Life / When in Poland, should I be British or Scottish? [104]


Does it matter? Call yourself Scottish or British and over 90 % of people in Poland are still going to to refer to you as "ta Angielka" (the Englishwoman). Most Polish people don't know or really care about the British nomenclature protocals (though probably everybody can distinguish British and Irish by now).

Language / Correct Polish spelling [69]

In my experience Polish people mostly don't spell words out loud.
This is because, mostly, there's no need. Polish pronunciation and writing are much in sync than in English.

There are strategies for dealing with the ambiguities that do appear.

1. If a word (esp name) has an ambiguous point you just mention that. "Dahowski przez samo h". "Korza przez er zet"

2. Pronounce a word just as it's spelled and not how it's commonly pronounced. Here, it's possible to voice final sounds that are usually voiced and ą and ę would be pronounced as in isolation. It's not uncommon for Polish people to do this with English words too (to indicate spelling) "'bread' pisane bread" (pronounced breh-ahd)

To clearly indicate a word (or in an argument or to make a point) English speakers might spell a word.
"I'm broke, get it? B-R-O-K-E!"
In Polish you'd say each syllable separately.
"Jestem spukłany, kapujesz? Spu-kła-ny!"

Finally, IME Polish people often don't use the official names of letters (back when I foolishly spelled my name using the official names of letters it almost always got written down incorrectly). Ry and sy are especially common instead of er and es though 'rz' is always er zet.

Life / How important is it to have a car in Poland? [37]


I think it's an illusion of self sufficiency (cars are useless without a whole lot of infrastructure that no individual con provide for themselves) so I guess I don't think the way you do.

Anyway, I think for at least 80% of the people that use them in Poland, a car is more a luxury than a necessity. They're a powerful status symbol for many Polish people (much more than in the US) but they're a lot more trouble keeping than in the US too. Gas is more expensive, roads are usually in poor shape, Polish people are mostly awful, reckless drivers with no basic understanding of basic road courtesy, car theft is a real fact of life (not as much as it used to be, but it's still something you have to think about) and trying to park in cities is an exercise in frustration/rage management.

On the other hand, public transport in cities in Poland is better than anywhere in the US and taxis are pretty cheap.

You might decide you want a car to travel around the countryside but basic public transport supplemented by the occasional taxi will probably allow you to enjoy your stay more. I reccomend buying monthly (or 3 or 6 month) passes. It's cheap and you don't have to think about fares, you just jump on whatever bus or streetcar is convenient.

Oh, also. Suburbs (in the US meaning) don't really exist in Poland. It's hard not to be in easy walking distance of stores unless you're way out in the countryside.

Law / Renewing Karta pobytu in Warsaw [35]


Oh go ahead, rub it in! (muttering obscenities)

To gtd, the problem is that the old system is kind of obsolete and they don't have anything new in place yet. And Polish bureaucracy is at its worst in ambiguous, novel situations (like this!).

My only advice is keep slogging away at it, being as polite as possible and realize that the people you're dealing with are profoundly uncomfortable not having regulations they can rely on. If they get to the point where they recognize you from frequent visits (and realize you're not going to cause nasty scenes) you probably won't have any problems in the future with them once there are regulations in place (no matter what they are and warning: Polish laws tend to be poorly written and ambiguous and often contradictory, how the loopholes and contradictions are handled are the prerogative of the people in charge at the local level which is why you want them to not dislike you).

Try to view the process as helping to build your character (and teaching you a lot about Polish society).

Life / Karta pobytu help - property ownership problem [13]


What do you mean by 'property'? the building? the apartment?

In my case all I needed was a copy of the deed of the apartment I live in (the owner didn't have to write or do anything IIRC). This was a couple of years ago but I would have thought things wouldn't have gotten harder....

And if your husband is a Polish citizen I thought it was easier still, how is he registered? Is he an owner?... I suspect somebody at townhall is making problems for no reason or holding out for a bribe.

Language / Ways to say "Ok" in Polish [9]

dobrze,
dobra,
okej,
zgadza się,
zgoda,
....

