Language / Verb forms and conjugation [28]

It seems no-one has got round to dealing with any other classes for conjugating verbs on Wiktionary yet. It looks quite useful, the one that is there and was so helpfully linked by Vincent. The other Polish appendices look quite good too.

Life / Cool Polish names [133]

Oh! Hello £ukasz. I like your new name!

USA, Canada / Why aren't Polish people immigrating to Canada instead of the UK? [148]


That survey just doesn't make any sense. How can the only UK cities listed there be London, Birmingham and Glasgow? London I can understand, but the other two? I wouldn't trust anything it has to say about Canada or anywhere else in the world, based on what it says about the UK.

Life / Antisemitism in Poland; is it safe for a Jew to live in Poland? [193]

Eskimophobia? Antiinuitism?

News / Thank you Ireland... EUCCP [81]

I've been toying with the idea of writing to the EU, asking for a job. I'm not sure who exactly I should write to, but it may look a little something like this:

Dear European Union,

I am writing to you to find out if there are any jobs available to yet another failed politician. I came third place in a recent popularity contest on a busy internet forum (PolishForums.com) and other than that, nobody has voted for me in any other poll that I can remember.

It is clear that most failed politicians find a position within the machinery of the EU, so my lowly status should mean that I'm an ideal candidate. I love the EU and everything it does, so how about it?

Yours sincerestly,

Osiol

News / Solaris - not so new but already famous Polish bus manufacturer [26]

I'm sure we have these buses around here, but I wait and I wait and I wait and still I don't see one.

Language / Use of ze and z [25]


I still don't entirely get it: polishforums.com/donkey_diary-41_22972_2.html#msg455272

Language / Use of ze and z [25]


Ze is used when a Pole gets an uncomfortable build up of consonants.

News / Poles honour 'Cold Warrior' Ronald Reagan [92]

No statue of Thatcher with her handbag then?

UK, Ireland / Foreign drivers in the UK escape speeding fines [39]


It's a lot of other people's country as well, so have some respect for their opinions.

Feedback / What if Polishforums would not exist? [50]

What if Polish Forums did not exist?

1. I'd be learning Portuguese or Urdu.
2. I'd have completed work on my kitchen, I'd have built the extension and laid the patio.
3. I wouldn't have turned my computer on by this time of day.
4. I wouldn't have so many lovely people to talk to and life would be at least just a little bit more dull.
5. Some other stuff I don't even know about...

UK, Ireland / Sad or stupid - a Polish teacher killed whilst urinating on live rail [88]

Poor chap. My condolences to his family, friends and colleagues who will have to deal with the loss, and have to deal with explaining how it happened.

Humour is often a way of dealing with the difficult, tragic or even macabre side of life (and death). If you can't laugh, what can you do?

R.I.P. (Rest in p!ss... I mean peace)

Life / Metal Detecting in Poland [18]

So it's not like it in UK, where I think you can dig something up, providing the land owner has given consent. Then it has to be handed over as some sort of national property, and final ownership depends on some confusing legal gubbins?

Must make professional archaeology a bit tricky.

Life / Antisemitism in Poland; is it safe for a Jew to live in Poland? [193]

Squeezing money out a country is a sure way to create antipathy.

Language / The sound of the Polish 'R' [33]

I find O easier to roll. It's a better shape for it.

History / Russian achievements versus "Polish" zilch. [57]

Slovakland is somewhere between Czechland, Hungaryland, Ukraineland and Polia.

Language / The sound of the Polish 'R' [33]


It can be quite close. I had noticed on a certain thread on this forum that the Polish r is frequenly mistaken, especially by Americans who have heard the occasional Polish word spoken by an older family member, as 't' but occasional as 'l'.


I'd say that most Scottish dialects have a similar 'r' to Polish, some of England's dialects (especially West Midlands and parts of the north), maybe some forms of Northern Irish speak have it, and of course, Welsh. Welsh (or Cymraeg) has some of the best 'r' propnunciation in Britain.

I also wonder how well the Polish 'r' is pronounced by speakers of languages such as French, Dutch, German and so on, that have the uvular 'r'. Hearing Poles prouncing German words with a trilled 'r' just sounds terrible.

News / Thank you Ireland... EUCCP [81]

Some democracies are more democratic than others.

The Democratic Republic of... always signifies a complete lack of democracy.

UK, Ireland / Why British murder Polish? [41]


yawn

News / ARE LATVIANS AND OTHER 'BALTICS' HOSTILE TOWARDS POLES? [60]


No they're not. Okay, so maybe a bit. Well, let me expand on that...

Of all the non-Slavs in the world, the Hungarians that you mentioned are probably the most Slavic non-Slavs. Lithuanians less so, Latvians even less than that. There has been mixing over the course of history and prehistory. But the same could be said of Germans (certainly some of them), could it not?

At work, I meet a few Lithuanian Lithuanians, and a few Russian Lithuanians. From the era of Russian colonisation of the Baltic, I'm not sure how much the two populations mixed. There certainly seems to be hostility in the Baltic states against Russia. With Poles, I would expect to see a more sympathetic view from the Baltic peoples as fellow Europeans who have been through similar experiences in recent history.

UK, Ireland / Help - posting a letter to Poland from the UK. [12]


They have to make sure it doesn't weigh the plane down too much for it to get off the runway.

UK, Ireland / Polish girl stabbed on Tyneside in a horrific attack. [7]

Terrible things happen in the world, and this is just another example that we can read and make comments about, such as:


which don't help anyone in the slightest.


I'd agree, but go a little further, to say not even all the nutters carry knives.

Read the article and you will notice that it was her ex who carried out the attack.

People fear crime. Mostly they fear crime from random strangers, thugs out in the street and so on. But it is always far more likely that attacks, murders and attempted murders are carried out by people known to the victims.

I hope she and her boyfriend (who is in a much worse state apparently) make a full recovery, and that the sick individual who attacked them gets the punishment he deserves.

UK, Ireland / Polish parents hang themselves at their Lincoln, UK home [66]


Lots of them stayed there. I have a lot of distant family in Australia. Most started with very poorly paid jobs.

UK, Ireland / Polish parents hang themselves at their Lincoln, UK home [66]


Australia.

UK, Ireland / Polish Immigrants in England - and their Cultural Impressions [36]


I do quite a good impression of a Polish colleague who's got a funny little high-pitched voice like he's always talking with a lungful of Helium.

Love / WHITE GUYS POLISH WOMEN [36]

How white? Like you've just seen a ghost?


Can I make a Polish woman? What are the ingredients?

Travel / road trip from Greece to Poland [5]


Normal for you because, I imagine, you are quite used to driving in Poland.

By the way, I thought I saw a dog driving a car, but it turned out to be one of those foreign cars where the driver sits on the other side from the one we do here. The dog sitting on the passenger seat looked like the driver.

UK, Ireland / UK bus company boss jailed for hiring an incompetent Pole [71]

The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 puts responsibility on both the employer and the employee.

UK, Ireland / 800K of Polish immigrants in UK don't pay taxes -what do the poles think [190]


Your racism bores me. Doesn't it bore you too?

Love / MIDGETS AND POLISH WOMEN [25]


I have a feeling that scene was based on a true story about a tour by Black Sabbath.