Language / conjugation of verb wspiąć się [39]


agreed
I'd maybe use "jeśli wespniesz się na palce, zobaczysz ...", but it can be avoided as well by using a simple "jeśli staniesz na palcach, ..."

for me the main reason is phonetic - all those future tense forms with the combination of -spn- consonants sound odd, even for Polish, and they don't have a very smooth pronounciation, that's why people may avoid these forms.

Language / Polish language for Children [13]


you can use some of Brzechwa's short poems (I still have the edition of his "100 bajek")
for example:
Dzik jest dziki, dzik jest zły.
Dzik ma bardzo ostre kły.
Kto spotyka w lesie dzika,
Ten na drzewo szybko zmyka.

or something else:

(from anikino.pl/dzieci.php - there are several texts and a few audio files)

News / Poland to join the Schengen zone the beginning of next year [36]


btw, the date is correct, but it applies only the land borders, if I'm not mistaken (and I'm 99% sure). The air/sea borders will be "full-Schengen" a little later (I think March 2008)

Language / Short version of the name Krzysztof [10]

yeah, something like that :)

Language / Short version of the name Krzysztof [10]

I prefer Krzysiu.
Krzyś and Krzysio sound too childish, Krzysiek sounds not very nice - but it's a personal opinion, other Krzysztofs may have different preferences

Language / Polish Gender in foreign word borrowings [26]


no, I can't agree
you're mixed things up.
Polish keyboards (i.e. made for Polish market) have the right Alt key that works how you described, but it's only the right Alt, if you want to use the left Alt you need to press also Ctrl to obtain a Polish font. I tend to believe that keyboards produced for the UK market don't have this feature on the right Alt key - so you always need to press Ctrl at the same time. For making "big" letters you need to press Shift key.

Life / How much is road tax in poland?? [10]

Unfortunatelly, I have no idea :(
btw, could you check your Private Messages, I asked you a question about Malta (off topic, so I don't post here)

Language / His and her (plural) [30]


you can use the online version, quite useful:

so.pwn.pl - it's in Polish, but it doesn't contain many descriptions, just the spelling, and the cases (usually Dopełniacz = Genitive and/or Biernik/Accusative, singular and/or plural) which are/may be problematic (even for native speakers).

It's rather for more advances students of Polish as a foreign language, but you may try it, if you wish. You have to use Polish fonts when searching a word

Here's an example:

pedał (homoseksualista) -ała, B.= D., -ale; te -ały, -ałów
(it's an offensive term, a fag/faggot)

pedał (przedmiot) -ału, B.= M., -ale; -ały, -ałów
(bicycle/car pedal)

in the first version of "pedał" you see -ała (it means the Genitive/Dopełniacz is "pedała"), then B.= D. (Biernik = Dopełniacz, so Accusative form is equal to Genitive), -ale (it's the form of Miejscownik/Locative: pedale); (after the semicolon ; follow some plural forms:) te-ały (it means that in Nominative plural we use the form "pedały" and the pronoun "te" suggests it's treated as non-personal noun - normally "these men" translates to "ci mężczyźni", but these faggots doesn't translate to "ci pedałowie" like other male, human nouns in plural, it's used as non-living objects "te stoły" = "these tables), -ałów (Genitive plural)

in the second version of "pedał" you see -ału (it means the Genitive/Dopełniacz is "pedału"), then B.= M. (Biernik = Mianownik, so Accusative form is equal to Nominative), -ale (it's the form of Miejscownik/Locative: pedale); (after the semicolon ; follow some plural forms:) -ały (Nominative plural is "pedały"), -ałów (Genitive plural)

Language / His and her (plural) [30]


actually both forms are correct:
inżynierowie/inżynierzy
profesorowie/profesorzy
doktorzy/doktorowie (in this case, according to my spelling dictionary, Wielki słownik ortograficzny, doktorzy is the only form of nominative plural for medicine doctors, while doktorowie is allowed when it's the universtity degree/title, for example: doktorowie nauk prawniczych or doktorowie filozofii)

Language / Polish words shared with the french language [29]

I use "bakłażan", oberżyna sounds too foreign for my ears, while bakłażan is more assimilated in the Polish IMHO

Language / His and her (plural) [30]

it's a tough question

Travel / Have you ever been in Poland? [111]


sounds like Al Capone,
it's Zakopane

Language / Duzy / wielki - synonyms? [44]


'Mleka jest dużo' - you need Genitive (dopełniacz) if using the adverb (dużo) + a noun (mleko)

And I confirm the opinion about Michal's post - ingore them. He can (sometimes, not always) do a 100% correct translation from/to Polish, but his "general" opinions are usually a laugh (not only on linguistics)

Language / Polish words shared with the french language [29]


even if the sounds are almost the same, we still use the accent (stress) on the second last syllable (mostly), never on the last one like in French, so you always will hear the difference.

