Language / Five Commandments for Polish Language Learners [36]

As you have never met me, you do not know if I am a woman or a man neither if I am Polish or English how can anybody say that my Polish is communicative? Noe of you even knows me. I am not dishing anything out. All I said was that I imagined that as this was a Polish forum and that Telefonitika does sound like a slavonic word and reading her English I assumed that she was Polish or at least from a similar background. That assumption was reasonable. To quote Michael Zander the academic lawyer 'we are all preconditioned with a million preconceptions'. My Polish would be robot talk as I have never lived or worked in Poland and can only quote the contents of one two hundred page grammar book. I can dish it out and accept it too but like most computer chat lines most people lie and it is impossible to even know with whom you are really talking to. End of story.

Language / Five Commandments for Polish Language Learners [36]


Yes, I remember that you have had some words of wisdom before! As it is a free forum I too can speak, can I not?

Language / "Let's Learn Polish" by Zofia Bastgen: Is it a good book? [3]

Yes it is quite a good book, though a little dated now. It was written during the socialist era If I remember rightly there are also a set of cassettes, which come with the course, I know this as I have a set too though I never use them. It is quite a comprehensive book and you would know a lot by the end of the course. In fact I am holding my copy now. It looks pretty good and even gives the words in phonetic script, which would help you even more. Do not be put off by all things old, some of the old books are much better than the simplified newer ones.

Language / Five Commandments for Polish Language Learners [36]

How can I possibly do that?

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

It is probably due to the fact that they do not know the language very well so knowing some dirty words will impress you somewhat. I have been in Turkey and they try to show off too by speaking English like a cockney and saying things like 'lovely jubbly' and other stupid similar things that they have heard on Sky tv.

Language / Polski versus Polska [10]

polski (masculine) polski samochod-a Polish car
polska (fiminine)-polska kobieta-a Polish woman
polskie (neuter)-polskie slowo-a Polish word
Polska is the country
I am of Polish origine would be; jestem pochodzenia polskiego

News / Suicide of Polish Ex-minister [12]

A mental illness is a terrible thing but alas, it is something that nobody else can see or prove-nobody knows how you are feeling and sometimes the people around you are not very sympethetic. Sometimes I feel a bit low and feel depressed but my Polish wife just shouts back "you're always depressed!" so if your own family does not care, you have no chance. It is also possible that she may have had other problems, it might have simply been the last straw' for her. You would really have to know all the facts before you can judge her. In her case of course she might have been suffering from the thought of political failure and embarrassment within her own family circle rather than mental depression.

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

Some years ago I visited the small town of in Poland. This lady worked as the librarian in the school and as I was English she arranged for me to meat the teacher of English, who was a young Ukrainian lady as the school found it very hard to recruit a teachers from other countries. In the Ukraine, she would earn ten dollars a month but in Poland one hundred. She wrote a short piece in English about visiting London and asked me to say what I thought of the standard of English. It went like this 'I am in the London and I am viiting the number ten Downing Street, hoping to see Prime Minister the Margaret Thatcher before going on to The Buckingham Palace to see a queen...' Yes, I am just agreeing with one of the above statements from johan 123about the use of 'a' and 'the' or when to simply leave them out all together.

UK, Ireland / English people attitude towards Poles? [761]

Yes, I must say I agree with you, FISH. Certainly when I was in Moscow twenty years ago as a young English student the Polish (and there were a hell of a lot of them) never had any time at all for the English yet now we must stomach 600,000!

Work / Some details about Teaching in Poland [51]

Yes, I agree. As far as I am aware, anybody can teach English in Poland-even a Polish native speaker with First Certificate can teach in a Polish school. English Language teaching is an unskilled job, which receives zero for skills on the Australian points system. It is mainly a job for young backpackers and gap year students. It is understandably low paid as any such job should be.

UK, Ireland / English people attitude towards Poles? [761]

The Poles come to England to take the lower unskilled jobs but the cost of keeping them here in the U.K. is more than their value. We have to give them free schooling for their children and free medical services, so on the whole, it is really a very short sighted policy recruiting all these East Europeans to England for jobs filling shelves in Tesco for five pounds an hour.