Food / Polish grilling [6]


True, it's one of my favorite Polish dishes. But you really need seler (celery root, the stalks just aren't the same) and I don't know if that's easily available in the US (except maybe in Polish stores).

Language / "kupić ci drinka" - Is this proper grammar? [26]


Syntactically it's a particle, morphologically it very much is derived from móc (linguist in me speaking). I'll defer to native judgement on the rest. I was purposefully making it more direct because I had the idea that poor edward needs to be more rather than less direct (he kind of reminds me of English guys I've known who take five minutes to ask a simple question).

What about

Mogę postawić Ci kiedyś drinka? (not sure about optimum word order)

Language / "kupić ci drinka" - Is this proper grammar? [26]

Może kiedyś postawię Ci drinka?

I don't like może mógłbym (two words from the same verb móc in close proximity generally sounds worse in Polish in my non-native opinion).

Also ... (getting onto thinner ice) Polish people generally like more direct speech than English speakers do, IME they have a low tolerance for beating around the bush and hinting and offering something without really offering it.

I'd say:

Postawię Ci drinka kiedyś, dobra?

I'll buy you a drink sometime, okay? which also gives her a space to respond, which could be good or bad.

"what's wrong with now?"
"I get off work at six"
"don't bother"
"just the cash, please"

Work / Voluntary charity work (Englsih teaching) - Gdansk [5]

Very admirable sentiments.

Your biggest problem is that the kind of organizations that could most benefit from your offer will be the hardest to find and/or operate in without being competent in Polish. Another problem is they're liable to be in inconvenient places (like the countryside).

Some possible suggestions (without helpful things like addresses).

1. teaching (primarily written) English to deaf kids (but without written Polish or sign language that could be tough)

2. see if there's a branch of Barka (organization for helping homeless people get on their feet) in Gdańsk

3. see if you can find a helpful soul in an unemployment office who could set up classes for job seekers

My main advice is to ask your students and/or acquaintances about likely projects, visit a time or two before actually committing yourself and go with your instincts when choosing (warning: make sure that no one's collecting money from your students without telling you).

Love / When do Polish girls consider it an exclusive relationship? [10]

AFAICT in Poland as a general rule physical intimacy past a kiss (unless both parties are up front about things first and/or you're a jerk) is seen as desire for an exclusive serious relationship in and of itself.

And the defining feature of a serious relationship is the idea that it will end up in marriage (not in a month or even a year but sooner or later). Of course lots of things could happen to speed up the marriage (like pregnancy) or end the relationship before marriage but that's the general cultural assumption.

With cultural expectations playing such a large role, there's no real need for "the talk" and AFAICT it doesn't exist in Poland (unless it's the anti-talk where one person explains why the relationship has no future and do you wanna go ahead and do the wild thing anyway?)

Genealogy / Pole: What is your nationality? I am eurounian.... [30]


No.

I'm not a fan of everything the EU does, but overall it's done much more good than harm (and has the best record of erradicating poverty of any such supernational alliance). And there's no evidence whatsoever that it's erasing cultural differences. I've travelled in Shengen and landing in Hungary or Amsterdam, it's just as obvious as ever that you're in a different country.

But, no one's preventing you from trying to convince Polish people that it's a huge threat and that Poland should withdraw from it. But are Polish people really willing to give up EU money? Do they really want to have to absorb back almost all of the Poles in the EU right away? Do you really want to have to go back to getting visas to cross the Polish border (or going to the post office to try to get your passport)?

There's no such thing as a free lunch and EU membership does limit what Poland can do to some extent, but overall it's a tradeoff that's well worth making.

ps: my nationality is American though I've lived in Poland well over 10 years now with no plans of moving anywhere else (though february mornings make somewhere sunny seem mighty tempting)

Language / Polish v Russian - similarity [17]

1. When Poland became Christianized is irrelevant (unless it was less than 200 or so years ago).

2. IINM the four words you mentioned are all used in Russian too.

3. All Slavic languages have Latinate/Slavic pairs (like Polish lingwistyka/językoznawstwo. I've yet to see research based evidence that one language has significantly more than another (one might but without research we can't say for sure). Anecdotes are irrelevant, what month is it now in Polish? In Russian?