I think we have most borrowings from Latin and maybe German (from middle ages through all our history), later it was Italian (Renessaince), then French (Enlightment), finally English - it really depended on what country had the main cultural/political/economical influence on Europe (not only Poland). Other languages that borrowed us words are of course the ancient Greek, and less from Russian, Hungarian, Czech, Turkish and so on.

I'm not really an expert, so I won't go in details, because I may say something stupid :)

Life / international singned for post to poland-tracing delivery HELP [28]

1st Nov was a holiday, today is Saturday, so they aren't working either, check on Monday, if it's still not there, I may call them again for you Monday at 4.00 PM

Life / How much is road tax in poland?? [10]

I'm not sure how much you pay insurance in Poland, there are 2 main kinds:
OC (odpowidzialność cywilna) - obligatory (personal liability). Even without any accidents, when the Police stop you and you don't have it, you're in troubles.

AC (autocasco) - not obligatory, covers your expenses in case you did the damage to your own car or when it gets stolen/broken. It used to be 10% (each year) of the car's value. Of course most drivers, who didn't have accidents, have reductions, even up to 60% (so you pay only 4% of the car'svalue), but I'm afraid you may have troubles with receiving such reductions, ask other foreigners in Poland.

Life / How much is road tax in poland?? [10]

yep, officialy road trax is included in fuel price, but the insurance costs depend (or at least they did depend for years) also on the "litraż" (volume of the engine in litres, I don't know the proper English word)

Love / Polish songs for a wedding [23]

non-working days (by law):
- Sundays
- 1 Jan - Nowy Rok (New Year's Day)
- pierwszy dzień Wielkiej Nocy (Easter Sunday)
- drugi dzień Wielkiej Nocy (Easter Monday)
- 1 May - Święto Państwowe (National Holiday, ex-Labour Day)
- 3 May - Święto Narodowe Trzeciego Maja (3rd May National Holiday - anniversary of 1791 Constitution, the second in the world, after USA)
- pierwszy dzień Zielonych Świątek (first day of Pentecost - always 7 weeks after Easter Sunday, so naturally on Sunday as well)
- dzień Bożego Ciała (Corpus Christi - always 60 days after Easter Sunday, so naturally always on Thursday)
- 15 Aug - (a double holiday):
a/ (religious) Wniebowzięcie Najświętszej Maryi Panny (Assumption of the Virgin Mary or The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary),

b/ (national) - Dzień Wojska Polskiego (Polish Army Day) - anniversary of the decisive battle (August 1920) against Communist Russia (Cud nad Wisłą - Miracle at the Vistula river) in the 1919-20 Polish-Soviet war.

1 Nov - Wszystkich Świętych (All Saints' Day)
11 Nov - Narodowe Święto Niepodległości (National Independence Day - anniversary of WWI end in 1918)
25 Dec - pierwszy dzień Bożego Narodzenia (Christmas - day one)
26 Dec - drugi dzień Bożego Narodzenia (Christmas - day two)

Movable religious holidays:
2007 2008 2009 2010
Easter Sunday 08.04 23.03 12.04 04.04
Easter Monday 09.04 24.03 13.04 05.04
Pentecost 27.05 11.05 31.05 23.05
Corpus Christi 07.06 22.05 11.06 03.06

Food / Horse Meat - popular in Poland? [36]


it was only donkey (osiol) worried about his fellow horsies, absence of malice IMHO

Life / Halloween in Poland? [77]

it's not only the Polish Church that doesn't accept this tradition, which isn't a tradition here, just implanted "by force" (Hollywood movies, plus our local mass media that make more popular than it could be)

