Life / The Polish police in my apartment, asking for my passport and phone number. [33]

Take someone Polish with you and go to the nearest police station to ask what it was all about. This is not normal, and it's better to know what the matter is.

Language / My Polish keyboard setting doesn't include all characters [9]

What operating system is that?

Language / My Polish keyboard setting doesn't include all characters [9]

Try to set "Klawiatura> Ustawienia regionalne" to "Angielski programisty", and then, change the language into Polish on the language bar (pasek języka) (or whatever equivalent of it Vista has). Then, write diacritics using Alt (Alt+z = ź; the rest is logical).

I've never used Vista, but afaik, these are the settings generally used in Poland on Windows, so it should be similar on Vista.

UK, Ireland / Friend told "just allow your son to forget Polish" by school. [96]


Teachers at school in a multi-ethnic country shouldn't be that ignorant.


The process of learning languages are different in children. Adults and older children have to put some effort into learning languages, so learning 2 languages intensely can be too much for them. In case of a kid at the age of five, this is a natural, effortless process. The child just picks up the language. Making a kid pick up 2 or 3 languages simultaneously may seem straining but in fact it is not. Later, the brain loses the ability of that kind of learning (called language acquisition), and learning languages becomes something hard and time-consuming.

Genealogy / Is Kraszewski a famous last name is Poland? [5]

There were three writers: Kraszewski, Karasicki and Krasiński. And Polish high school students never remember which is which :)

Life / What is the best Polish book ever written. [23]

Sienkiewicz is no great literature. It has got huge historical significance because it was something uplifting for the occupied Poles to read, but in fact these are just adventure books set in important moments of Polish history, intellectually shallow, with awfully flat characters and a lot of ideology and populist nationalism. Something like Hollywood films about the Vietnam war nowadays.

If you look for something sophisticated and artistic, better go for Gombrowicz, Różewicz, Lem or Schultz.

UK, Ireland / Friend told "just allow your son to forget Polish" by school. [96]


WTF? Who told about teaching kids other languages in an English school?

I will still insist that a teacher who works with children of various origins should know the difference between language acquisition of a five-year-old and foreign language learning of a twelve-years-old. And really, a 45 minute-long lecture at a college is enough to explain teachers-to-be that such small children can learn to speak two languages with no harm.


Well, actually, in case of a kid at the age of five, it is.
A child at this age is still not perfectly fluent with his/her native language and still picks it up. If the child is exposed to another language, s/he just picks it up the same way.

Language / Podobać się vs Lubić [13]

"Lubić" is a verb which expresses our positive emotional attitude towards something. And if we use "lubić" with another verb, it could be also translate as "enjoy".

Lubię pływać - I like swimming = I enjoy swimming.
Lubię wujka Józka - I like Uncle Józek.
Lubię The Rolling Stones - I like The Rolling Stones = I enjoy their music.

"Podobać się" expresses our judgement about something. "Lubić" describes how we permanently fell about something and "podobać się" is more about what we feel at the moment. If I say "Lubię tę szarą sukienkę" (I like that grey dress), this means I've had this dress for some time, I enjoy wearing it, and probably I'd find it hard to get rid of it. I can't say this, if I see it for the first time in a shop. Then, if I want to express my judgement and simply say it's pretty in my opinion, I'll say "Podoba mi się ta szara sukienka".

The same, if I must know a song for some time to say "I like this song", because "lubię" expresses my emotional attitude. I can't have emotional attitude to a song I hear for the first time. But if I want to say "I like this song" just to say that I find it nice (even if I hear it for the first time), I'll say "Podoba mi się ta piosenka".

If you know some German:
Lubię to = Ich mag es.
To mi się podoba = Das gefällt mir.

Language / Podobać się vs Lubić [13]


Ten obrazek mi się podoba = This picture finds me attractive?

Life / What is the best Polish book ever written. [23]


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_in_Literature

And it wasn't far from the general perception of literary merits in that time. Often, book was judged by its ideological contents more than purely literary quality.

Even very conservative Polish teachers sometimes admit Sienkiewicz wrote popular literature.

Life / What really represents Polish people? What would be the symbol of Poland... [51]

I don't think that religious symbols are a good representation of Poland. Poland has been a "Catholic country" since WWII - before the war it was quite a multicultural state. Also, not all famous people considered symbols of Poland were catholic, e.g. Mikołaj Rej (Calvinist), Maria Skłodowska-Curie (atheist), and, of course, many Polish Jews. Poland was one of the few countries that were religiously tolerant: while other countries had religious wars, Jews, Hussites, Arians and others settled in Poland to escapes persecution. Therefore using a Catholic symbol as a symbol of Poland would be ignoring Polish history and contribution of non-catholics into Polish culture.

I also think that regional symbols are not a good choice. Highlanders are cool, but they only live in a very limited area and have nothing to do with most of Poles. For someone living in a city in central Poland, highlander culture is something alien. Using folklore as symbol of Poland was very popular during the times of communism, because communism was supposed to be for the folk, but I don't think it really represents Poland. First of all, there are very little people who consider folk culture as their 'natural' culture in which they live (Polish folk culture is now rather an exotic thing for Poles), and second, in the past it was limited to peasants and had little contact with the rest of Polish culture (Romantic period and Młoda Polska is an exception here). Again - this is something that cannot represent a country as a whole.

And the eagle - well, that's connected with the legend about founding Poland - so it can be viewed as something common. Even Polish Jews lived on the land of descendants of Lech.

Life / What really represents Polish people? What would be the symbol of Poland... [51]


When Mieszko got baptised, there was no definite division between Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity and Protestantism. He was baptised simply as a Christian.


A lot has changed: there was the Great Schism, Reformation, Union of Brest, the territory of Poland changed and started incorporating lands with Orthodox population (still, around Białystok there's a lot of Orthodox Christians), assimilated Jews started speaking Polish and contributing to Polish culture (like Tuwim), not Jewish (like Singer). A lot of stuff

happened since 966...


The legend is about founding the first Polish town, Gniezno - out of which the state later emerged. The Eagle is representative of the land and the state, so it can be representative of every Polish citizen.

Life / why do People in Poland speak so quietly? [23]


Yes: yelling on the phone so everyone hears you is rude. Usually people around you do not wish to hear about what you should buy on your way home, your Auntie's health problems, the assignment you've got at work or your problems with your Internet provider. It's your business and yelling about it does not interest the people around you but it can distract and annoy them.


People usually shout on cell phones because their interlocutor can't hear them. I always have problems talking on the phone when I'm on a bus, in the street etc, so the people who talk to me must shout.


Well: when at home, you need no mobile phone. When in cinema, theatre, lectures, classes, or at work, you should have your phone turned off. Now, if you can't use it in public - why have a mobile phone at all?