News / Polish driver follows GPS directions into lake ! [30]

I keep distrusting mine and often shout at her saying "I don't believe you, I know a better way".

Of course, it all ends in tears when I find my way is twice as long or is simply wrong. I'm sure most men here will know what it's like having to admit your wrong, "Yes dear, you were right all along. I'm sorry. Yes dear, I'll listen to you future, you're always right."

Then of course, next day, she leads me to a bloody river and tries to tell me it's a road! or, in Sopot, tells me the steep stairs between two roads are perfectly OK for my regular family car to climb. yes, inluding climbing over the metal barrer desiged to stop cars.

Beach

Language / Adjective/Noun Order? [20]

Varia school in Krakow,

I had 2 different teachers there, the teaching methods of oen worked very well for me, the other didn't. Exercises like "Here's 40 words - guess what they mean" withou even tellign if they were nouns, verb, adjective or even what subject the were from, did not help. But, when I asked to change teachers, the situation was much improved.

Anyway, go take a look at them. If they still have Magda teaching, she would be my teacher of choice. I also took their 'cultural program' which I found very relaxing and informative. The lunch time trips to Babacia Malina were fantastic too!

varia-course.com

You'll even find me in their gallery. I had a fantastic time there, wish i could go back and do it all again!

T

UK, Ireland / UK citizen marries non-EU citizen - any residency rights in Poland [4]

They have lots about what rights are in the UK but nothing about other EU member states. I've found something on the EU site but it's all in legal-ese and hard to understand exactly. However, it did give me a form to ask, so we'll see...

T

Food / Fermenting Ogórki? [8]

I love 'em! :)

Language / Adjective/Noun Order? [20]

Merged: Adjective, verb, noun etc

OK,
A few months ago when I was fresh out of my 65 hours of intense Polish tuition I made a 'breakthrough' realising some relationships between the different parts of speech (word types). But, I didn't write down my findings and now I've forgotten.

My question is this: are there any general rules regarding the types of words in Polish that might help me create a noun from a known werb of vice versa?

For example, in English a driver drives, a swimmer swims, a heater make heat, or heats. of course, there are exceptions, like a cooker is not the person who cooks.

any hints on this or other ways to expand vocab overnight would be great!

thanks

T

UK, Ireland / Free Flights at Ryanair?! (UK / Poland) [39]


But I'm sure you'll find a charge on their site somewhere for dying on a Ryanair aircraft. Somebody will have to pay for the emergency landing or diversion. I wonder if they sell insurance for it?

Life / Does Polsat only transmit on Hotbird 13 degrees East? [5]


I agree, I have no line of sight on the European sattellites... unless i can get a bracket that stands the dish about a meter away from the building then I might just clear the end of the building. But possibly not.

Life / Hot Spots / Internet / WiFI / Cable TV in Gdansk/Gdynia/Sopot Area? [13]

Hey robert,
Drop me a PM, maybe you can join me and my group of friends sometime. We are a multinational group and all speak English to varying degrees. As a native British speaker of english, I'm somewhere around the intermediate level :)

There are many foreigners in the area and many people speak enough English to help you get by, which is a mixed blessing because it means I've been lazy on my Polish studies

Tony

UK, Ireland / Free Flights at Ryanair?! (UK / Poland) [39]

It could be worse:

Easyjet plunged 10,000ft
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7922687.stm

looks like the went budget on the safety team :)

Pay peanuts, get monkeys

UK, Ireland / Free Flights at Ryanair?! (UK / Poland) [39]


Oh, maybe i should have read the small print but i did take out insurance to cover such events. When the pilot couldn't land to collect us due to high winds, I was more concerned about not getting my holiday to krakow than the money. But that's back when I was in England actually earning a decent living.

UK, Ireland / Free Flights at Ryanair?! (UK / Poland) [39]


I compared with other airlines and I was still flying for about 50% of what I could have paid... so no real complaints except that they were not fully transparant with their charges. yeah, fly for a quid... plus hundreds of fees..

UK, Ireland / Free Flights at Ryanair?! (UK / Poland) [39]

Providing the aircraft is safe and it's a short flight, I'll fly with any airline really. You get what you pay for and I just needed to get from A to B, no frills.

:)

UK, Ireland / Free Flights at Ryanair?! (UK / Poland) [39]

When I flew Ryanair, I wasn't too pleased with the booking process. I could only book on line, I therefore had to pay an 'online booking fee'. Of course, I could phone to book but that was a premium rate phone number and there was a 10% surchrage as far as i remember.

Now, booking online, you must pay online, so there was also a fee for paying by card... yeah, like cash was an option online...

To take baggage, yes, there was a baggage fee... and if I recall, a 'check in' fee too..

At the airport, one family had one large suitcase with all their joint luggage in, but, it weighed in over the 15kg. The poor girl behind the check in desk had to explain that the 15kg per person had to be separate and could not be combined into a single suitcase! I'm sure the law of physics with regards to weight in the hold and fuel used really takes into account that the weight is in separate bags. Surely 15kg mass is 15kg mass, once inside the aircraft, it's shape doesn't really matter if they are sat next to each other or in the same bag.

