I wouldn't recommend it to anyone :(

Emergency Exit - Wyjście awaryjne - pretty bad IMHO

If you don't mind watching some older films (as those you mentioned), and if you liked Sami Swoi, there's a sequel to it (Nie ma mocnych), which is a little worse, but still a good comedy, while the 3rd part (Kochaj albo rzuć) is weak.

Other interesting comedies: Miś (1980 or so) a cult movie here, really catching some of the blatant absurdities of the life during the communist era (Rejs, from the early 70's is another cult object, but it's hermetic, so I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who doesn't speak good Polish, it's too much relying on word games, irony etc., so you'd need a very good translation), and of course Seksmisja (early 80's) - a low budget (for Hollywood standards) sci-fi, very funny, even when watched many times.

Lighter movies, but more recent: Kiler (from the 90's), and Dzień świra - (this one was pretty controversial, mocking some of Polish holy cows, so not for everybody, but if you don't mind laughing with bitter reflection, it could be interesting). I also liked Pułkownik Kwiatkowski (1995) a farse about the early 50's with some serious notes.

Something about the same period, but totally serious: Człowiek z marmuru (1977) and one of my very favorite Polish movies: Przesłuchanie (1981, but deeply buried by the censorship till the fall of the commies regime in 1989, when it finally made it to the theaters).

enough for now :)
if you like the films I suggest, don't hesitate to ask again in the future.