USA, Canada / advice on where to live in Canada [64]

Brain surgeon calls plumber at 2:00 a.m. Pipes have burst, and water is running through out the house. Tells plumber to come immediately.

Plumber says, "I can now, but my rate is triple time, $360 per hour."

Doctor says, "Geez, I'm a brain surgeon, and I only charge $210 per hour."

Plumber replies, "That was my rate when I was a brain surgeon, too."

Study / High school programs in Poland for US student [6]

I would suggest you use Yahoo or Google to search the web pages of a city you might like to go to, find the high schools in the city and write them. For example, click on url for Gdańsk's page:

gdansk.pl/en/article.php?category=459&article=996&history=459

It lists the vice-mayor for education's name, mail and email adresses. Seems to me, she could be a good starting point.

This url lists Rzeszów's mayors, doesn't give the titles of vice-mayors, so try the mayor:

erzeszow.pl/en/103/19/#103

Also try Warsaw: e-warsaw.pl/2/index.php?id=621

News / Yitzhak Shamir - prime minister of Israel with anti-polish sentiment [41]


Well said.

Language / misleading differences between Polish and English languages [92]


Polish fagot is a bassoon.

1913 Webster's dictionary lists five noun definitions for fagot, one of which is a bassoon:

1. A bundle of sticks, twigs, or small branches of trees
2. A bundle of pieces of wrought iron to be worked over into bars or other shapes
3. (Mus.) A bassoon. See Fagotto.
4. A person hired to take the place of another at the muster of a company.
5. An old shriveled woman.

News / Why does Poland love the US? [144]


The game was already over? Hitler was at the gates of Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad. He had control of all of the European continent from Norway to the Mediteranean Sea, had north Africa except for Gibraltar, Egypt and Malta and Cyprus. You either didn't cover WWII in your high school studies or you skipped a lot of classes.

I vote for the latter since you also apparently skipped spelling as well. The Poles are Slavs. A Pole is a Slav, not a slave. Silent e makes a big difference.

UK, Ireland / Poles top of UK class [41]


Besides the accent, what's different about it?

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


Polish is on the flip side of the stone.

Actually it's commercial software for learning languages: rosettastone.com

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

Spelling and pronunciation differ in English speaking countries. Words have entirely different meaning in various countries.

Brits spell it colour, Americans spell it color. Many such examples abound.

Brits ride a lift to third floor while Americans take an elevator. My granny wears a bonnet, but cars in Britain have bonnets. An American biscuit is quite different from a British biscuit.

We have big differences in pronunciation. Vitamin. Americans: witamyn, Brits: wytamyn.

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


Don't feel bad. I only got 50. I couldn't understand the comic's accent and am not familiar with rhyming slang. Did fine in the other areas.

Just goes to prove old quotation, attributed to Oscar Wilde as well as others:

America and Britain are united by a common language and separated by a common language.

News / Why does Poland love the US? [144]


They certainly suffered greater losses of men and women and destruction of infrastructure. The US, on the other hand, had minimal infrastructure losses.

Hitler was certainly a idiot for invading the USSR.

News / Why does Poland love the US? [144]


Quite a profit, indeed: 418,000 dead (much less than the USSR's 23,000,000), but none the less devasting to many families.

American taxpayers paid for the war twice. First for the bombs to blow up Nazi and Japanese military sites and strategic targets, and then to rebuild the infrastructure via the Marshall Plan.

As far I know, the only profit we got was some pretty war brides the GIs brought home.

News / What do Polish friends think of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton? [226]


Obama's pastor is not alone. We have a hotshot evangelist living in this area in a compound of six or so muliti-million dollars houses, occupied by her and her family. The archbishop of your city is likely living a palace of sorts (unless he had sell it to pay for sex crimes) and every in vogue big tv evangelist is living in a mansion and driving a luxury auto. So don't throw stones at Obama because his pastor has made big bucks and living la dolce vita rather than following the example of Christ.


Mary Grabar reminds me of many whinny people I have met who blame others for their lack of success. My immigrant grandfather came to US with little except the strength of his hands, his intelligence and a desire to get ahead.

White college students in California have been know to switch classes if they see a lot of orientals in a class because they fear the orientals will raise the curve. Orientals are not more intelligent, they're just willing to work harder. The white students who drop out would be bettered served if they decided to work harder and be the curve raiser.

Language / a new Polish alphabet for internet and sms.... [29]

Setting your computer up with a Polish keyboard is easy and ąćęłńóśźż can be easily typed from it using the Alt key plus ace, etc.

Grzegorz Jagodziński has an excellent page on setting this up on your computer: [grzegorj.w.interia.pl/keyboard/indexgb.html] - Polish Keyboard Drivers

Use Help and Support on the Start menu of your computer. Put language in topic and the system will advise you how to install other languages.