4. Claims about western vocabulary are usually related to claims about culture. Colloquial Czech syntax is heavily influenced by German, which some Czechs claim means they're more westernized than other Slavs, they simultaneously claim they have the purest Slavic vocabulary. Linguists would be skeptical of both claims.

Language / Polish v Russian - similarity [17]


I'd be skeptical of that claim unless it's backed by research (comparing both dictionaries and corpuses of usage).

Generally when it comes to 'educated' vocabulary (dealing with politics, humanities and sciences) the Slavic languages use a mish mash of westernized and indigenous vocabulary, often simultaneously (Polish 'auto' and 'samochód' or Czech 'muzyka' and 'hudba') and I don't know which has the largest "western" stock.

Life / Present for Polish friends ~ is anything hard to get any more? [57]

My advice:

Be happy that you don't have to treat a trip to visit Polish friends like a charity mission anymore. Just bring the kind of small gifts that would be suitable for a host in the West.

If, while here, you find there's something that's hard to get and might be appreciated you can send it afterward as a thank you.

Love / My Polish boyfriend fancies are Pakistani neighbor. What do I do ? [291]


Time for "tough love".

What part of "he doesn't want you" don't you understand? Do tanga trzeba dwojga, and he's looking for another partner cause he doesn't want to dance with you. It doesn't matter how much you want to be with him, he doesn't want to be with you. You can't force him to want you. It's over. Accept it and move on.

Two choices:

Read the writing on the wall and leave while you still have some dignity.

Let him walk all over you and use you until he grows the balls to dump your needy, clingy ass.

Language / nice things to say to a girl in polish [103]


"Jestem żalem dla tego co ci zrobiłem"

but what a strange thing to want to say, if you want to say:

"I regret what I did to you."

that would be:

"(Bardzo) żaluję to, co ci zrobiłem." the (Bardzo) is 'very (much)' which may be called for in this kind of situation.

Just call me grammar nazi.

Language / nice things to say to a girl in polish [103]

"czesc sliczna, myslisz jeszce o mnie czasem"

I think you left off the question mark, in which case it's

"Hey good lookin', do you still think of me sometimes?"

without the question mark:

"Hi gorgeous, you still think about me sometimes." (sounds pretty full of himself)

Love / My Polish boyfriend fancies are Pakistani neighbor. What do I do ? [291]


Why? Pakistanis carry this behavior with them to the UK (along with cousin marriage and arranged marriage and treating daughter in laws like slaves).

I'm sure on an individual basis there are lots of nice people from Pakistan but the culture puts severe restrictions on female behavior and females challenge those restrictions at peril of their life (at the hands of their family).

Love / My Polish boyfriend fancies are Pakistani neighbor. What do I do ? [291]

The problem is that they could get this poor girl killed. Too many Pakistani men think nothing of killing female relatives who consort with non-muslims (or a non-muslim not approved of by the family). Controling (and bartering) their female relatives' sexuality is a major pillar of the culture (stronger than paternal or fraternal feelings).

If they really like her the best thing they can do is to stay far away.

Food / Top food products you'd want to see in a Polish shop [32]

I'd say basic ingredients. Theoretically, the ingredients for lots of Polish dishes are available in other countries, but the results are usually ... not the same.

For example, it seems to me that flour in Poland is subtley different (grinding? ageing?) and a lot of the other differences come from that (like bread crumbs).

If I were to come across a Polish store outside Poland I'd want as many basic ingredients as possible. Beyond that, kiełbasa, white cheeses (included smoked twaróg), maślanka, Polish (salted not vinegarred) pickles. And maybe some of the Polish vegetables that aren't necessarily so known or popular elsewhere, especially seler (the root) fresh beets and Polish potatoes (especially the flat ones that are yellow inside).