Anti - Halloween will be celebrated in Turin
The priests of Turin eparchy intend to organize a kind of Anti-Halloween on October 31st, as it is reported in La Stampa newspaper. The feast will be called "The Night of All Saints and the Mystery" (Notte dei Santi e dei Misteri). Adults and children disguised as angels will distribute white chocolate to the passers-by. The feast must become an answer to Halloween, which acquires greater and greater vogue and is criticized by the Church. The priests want to organize a joyous and bright, "angelic" feast instead of the night of the ghosts, horrors, terrifying costumes and intimidation of the passers-by.

travelime/news/359/

Language / Correct Polish spelling [69]

it's świnia

Life / Why are Poles attracted to animals? [53]


You still haven't answered how many Poles are interested in bestiality (nor compared it with other countries) - that's the starting point for a discussion - because I can't talk about google trends results, I have no idea how they work - is one person searching everyday (for 10 days) for a certain word registered as one hit or as ten hits?

And a little clarification - in Polish "bestialstwo" means "brutality" (attributed to humans, not to wild animals, and the word "bestia" = "beast" has double meaning, a really wild and ferocious animal or a person without moral, capable of worst deeds), so it can't be excluded that some of those people searching for bastiality meant indeed some brutal murders and used the wrong word assuming that in English it has a similar/equal meaning to the Polish. If you connect it with the recently reported several cases of Poles being murdered in UK (vastly reported in Polish press/TV), it can be assumed they were simply searching for more information from UK internet sites on those murders, but it's only a guess.

Life / Why are Poles attracted to animals? [53]


I didn't, I just pointed out that you reacted in a weird way- you found one, casual (hence irrelevant) data and made a statement out of it "why are Poles attracted to animals" (hell, after seeing the thread title I thought it would be about high amounts of pet dogs/cats/fishes in Poland). So you acted like a tabloid ("Polish girl killed after arrival in UK") - implying that Poles (or at least girls from Poland) are slaughtered in UK, probably because of their origin, without checking and comparing those statistics of crimes agianst Poles with general statistics on crimes (percentage of young females being killed in Poland and among the UK emigration etc.)


because noone cares?
and no, I haven't noticed any suspected bestiality occurences in Poland (culture or news)

Life / Why are Poles attracted to animals? [53]


because 95% of those sick sites are in English?

News / Things you might not know about Poland [76]


and that's why she chose the name polonium for the first radioactive element she discovered, go on tell us something funny again

Life / Why are Poles attracted to animals? [53]

this thread is rather disturbing, and I really wasn't going to post in here, but ...

your research lacks of a metodology.
you can't just throw one word in Google and draw conclusions, you should:
1/ gather the data (occurences) related to the subject
2/ interprete the data in an accepted way.

so you should check also for other words/expressions pertinent to your search (I use * so these forums can avoid being labelled by Google as a per*ert site):

- se* with ani*als
- ani*al se*
- so*omy
- sod*mia
- zo*filia
- dog f*ck
and so on (including the similar words in Chinese, Arabic, Russian and other more popular languages, especially those that don't use Latin alphabet, because you can't see China or Russia on those lists, probably because they are making searches in their own language)

then you have to compare the real figures (not the popularity showed in a relative way, because 40% of 100,000 is less than 15% of 400,000 for example)

then you have to include some variables (population speaking a language, internet accessibility and computers number in a country - total and pro capita, foreign languages knowledge)

when you got those numbers right, you can start to draw some preliminary conclusions

Life / Cyfrowy Polsat issues [11]


Well, I don't know all decoder models, but on mine it's just a button on the remote (an icon of a small loudspeaker and a question mark after it) - it's in the upper left section of the remote (the second or third button from the top on the left)

Life / Cyfrowy Polsat issues [11]

I had this problem too (with TVN and TVN 7), then I changed decoder's sound settings (there's a button for it on the remote) for those 2 channels (there are stereo and Dolby Surround options) and it works now - I have no idea why, because my TV set supports Dolby as well, but I guess there must be something messed up with TVN's signal

Language / The most common Polish case used in everyday conversations? [10]

I'd say Biernik (so Accusative), which has often a form identical with nominative (for masculin and neuter gender nouns), but it's only a guess

Life / international singned for post to poland-tracing delivery HELP [28]

you're wlecome, but you could use the "edit" functon" to correct my name - no need for a new post :)