Travel / Is Wroclaw the best city in Poland? [30]

Wrocław is the one town in Poland that I have never been to but I do know that there are lots of universities there so there should be a nice buzz and night life with lots of young people. Last year, I was watching in the coming of the New Year, and that came live from Wrocław on Polonia TV and the Main Square looked very appealing indeed.

UK, Ireland / Locations of Polish food and drink places in London [12]


Actually whilst thinking about it a boss at work lives in Winsdor and he was telling me that there is a whole supermarket there full of Polish things. It is there probably because there are a lot of new Polish arrivals living in the Slough area. From London, if you have a car, it would be an easy drive just a little way down the M3.

Law / Under contract to teach and fraud, is there a fine to leave Poland? [35]


Its still a hell of a lot of trouble to spend time in Poland if you have travel to and from Germany and Canada every 90 days simply to have the right of working as a teacher of English.

Law / Under contract to teach and fraud, is there a fine to leave Poland? [35]


How long can an American citizen stay in Poland with only a tourist visa? You will obviously not have the same rights as other E.U. citizens. If you have overstayed they may ask questions at the airport. It is your fault for working without a visa and the fault of the school too so who is really to blame, I am not sure. Say that you have not been working, the school in question is very unlikely to admit to hiring an illegal worker and risk prosecution themselves. If you wish to return to America you will have to pay for the ticket yourself. A good school with a legitimate contract might have included that in your term and conditions or at least it is normal to get the same as an additional months final pay off at the end of the contract. If you like Poland and you are already there, why not try and find a genuine good post, your Embassy in Warsaw will no doubt have names and addresses you might like to contact in Poland.

UK, Ireland / Locations of Polish food and drink places in London [12]


I live in Guildford, which is not so very far from London. It all depends of course, on what you consider as 'good food' and choice. Sometimes we go by car to Ravenscourt and park for free on the street. You can do that on a Sunday. There is an excellent little delicatessen very near to the main POSK building right outside Ravenscourt Underground Railway Station. If you go on further to the end of the District Line and look around Ealing Broadway, then I am sure you will find quite a few little shops where you can find food. Even Tescos now stock some polish food and soft drinks and it would be a lot cheaper than little shops which have much higher overheads.

Language / List of Polish consonants [8]

It is a general rule that no consonant is hard before an 'i'. It is important to distinguish between hard and soft consonants, since the difference can effect the meaning of a word. For example,

pasek-belt
mara-nightmare
porą-in the season
kona-is dying

piasek-sand
miara-measure
piorą-they are washing
konia-horse (accusative)

In the endings of certain words of foreign origin, the letter 'i' preceding a vowel denotes 'y', as well as, on occasion, the softness of the preceding consonant.

filologia-philosophy (feellolog-ja) philology
linia (leeny-ja)-line
partia (part-ja) party
materiał (materyaw)-material
radio (radio (rad-jo) wireless

The difference between hard and soft consonants is closely connected with the use of vowels 'i' and 'y' in the spelling of polish words. The letter 'i' represents the sound 'ee' and always follows a soft consonant (when followed by another vowel, it is merely a spelling device to denote the softness of the consonant preceding it). The letter y, on the other hand, which represents the sound 'i', always follows a hard consonant.

nowi-(novee)-new ones
pisać-(peesachy)-to write
mi-(mee)-to me
ozdobi-(ozdobee)-it will adorn
cennik-(tsenneek)-price list

but

nowy-(novi)-new
pytać-(pitachy)-to ask
my-(mi)-we
ozdoby-(ozdobi)-ornaments
cenny-(tsenni)-valuable

Therefore consonants which are always hard (have no soft counterparts) are always followed by y (i). Such consonants include c, cz, d, dz, dż, r, s, sz, t, z, ż, and rz.

Language / Polish Sentence With The Letter S Lots Of Times [13]


No, I was in Poland when the Syrenka was popular. A really marvelous little car and very strong indeed.

News / Polish people (and language) spreading all over the world? [25]


Lithuania and Poland used to be joined in an empire and Polish is still spoken in Lvóv-even newspapers are printed in Polish. As someone said above, it is economic dominance over a few centuries that really changes offiial language usage in a foreign country.There are native Welsh speakers all around the World but is New York likely to make it their official number one language?

News / How does Poland imagine other countries see her? [84]


Good idea! Please, please, please make my day and help me to revisit good old Polska!

Language / 'w' - difference between accusative+locative [18]

If you ever study Russian it seems easier to explain as they use w in the accusative and in the locative meaning the same word but either direction is implied or location.

Language / Polish Language Pronunciation - Example Words and Phrases [220]

Ro as the ro in rock plus the jea in jeans plus nu the word nut. Hence rodzina is simply ro-jea-nu

Language / How long to get fluent in Polish? [41]


If you are living in Poland you will be using Polish to buy things in shops and when meeting new people. You will certainly be listening to the radio and television ans all of this counts towards the learning experience. Are you working in Poland as a teacher of English? If so, then that is a disadvantage as probably most if not all of the staff use English. You are in a good position to gain motivation, being as you are, in Poland. It all depends on you and how far you want to go. As most of the young are now leaving Poland and the language is going in to decline it might be more worthwhile on spending time on another language anyway.

Life / Spending a few months in Poland [23]


I suppose you can but it is hard unless you plan to have a quiet evening in!