Language / Things Polish people who speak English language say [180]


What is "pron"?

Language / Things Polish people who speak English language say [180]


Somewhen I will find a way to use that new word. Great word.

Language / I know "się" is the only reflexive personal pronoun..but "jak się masz?" [34]


What's your source for saying this? Seems to me it's more likely something both languages got from Old Slavonic.

Food / How to sour/clabber homogenised store-bought milk [17]


Polonius3: Vinegar works well to sour the milk. My grandmother's banana bread recipe calls for sour milk which she always made by adding a little vinegar to regular homogenized milk. (You had the answer already.)

Language / How Many of you love the Polish Language? [79]

I have always been amazed at the ability of the human brain of a child to easily learn and adapt to whatever language is present.

My nephew and his Japanese wife and daughter visited from Tokyo recently and their little girl spoke Japanese to mom and English to dad. When I visited some friends who had been in Rome for about 6 months, their 6 year son just rattled away in Italian with the apartment complexes door keeper with perfect ease.

Why as adults do we lose that ability? Is it a fear of sounding stupid?

News / What do Polish friends think of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton? [226]


Julie, I would bet you not one will move. Please make a post one year after the election and tell us how many have moved.


A poor assumption. Obama is graduate of Harvard Law School. They accept no one based on affirmative action. They have so many applications, they can pick the absolute cream of the crop. Why would you assume that other than prejudice?

News / What do Polish friends think of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton? [226]


If you have George Bush, America's favorite idiot, in mind, he got in Yale because he was a legacy. That is, his father went to Yale, and they have a program that allows for legacies to be admitted even though they don't have the best qualifications.

News / What do Polish friends think of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton? [226]


He dropped out of the race. See: kucinich.us

• 
  Dennis Kucinich
  

Language / Polish language problems (orthography) [47]


"All Slavic tongues are believed to have evolved from a single parent language, usually called Proto-Slavic, which, in turn, is thought to have split off much earlier (possibly c.2000 B.C.) from Proto-Indo-European, the original ancestor of the members of the Indo-European language family. Proto-Slavic was probably still common to all Slavs in the 1st cent. B.C., and possibly as late as the 8th or 9th cent. A.D., but by the 10th cent. A.D. the individual Slavic languages had begun to emerge." (Britannica Concise Encyclopedia)

I learned Polish at the Army Language School years ago. There were other students taking Czech, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, Russian, etc. I found that I could better under those other Slavic language, then they could understand Polish.

For example, friend in Czech is přítel, in Slovak it is priate, in Slovene it is prijatelj and in Polish it is przyjaciel, but pronounced as if it is pszyjaciel.

The other could not under przyjaciel as being přítel or priate or prijatelj. The Psz sound was lost to them because they expected pr.

Language / Polish language problems (orthography) [47]


What a horror story for the non-native speaker. Trying to figure out the proper cases for numbers. Dzięki Bogu for 1,2,3, etc.

Language / Polish language problems (orthography) [47]


I admire anyone who is willing to learn another language other than his own, and try to speak it. As adults, we fear being laughed at if you say something that sounds stupid.

You have spiked my curiosity, Marek. I wondered why you wrote, "Thank G_d..." rather than "Thank God." Typo or deliberate?

Language / Polish language problems (orthography) [47]


Don't Polish your English.

P vs p make a big difference in meaning and pronunciation.

Language / Polish language problems (orthography) [47]


Your English was fine. I meant no criticism. Your use of the word "polish" was absolutely correct.

Earlier in the thread, we were talking about Polish spelling. My comment was meant to merely point out how confusing English can sometimes be; capitalizing polish makes it an entirely different word, and is pronounced differently.

Language / Polish language problems (orthography) [47]


If you please, what does "wkurzające" mean? Haven't found it in my dictionary.

News / What do Polish friends think of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton? [226]

Look for a Obama-Clinton ticket in the fall. An Irish guy (O'Bama) and a woman.

Polonia / German nation - degradation or just deviation? Your opinions? [66]


You seem to enjoy throwing "el crapo" into the fan and seeing what happens. Look at your title, "German nation". You may as well throw the Swiss into that mix.

Unfortunately, every nation has its horror story or stories of deviant behavior. (Well, I don't recall ever hearing about mass murders in Iceland so maybe not every nation.)

How 'bout for your next post, "Russia - Land of Mass Murdering Dictators."

Language / What is the most annoying thing about non-native Polish speakers? [90]


Welcome to the "global world."

Two Polish friends of mine said they were walking behind a beautiful girl in Rome, one commented in Polish "Co za ladna dupa" and the girl turned around and said, "Tak, ale nie dla wszystkich." ["What a lovely butt." "Yes, but it's not for everyone."]