As for alcohols, the better beers (Żywiec, Okocim) a lot of the herbal vodkas (żołądkowa etc), cheaper better vodkas (never much liked wyborowa, but I like both luksusowa and the new żołądkowa czysta) and other flavored liqueurs (especially fond of cranberry)

Work / Moving to Poland in 3 weeks to study! [30]

Your last point is probably close to the truth. Many university programs here have two tracks, a day track during the week where students study 'for free' (it's an old communist idea that's hung around) and a weekend track for working people who pay for their studies. While the weekend students face some prejudice, their concerns are taken far more seriously and their needs are catered to far more than those of the day students.

The English language students pay a lot of money (by local standards) and are quite naturally treated better while the Polish day students are there at the sufferance of the university and treated that way. The resentment is natural (by local standards) but notice the day students aren't volunteering to pay more for better treatment.

One final note: A friend of mine has done a couple of lectures for the program (not as a regular lecturer for the program but as an outside expert in his field) and wasn't impressed by the organization. In general good organization and smooth functioning are not Polish virtues so it'll help if you're a self-starter. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say.

Work / Moving to Poland in 3 weeks to study! [30]

Euros would go farther than dollars, but a thousand is enough to live on.

Poznan traditionally has about the worst night life in Poland for foreigners of any major city (but studying medicine you won't have so much time for that). Traditionally Poznanians had active social lives but visiting each other at home, not going out together. This has changed a lot in recent years but it's still not Warsaw.

Poznan is a very safe city for its size. Polish people are mostly friendly to visiting foreigners but the longer you're here the more you're expected to conform to local norms. Poznanians also have a reputation for being stand-offish (by Polish standards).

The younger and better educated the person the more likely they can carry on a conversation in something approaching English. But despite what anyone might tell you ahead of time, you really do need to learn Polish while here. Not least because IME Polish people aren't as smart or interesting or fun in English as they are in Polish.

The climate in Poznan is north central european, generally not much snow in winter but it can get pretty cold (though it rarely gets below -5 the coldest I've ever experienced was about -20 but that's very rare). Summers can be hot and muggy (overall not so bad this year). Air-pressure changes a lot and can have a bad effect on how you feel (the worst is a sudden drop in air pressure which can lead to horrible headaches in a large percentage of the people here, including me).

21 single guy from Norway? You won't have any trouble meeting Polish women (added bonus, if a Polish woman is interested in you but you're too slow, then she'll make the first move). Assuming that like most wesern guys here, you'll end up with a serious girlfriend, don't necessarily settle for the first Polish girl you meet or be so picky that none can meet your standards. Also realize that Polish women are used to making a lot of the decisions in relationships that you might like to make yourself (like how many beers you can have at a party , how to dress and how to budget your money - let her, she'll usually make better decisions than you would).

Polish students at the medical university (and international students who attend classes with them) are not necessarily fond of the students in the English-language program as they get preferential treatment in a lot of ways.

News / End of voice-over on foreign films in Poland? [19]

IME Polish people are kind of surprised that so many non-Poles find voice-overs .... not very aesthetically pleasing (enormous understatement).

The interesting think about voice overs is that they completely ruin the movie for most native speakers of the language of the original, even if they understand Polish just fine. I don't mind voice overs on French movies (I don't know French) or even German and Spanish movies (both of which I do know to some extent) but I can't stand them with English language movies.

And subtitling is no magic English teaching substitute (or necessarily even a good aide). Good subtitles (meaning a good translation) will often be some distance from the original and the more literal the subtitles are, chances are the worse (and more confusing) the translation will be.

Also, subtitles rarely capture nuance or expressive use of language, the dialogue has to be abbreviated, often drastically (this happens with voice overs too for similar reasons). Interestingly, full dubbing actually allows for greater fidelity and expressiveness in translation as people hear faster than they read and the kinds of pauses that lektors need to set off dialogue by different characters don't have to be used.