Language / 'w' - difference between accusative+locative [18]


There is a word in Polish wy but it is a personal pronoun meaning you in English. Wy mieszkacie, wy znacie ect but sadly has nothing to do with the preposition w and we.

Language / 'w' - difference between accusative+locative [18]

Skręć w pierwszę przecznicę na lewo-take the first turn on the left, is use of 'w' plus the accusative too.

Genealogy / strange Polish mixes [116]


He has a mental block somewhere.

Language / 'w' - difference between accusative+locative [18]

Ja jestem w domu-I am in the house or I am at home. We use the locative case as it states location and not movement. W plus the accusative case would show movement though to be honest in Polish the language uses more do plus the genitive case. Russian uses w plus the accusative case all the time. Ja jestem w Londynie but ja jadę do Londynu. Popatrz na siebie w lusterko-look at yourself in the mirror is an example of w plus the accusative case.

Genealogy / strange Polish mixes [116]


You talk about being intellectually capable and then you write oczów!!

News / How does Poland imagine other countries see her? [84]


No, I have heard that Polish police are very corrupt and it still depends on bribes. I have an English friend, married to a Polish woman and they returned by car to Poland, as they often do and he was stopped for speeding. He was given a choice, either pay thirty dollars, or however much it was, as I do not remember now, up front to the policeman, or pay a much heftier fine. The Poles accept anything, they lie and lie and lie. Never be so naive. The Puzzler for example, does not even know the difference between oczu and oczów! In Poland, trust no one.

Life / Spending a few months in Poland [23]


Yes, you can but the pay is lousy or so I have been told.

Language / ż ź dź dż sz cz ś ć - which give most problems to foreigners? [65]

As far as I know, we are six months behind Poland. We get two episodes a week. The first is shown twice on Saturday, the second is shown twice on Sunday with a repeat performance at lunch time on Monday should you miss it! I can not remember the episode number off hand but we are now at the point when Kinga and company have just moved from their flat in to a nice house. Please do not tell what happens next as it will spoil the excitement. I find it riveting!

Language / Why do people want to study Polish? [90]


There is a joke about a German restaurant 'excuse me but there is a fly in my soup'..and of course there is the old expression 'I wish I was a fly on the wall' but 'on the fly' is an expression that I have certainly never come across myself. Mind you, usage does change and it does depend on country to country. Normally, in America I have to repeat myself and speak very slowly as Americans find it very hard to understand our use of the English Language. Rather like Dutch people understand Africans but not the other way round. In England we speak too fast for Americans. Australia was better, they are 'on the ball' but in the United States, I always had to try and simplify my English grammar to help out.

Language / ż ź dź dż sz cz ś ć - which give most problems to foreigners? [65]


Well, we always just say 'nos do góry' in our house. Mind you, as we do not use Polish for official reasons, I imagine that quite a lot of bad slang has crept in over the years. Sometimes even my wife pulls me up over it as I leave the kitchen and go to the garage and I say 'ja do garażu' without even bothering with the verb at all! At the end of the day, it is just about communication and I am never using Polish in an official capacity, except of course for watching M jak Miłość twice a week-it is the only direct connection I am ever likely to have with that country.

Language / ż ź dź dż sz cz ś ć - which give most problems to foreigners? [65]


You really do think a lot of yourself. There is no such correct version of oczów. I was in Poland speaking in Polish before you were even born and I have lived in England for nearly fifty years. Who the hell are you to correct my English? Talk about the expression 'nos do góry' and 'muchy pod nosem'. Why is the concept of language so important now? Under Communism the Poles were all training to be teachers of Russian in state schools and HATED everything to do with England and the English. Now, you must be master of everything. Very very strange. You can see why Polish Communism failed as it went against the grain of human nature.


In that case in future you do all translation in to Polish and I will do the translations in to English. As your English is so poor you can not be expected to do everything, after all. Them, maybe everybody will be happy!

Language / Why do people want to study Polish? [90]


Is there such an expression as 'on the fly' in English? It sounds very strange to me indeed.

Language / ż ź dź dż sz cz ś ć - which give most problems to foreigners? [65]


A lot of the older generation, especially those who came from the 'East' often still speak always with a hard 'l' sound.

My God, why make the Polish Language so complicated and boring? Great big long complicated and difficult explanations of simple things yet the polish native speakers on this Forum spell oczu as oczów, póżniej as pużniej and uwierzyć as uwieżyć! There are many more examples that I can not think of now. The Polish native speakers want to work at their primary school spelling first of all before we delve in thirteenth century linguistic theory.

Language / ż ź dź dż sz cz ś ć - which give most problems to foreigners? [65]


Yes, that is true and you can still meet people in Poland who say bardzo ladne with a hard l as in the English word table.

Language / ż ź dź dż sz cz ś ć - which give most problems to foreigners? [65]

Just like foreign people use the sound 'z' for a 'th' and it sounds dreadful.

Language / Why do people want to study Polish? [90]


Yes, but which 'th' do you mean because there are more than one in the English language. The 'th' in the word 'this' is different from the 'th' sound in the word 'that'. The tongue is places in a quite different place in the mouth either on the ridge of your front teeth, when saying the word 'that' or behind the front teeth when saying the word 'this'. Try saying it for yourself and you will feel the difference.

Language / ż ź dź dż sz cz ś ć - which give most problems to foreigners? [65]

Probably one of the hardest differences for foreign people is the difference between sz and si because there is a difference but most text books describe the sounds as being really very much the same. Mind you, in practice, I doubt if someone listening would really notice an error.