UK, Ireland / English people attitude towards Poles? [761]


Not when you get to know them as well as I do.


Everybody IS being heard!

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

Yes, but that is not the full story because in English newspaper headlines we write for instance, 'serious traincrash' or 'inflation up again this month' without a 'an' or a 'the'. The rules are much more complicated and you have to have something of a feel for the language rather like when do you use 'i' or 'a' in Polish, they are both used but in different ways and contexts.

UK, Ireland / English people attitude towards Poles? [761]


Yes, of course, all Poles lie!

Work / Some details about Teaching in Poland [51]

If you are a qualified teacher working in a state school in England with a P.G.C.E. for instance that is different. TESOL teaching is nothing even I have a TESOL certificate and I can hardly read or write!


I have nothing against you personally as I have never met you but I can say that I have met a lot of teachers of English overseas, in Poland, and on the whole, I did not like them at all. All wanted to earn lots of money and give private lessons-only talked about how much money they were taking off the poor students-not my cup of tea at all, sorry.

UK, Ireland / English people attitude towards Poles? [761]


Actually, this is another common complaint about the Poles. Sometimes they start off with good intentions and can do something well but they never know when to stop and they then try to promise the earth to get more and more work. We had a Pole who told us he knew all about electricity and nealy burnt down my house. I had to get in another electcian, an Englishman, I hasten to say to re do all the work. Be on your guard, to find work Poles will tell you anything you want to hear.


Well ,no, not really, as I have been married to one for the last fifteen years so I do know what I am talking about!


Its not jealousy when I have to pay twice to complete the same work because the standard of workmanship is so bad, is it?

Work / Some details about Teaching in Poland [51]

I never generalize

Work / Some details about Teaching in Poland [51]

I think that it would be a good idea for you to go and have a few drinks-most English TESOL teachers know how 'to put it away' if not teach! I do not have the priviledge of being able to cry on my momma's shoulder as she died of cancer aged fifty nine twenty years ago! I do not know what you mean by my bad experience as I have never had one-I have never worked as a teacher of English in Poland and I have no wish to-I would want a job with a much higher status. I studied Russian and French at university and have an N.V.Q.4 in Business Polish so I would be looking at translation work of some sort-not lesson plans! Anyway, who would work for a hundred pounds a month! It is also all hypocracy as when I was in Russia as a student twenty three years ago the Polish had no time for the English anyway. In England you could not study Russian and or Polish as you were looked upon as an 'odd ball' and/or a communist sympathizer and now with the fall of communism the Americans can not get in to the former Eastern Europe quick enough with McDonalds and Pizza Hut. As a teacher of English all you are doing is spreading American global aims by the back door. All Poles want four- by-fours to do their shopping in Tescos and return home and switch on their Sony television sets to watch Sky sports. The Poles learn English to go to Australia and the USA to work-it has nothing to do with being in Europe.

UK, Ireland / English people attitude towards Poles? [761]

I think that the Polish are rather like sheep. You will find them all over the world, they all look and sound the same but like the sheep-you will never meet a clever one!

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


Isnt that exactly what I wrote somewhere above?

UK, Ireland / English people attitude towards Poles? [761]

You must remember that the Poles like everybody may be prepared to start at the bottom in order to establish themselves but then, later, they become just like anybody else and want a bigger and bigger slice of the cake. In GUildford, we bought a house and my brother in law came over a few times from Czestochowa and did a lot of work for us as the house needed a lot of work. He is brillianrt with his hands and I am not at all practicle. By the end and the last visit we had all fallen out as his prices started to go up and he bacame unhappy with what he was being paid. It started out as an amicable agreement as a Polish family member earning a little on the side and returning with some money to nothing but a business. Now there is almost no contact at all and the links have all been broken. So it might also be a lesson not to employ friends and close family. I learnt an expression in South Africa in 1976-'there are no friends in business' and it is true.

