UK, Ireland / Why so many British can't spell ? [83]


I'm giving my poncho a shake-down ready for Mexican fortnight. Can't wait!

UK, Ireland / Why so many British can't spell ? [83]


What's a foreign language? Is it something like Yank?



I prefer coffee. Sometimes black. Never instant.
But my flatmate seems to have been converted to drinking the dreaded milky tea.
But he is one of the few amongst the many.
I also feel like one of the few. Almost unique.

Language / Duzy / wielki - synonyms? [44]

Whether it's wielki or just duży, by the end of this I should be an expert in donkey grammar.
Thanks, Krzysztof. I promise to give you a rest for the time being.

UK, Ireland / Why so many British can't spell ? [83]

Grzegorz, do you fancy a cup of milky tea?

UK, Ireland / Why so many British can't spell ? [83]


this language continues to be taught
Sorry.

They took me out of French lessons for being naughty, so I had to sit in the library with two of my mates instead.

UK, Ireland / Why so many British can't spell ? [83]

The English spelling system is amongst the silliest in the world.
I make a few spelling mistakes occasionally. I usually spot them and put them right. That's usually a result of typing too fast.

As for other people, some people have genuine problems with spelling - my brother, for example, has very bad spelling and always has. That is a form of dyslexia, which occurs more amongst English speakers than speakers of languages with a more phonetic orthography. I have met one or two 'dyslexics' whom I wouldn't categorise with my brother, who is, believe it or not, possibly more intelligent than me.

Some just never bothered to learn to spell properly when they were at school and somehow still get away with it later in life. Some people are just plain stupid.

It's not just spelling - punctuation seems to cause even more problems.


I just added that for a bit of fun.

By the way, Irish Gaelic seems to have quite a silly spelling system, and don't get me started on French!

Language / Duzy / wielki - synonyms? [44]

I'm going to stick my donkey head out for this.
I bet that as I type, someone far more knowledgable beats me to it anyway.

Genitive:
mam zboczonego osła - I have a perverted donkey.
przynieś osła! – bring the donkey!
przynieś osłów – bring the donkeys!

Instrumental:
pod osłem - under the donkey (don't go there!)
z osłem - with the donkey
z osłami - with donkeys

I'm tired now. The instrumental ones I've put here are the only ones I tend to be able to remember.

History / Poland-Russia: never-ending story? [1341]



I thought he was born in Georgia to a Russian family. Correct me if I'm wrong.
There were many places colonised by the Russians before and during Soviet times.

Language / Duzy / wielki - synonyms? [44]


Thanks. I'll just have to check what I've got.
My table has a few numbers and prepositions on it, but no names of cases.
It also now has one or two adjectives.

I can already see a couple of things I didn't already have.

UK, Ireland / Many British have inferiority complex [131]


Especially when their correction doesn't make sense.


Some of the flags in my neighbourhood have been out for quite a long time. They start to look quite tired and unloved after a while.

UK, Ireland / Many British have inferiority complex [131]

I wonder sometimes why England football shirts don't have the word 'England' written upside-down so it can serve to remind the wearer where he is from. Then it could have 'breath in... breath out' written on it too.

History / Ancient Polish History thread [180]

Interesting, but I think things become problematic when jumping to conclusions from linking linguistic groups with genetically-determined groups. For example, the Celts the Ancient Greeks spoke of - it seems difficult to link these people with the populations of todays Celtic-speaking areas. It can be seen that culture (including language) spreads from group to group far more than populations move.

Language / Duzy / wielki - synonyms? [44]


So she does have a big arse! Sorry, I mean ass/donkey.


As part of my learning about Polish grammar, I tried to assemble a table with all forms of the words osioł and oślica. My Polish ahem... teacher(!) kept changing his mind about what endings were right. I have amended this table accordingly.

Strangely, this excercise only made things look complicated.

Language / Duzy / wielki - synonyms? [44]


Both my guesses were wrong, but I think she'd still have got the message and been angry for some time.

Or perhaps the translation he wanted was:
Masz duż(some ending or other) osły.

Maybe I've got that wrong as well.

Language / Duzy / wielki - synonyms? [44]

In your head and not out loud, even if you like it that way.

Masz duża (or is it dużę?) dupę.
?????????????????????????????

No, I don't know.


Not even one word? Do you know this? Have you asked her?

UK, Ireland / Many British have inferiority complex [131]


Used to migrate. 'Used too' could be used in the sentence 'You can dig a hole with a spade, but a pick and shovel can be used too.'