Finally, I wouldn't put too much faith in this. This is basically a non-issue that gets proposed every couple of years by some famous-person or politician(s) and it never gets anywhere (there was an initiative in Gazeta Wyborcza a few years ago that resulted in .... nothing as far as I could tell. Most Polish people want to hear movies and not read them and forced conversion to subtitles would probably just decrease tv viewership (undoing the English teaching that's supposed to be going on). At the place where I rent dvds the most common question I hear from other customers is "does it have a voice over?" (that's good!) or "do you have to read?" (that's bad!).

Work / Any english teachers in Poland here with tips to share? [55]


ESL teaching is a prime area where the adage about those who can't (ie learn languages) teach is uncomfortably close to the truth.

The worst are English teachers who've been here for years and almost brag that they haven't even tried to learn Polish. If I were one of their students I certainly would take them .... not very seriously.

News / Who is Poland's most prominent political agitator? [8]

Who doesn't?

Politics in Poland is all about grand performance, intrigue, and dressing room feuds (the average Polish politician can out-prima-donna any tempremental opera singer).

Travel / anyone put the new shengen rules to the test? [30]

Not yet, according to wikipedia (usual caveats apply) Switzerland is not yet Schengen but is scheduled to join November first of this year. yeah that when the rule should come into effect

Travel / anyone put the new shengen rules to the test? [30]

I'm pretty sure Spain is Schengen too, Switzerland isn't.

Law / URGENT-U.S. citizen needs help with Polish permanent residence visa app! [4]

If you're employed and having health insurance deducted you're covered (such as it is).

For everything else (including visa renewal): In Poland, it's easier to get things done in person. Very soon after your arrival in Poland go to the address below (with all the paperwork you can think of) explain your situation and ask what to do next. Polish bureaucracies are under no obligation to speak any language but Polish so bring your husband or some other reliable person to interpret. (hint: a lot of Polish people believe in being aggressive in bureaucratic offices which IME is very counterproductive, make sure the person who's interpreting for you has a cheery demeanor and will ask questions when they don't fully understand - again many Polish people don't)

Wydział Spraw Obywatelskich i Cudzoziemców
ul. Piotrkowska 103, 90-425 £ódź
e-mail: SO@lodz.uw.gov.pl
Infolinia: 0 801 456-457

again, this is the office you'll have to satisfy once you're here, so get the information directly from them.

see also:

uw.lodz.pl/index.php3?str=88

(scroll down to cudzoziemcy for some relevant pages) but be aware:
Poland's entry into the EU and Schengen have made some of the relevant regulations kind of .... useless and they'll probably be changed though it's hard to say when that will happen. But web-based information is liable to stay up after it's no longer valid (and information in languages other than Polish will only be modified at a later date).

Finally: A priceless survival skill for the Anglophone in Poland is the ability to function in uncertain, unresolved situations that can last up to a couple of months. Just keep keeping on and be ready for the unexpected.

History / Poland and Lithuania [161]

IME Polish people have generally warm feelings toward Lithuania but Lithuanian feelings toward Poland are much more .... complicated. A friend was in Vilnius and noted that a lot of people reacted negatively to Polish people (I've known other visitors who didn't encounter any hostility).

In the 90's there was some friction over the language of education for the Polish minority in Lithuania and the Lithuanian population in Poland. Both are theoretically bilingual but strongly wanted as much education as possible in their native language and not the national language. I think that's mostly been resolved. There was also an attempt to force Poles in Lithuania to adopt Lithuanian names but that didn't get very far and a compromise was worked out.

Some years ago there was an interview with someone from the Lithuanian government who said that there's a tendency in Lithuania to see Poland as more of a cultural threat than Russia. The reasoning is that Russian language and culture were forced on them and resistence was strong enough that they could be accomodated. On the other hand there was a long history of self-Polonization in some parts of Lithuanian society (Mickiewicz and Miłosz both came from Polish speaking Lithuanian families) so it was felt to be the bigger threat.

Also, at some point Lithuania modified it's alphabet to make it less like Polish and more like Czech (with letters like ž, è and š instead of ż, cz and sz)

FWIW