Once on board, the cost of inflight refreshments was astounding so I always took my own food and drink. Then of course, there was the 'duty free' a Ryanair prices, and the 'souvinirs'. Then there were the 'lottery tickets'. Why not leave all that crap on the ground and save the weight and let me not feel obliged to take a crap before getting on board to save weight and therefore fuel?!

Language / Cases: What is Nominative or Accusative and when do I use those? [14]

I thought it was trudny ...

Hello there in the Philippines... welcome to the forum :)

UK, Ireland / exchange rates - zloty to pound [16]

If you'r coming to Poland then yes, I'd say do it now. Even with the crappy rates you'll get in the UK exchange offices you'll still get a good deal.

If you're coming soon tho, I'd change the money at a Kantor in Poland - always better rates than in England if you bring cash.

And for goodness sakes, don't make my msitake and bring travellers cheques, really, they were worth their weight in shite - i paid commission to buy them, a shitty rate to exchange them AND a banking admin charge to exchange them....and it took >30 minutes...

T

UK, Ireland / exchange rates - zloty to pound [16]

I earn zloty and have to pay a couple of bills back in the UK. This is seriously denting my confidence in remaining here. Maybe I'll have to go back to England and join the unemployment queue.. still at least I'll earn more on the dole than I do here working :p

UK, Ireland / exchange rates - zloty to pound [16]

Thread attached on merging:
What has happened to the Złoty?

Maybe somebody can explain...

When I came to Poland last year, I was lucky to get 3.8 złoty for each of my UK pounds that I brought with me. Ok, 3.9 or 4.0 if I found a better place. So, this meant that the money I saved for moving here didn't last long, just a few months before I got 5.2 so that would have been better.

Here I am many month on and having to pay a couple of bills each month back in the UK. I'm shocked today to see the base exchange rate at something like 5.39 złoty to 1 GBP.

Just my luck, the exchange rates were the wrong way around for me. What has made the złoty so weak recently? I thought the UK was financially screwed and the Polish economy a little more resistant to the current strains. I hear things have got pretty bad in Ukraine too with prices getting very high very quickly.

Sounds like I chose the wrong time to head East.

Language / Children's TV programs and cartoon names to learn Polish [12]

thank you :)

Food / Fermenting Ogórki? [8]

thanks for that! :)
It was a littel strange hearing the hiss from the lid when I closed the jar. I'll give them a try tonight.

T

So, i have an update... .these orgorki had rotted inside, they were hollow so I didn't risk eating them.

My girl says 'keep your fingers out', seems that is the cause of this problem!

T

Food / Fermenting Ogórki? [8]

so, do I eat these or not? :)

Life / Experiences Installing a Wireless Home Network in Poland [12]

My ISP puts an ethernet connection directly into my flat. It's s 2Mb connect in the day and 'unlimited' at night. I kid you not, i get that 2Mb in the day and an upload of 25Mb! Then at night ... ohhh boy! Have you ever seen 15Megs download faster than you can click a mouse button?!

But, here's the catch. They limit connection to this by MAC address (the hardware address your network card sends out). So, if you get a connection like mine, make sure you buy a router where you can spoof (fake) the MAC address - then hey presto, that 1 PC limitation imposed by the ISP, is removed :)

Finally, if you are going to do wireless, make it secure, unless you're willing to share you connection and quite possibly all your files too!

T

Life / Satellite type connections in flat in Poland [18]

Bloody English....

right... back to studying Polish.... here come more pulling out of hair, now i see why they turn to vodka!

Anyway, thanks for the TV connection advice :)

Life / Satellite type connections in flat in Poland [18]

he's got a point....

Life / Satellite type connections in flat in Poland [18]

but in speach we'd say "childrens television". So how would we write that? I guess just as it is, as a plural.

*cough*sombloodyteacherIam*cough*

Life / Satellite type connections in flat in Poland [18]

all I need really is kids cartoons and maybe music channels. Something I can listen to in an attempt to learn more of the language. I am studying too but after a long day at work, I'm too knackered to do it the old fashioned way by myself from books and almost everybody at work speaks English to me in the office.

Language / Cases: What is Nominative or Accusative and when do I use those? [14]

Hi,
Davey, thanks for the explanation! It's starting to make sense.

Squirrel, I had this argument with a polish teacher on a course last year. I wanted to be 'made aware' of these cases so that I would be able to reverse engineer the words to find them in a dictionary. She simply refused to explain.

So... roll in the replacement teacher... and she agreed that being able to recognise the most common noun endings was useful so I would be able to work out the most probably nominative (basic noun) to find it in a dictionary. Low and behold, I was suddenly able to locate more words.

My suggestion, be aware of the cases and most common endings but if you're still a basic level in Polish, then learning more words is high priority. Afterall, if you say 'pod stoł' instead of 'pod stołem', people will still understand you. If you say 'pod errrrr' then that's hard to understand.

Hope this helps,

Tony

Life / Satellite type connections in flat in Poland [18]

Thanks :)

I made a make shift antenna to catch what I could. Strangely enough, 2 of the channels you say are low power give me the best signal. Maybe I happen to be near the transmitter.

With a bit of luck, i can get cable soon if it's not too pricey. I simply must learn Polish as fast as possible... if i can get over this hurdle of lost confidence and getting annoyed with total lack of any decent explanation of noun casings. ---> moving this toic to another thread :)

T