Firstly, I could mention migration to North America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa. Migration could also cover colonisation.

Secondly, British people are still leaving Britain, not just to retirement homes in Spain. I know of people who are taking their university qualifications to the US or Canada for work. There was also the 'Auf Wiedersehen Pet' phenomenon, and they weren't all Geordies.

UK, Ireland / What's So Great About The UK? [416]


But that could be rephrased as saving for most days. It would mean even less in Ireland.

What's so great about the UK?
I like Wales.

Feedback / i´d like to send greetings to PF from.... [9]


Thanks, Krysia's spokesperson. I suppose she's passed 5000 so she can let other people post on her behalf before gathering pace in the run-up to 6000.

I'd like to go to a bit of tundra, but I can't make up my mind which one.

Rafik, check out some Venezuelan harp music. It is good.

Feedback / i´d like to send greetings to PF from.... [9]


Which one?

Travel / Heading to Krakow in feb with ten lads [10]


Do you mean stags or are you calling us slags?
Or are you referring to stag / hen parties?

I've had no problems going out drinking, but then I haven't been to anywhere like Krakow. If I do go there, it wouldn't be in a big party, and by the time I've saved up enough money to go there, I should have had enough time to have learnt a bit more Polish to disguise my Englishness. Hey! I'm from Belgium! Oh no! Everyone just died of boredom.

They don't let donkeys into clubs anywhere, so it doesn't make much difference to me. Although there are a few places out in the countryside I've heard about, but I'm not sure even there I'd be safe!

UK, Ireland / Polish kids in UK education system [57]


A work by the famous 20th century American abstract expressionist painter, noted for his method of 'action painting' can be described as a Pollock. Only lennyd, unlike many of the BNP (Banque National de Paris) trolls, he doesn't use any capital latters (other only ever use capital letters because they are SHOUTING because they are having TEMPER TANTRUMS like spoilt children who have been told they have to go to their room because they wouldn't eat their CABBAGE).

So without a capital P, I can't answer that.

UK, Ireland / Many British have inferiority complex [131]



Quote me out of context. Eh, troll?

Travel / Donkey visits Poland [76]

Part 10

'We go now,' said Bartek. 'To our shop. It's not a shop.'
I frowned.
'You will see.'

We scrambled through some waste ground behind some factories - mostly derelct, and ascended a slope of long grass and young ash trees that had probably been growing since the area had fallen out of use, I guessed some time in the early to mid 1990s.

At the top there was the concrete shell of a building. It had no floor, just sand and broken beer bottles. 'This is the toilet.' he told me, pointing to what may have once been a cupboard. It may have once actually been a toilet, but was now a dark corner strewn with more broken beer bottles. I looked at his trainers, somehow clean despite the terrain we had been crossing. I looked at my new brown shoes. Was I displaying some sort of English sartorial elegance or was I just a bit old?

He told me how he and his mates often went there to drink. He didn't like the way so many bottles had been smashed - they had made quite a collection, but it looked like someone had been shooting them. There was even a board supported by piles of bricks that had proabably been used in this wayward activity.

I sat down on the window ledge over-looking the slope we had just climbed. Through the opposite hole that had once been a window I could see a flat area, possibly tarmac, that looked just as unused as everything else. So I looked down at the wildflowers and the derelect industrial buildings below.

We drank our bottles of £omża Export. I wondered where they might be exporting this stuff to. You don't find much more than Żywiec and Tyskie where I live.

I put my empty bottle down, he threw his out of the window and it disappeared into the trees. 'Aaaagh!' I made the sound of an animal being stuck by a flying bottle. 'Wiewiórka!' He looked at me with a kind of 'You know the word for squirrel!' expression.

The former power station buildings were full of rubble and asbestos. Climbing over some bricks to keep up with Bartek, we looked into a small room with a tattered flag amongst the rubble. He said something about communist times that I couldn't quite understand. I always get the feeling that if someone doesn't want to talk about those days, you don't ask them. In Bartek's case I didn't ask because of his youth, poor English and the fact he'd move on to another room and was talking about how this was 'Marcin's lounge!'

'Come on. I show you Marcin's swimming pool!'

God knows what it had been, but it looked like a health and safety nightmare. Two very deep, asbestos-lined tanks with some oily liquid in the bottom and a large rusty framework supporting some rusty steps down to a rusty platform. 'Marcin's swimming pool' he said again. Poor Marcin - the butt of most of their jokes - I have to admit that even I had joined in to some extent. It suits him - he knew he wasn't the brightest one, but was probably the most cheerful.

After climbing back up the steps from the Devil's bath-tub, we approached the centrepiece - a huge concrete tower that can be seen from all around £omża, from the upstairs in the house I was staying in and from the hills above town where we had gone on the first day. 'Great.' I said. 'Shall we move on?' It was just a dirty great lump of concrete - visually dominating, but you can't do anything with it. It actually seemed more dominating by it's omnipresence around town than standing below it.

As we walked back towards the shop for another beer to warm us up for the night out, we walked through a part of the factory complex where men in overalls were actually working and pushing trolleys around. They seemed to pay no attention to us - not even a 'Grrr! Pesky kids!' sort of look. 'Don't worry about them!' We walked on. We walked a kind of 'There's no reason we're not supposed to be here.' kind of walk.

I waited for Bartek to climb over the chain-link fence. I looked at the hollow brick building, the smashed windows, the flowers growing amongst the broken glass below. Then I jumped over the fence. Moments later, we were back in the shop, deciding which mystery brand of cigarettes to buy, but knowing that the beer had to be £omża. The label on the bottle really ought to have a dirty great chimney on it somewhere.

Part 11

The film stopped and the spare driver made an announcement. We were to stop for a fifteen minute break. The film had been good. I didn't know what was going on or what was being said, but other passengers were laughing from time to time. What made it good was that it was the first Polish film I had seen in Poland - when the television had been switched on in the house, the films were nearly always American, but overlain by the gentle deadpan of the narrator, speaking over all of the dialogue with the translation.

I rolled a ciagrette as I waited for a space in the queue down the aisle. Great! Someone from the seat behind mine getting something out of their bag and holding everyone up behind. I slipped off the coach and sparked up the moment I touched down. The sun was slowly climbing down to the trees on the horizon.

My legs needed a stretch, so I walked around the picinc area by the car park. Others just stood by the coach whilst one or two other people were also just walking to get the circulation going in their weary limbs again. I stopped to roll a second cigarette. There were swifts swooping over the field of wheat that lay before me like a golden sea. I watched them darting and glding, catching their evening meal of insects buzzing in the warm evening air.

I strolled on. There was a small building with a kiosk that was closed and some toilets. As I walked round, away from the huddled passengers, there was a young man wearing a hood and baggy jeans. He approached me and asked if I had a lighter. I dug into my pocket. I had accidentally walked off with three other people's lighters the night before. I offered him a lighter and told him it was his.

He lit a small glass pipe and offered it to me.

The swifts continued their aerobatic display. The corn swayed in the field. The sun skimmed the trees in the distance. The ash tree above me gently shook its leaves. The light was golden brown and the air was sweet.

I walked one more lap of the picnic area. The drivers finished their cigarettes and told us all to do likewise. I climbed back to my seat and back to the film. I still didn't know what was going on, but it didn't matter. The road was rolling along below and the darkening fields and woods rolling by into the night.

Travel / Donkey visits Poland [76]


Great - I want to know what happens next!

UK, Ireland / Many British have inferiority complex [131]


I could rephrase and expand what I said before.

There are more people in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the size of the name says something) who think that by being British, they are somehow better. To some extent, this happens in every country. That may be something to do with, deep down inside, feeling inferior, but I feel neither superior nor inferior. I feel lucky to live somewhere with a decent standard of living. I have a job I like. I have some rather nice musical instruments to play with that didn't cost me too much. I can buy lots of good quality ingredients to cook with.

I am not saying you can't find these things elsewhere, but I appreciate what I have got, try to get the things I want by fair means, and strive to be a better person. That's not a British thing, it's a human/donkey thing.

Oh! Thanks for the hug!

Travel / Heading to Krakow in feb with ten lads [10]

Having read this...

Dubdave28, you and your mates should practice pretending to be from Iceland or Denmark or something.

Travel / Heading to Krakow in feb with ten lads [10]


Very Polish.


... after being thrown out of places for being drunk and disorderly?

Travel / Heading to Krakow in feb with ten lads [10]


Don't drink too much then you might remember something.

UK, Ireland / Many British have inferiority complex [131]

Oh no! I have such an inferiority complex - I think I'm going to need a hug!

UK, Ireland / POLISH ADMIRATION FOR THE IRISH GENIUS JAMES JOYCE [63]


What the Dickens?