Work / Some details about Teaching in Poland [51]

I heard a lot of Polish spoken when I was in Australia-I have travelled the world. True, I was a student in Moscow a long time ago so things do change-maybe my memory is too good and I tend to think back twenty years and think of it as if it was yesterday. I was also a student in Krakow as I attended Jagiellonski but true, even that was in 1985 and time does flie. I am not bitter about Poland. I used to have some good times there but a long time ago. I have grown out of these small European countries and prefer places like Australia-there is nothing for me in a small country with the strange country mentality. I like Sydney and the city lights. I could never live in a place like Czestochowa again-is'nt there a Polish expression 'tam gdzie psy dupa szczegaja?' But, no I am very happy. I have a lovely wife from Czestochowa and a son with whom I travel the world and that would not have been possible otherwise and I learnt so much Polish, 'O' level, A' level and post A level Polish and it all fell in to place after four years of russian at university so it gave me a third language under my belt but it was then time to move on...life is too short to wast it on a dump like Wroclaw!

UK, Ireland / English people attitude towards Poles? [761]

For a start, it was something between my wife and her brother and as you do not even know me, you should not pass comments.

Secondly, I was in Bydgoszcz speaking Polish years and years before you ever came on the scene.

UK, Ireland / English people attitude towards Poles? [761]


The diffeerence is that you are trying to pass on a comment about me that you know as a fact in the sense that you know me personally. That is the main difference. You are saying that I am a *********but as you know, you would'nt know me if you were even sitting next to me on a bus. About you ability as a teacher, I have no knowledge as I have never observed you in class but how you can explain vocab and grammar with a non existant knowledge of Polish does seem a little starnge to me.

Anyway, what has this to do with English attitudes towards the Poles-you are not even Polish.

Work / Some details about Teaching in Poland [51]

No that is not true, most of the young are leaving Poland very quickly. When I said that I wanted a higher status job I just said that in response to you, an English speaking American in Poland who tells me that I do not qualify to work in your language school. In that case, as I am not good enough, I would work somewhere better and do a better job. After all, anyone can teach English in Poland. Being for instance a simulataneus interpretor-that takes real skill! As for why you have chosen to work in Poland-I have no idea, I imagine that a lot of westerners want work in Poland as it brings them in to closer contact with young Polish women looking for committment of some sort. I do not think that anybody does something for nothing in this world.

Language / The same word, but different spellings and meanings... [6]

That is interesting, I never knew that the word zdolny came from the verb zdolac.

Work / Some details about Teaching in Poland [51]


You have probably done it the right way around. As you went to Poland and started your life there and now have a family, it is easier to assimilate to the Polish way of life. We nearly or at least thought about it and even came to Poland once or twice but only after we had already started a family and were living in England. Property prices were cheap then too. When I go to Poland now I find it a dump though there obviously was a time, fifteen odd years ago, when I had an urge to go and do something different with my life. I suppose that I have somehow outgrown it all now though I have fond memories of Polish summers and the good strong cheap Polish beer, which I used to drink when I was younger. Sometimes when I think about it, I regret it all now but it is hard to know what to do in the long run. Maybe your 'Polish side' has good connections and can therefore make a real go of it-something which we sometimes lack here in England. My wife's family are all in Czestochowa and I have nobody close here which makes it difficult to babysit or when we have problems ect. Once your family starts to grow and they go to school and you age it is harder and harder to make the change wherever you may be. Had I stayed in Poland fifteen years ago I would speak Polish like a native now and maybe I would be doing something else, more interesting but it is not really worth reflecting on all those 'maybies' in life. Had I stayed in Poland I might well have been dead by now, you never know what might have been.

UK, Ireland / English people attitude towards Poles? [761]


I studied Russian and Soviet Studies for four years and met many Polish people whilst in Moscow and from there my interest in all things Polish develpoed and I have visited Poland probably about twenty times over the last twenty three years. I have visited Poland from Gorziow Wielkopolski in the West as far as Augustow in the East, from Gdansk in the north as far as the Czech border in the South. I attended a six week language course at Jagiellonski in the summer of 1986. No, I am not an THE expert on all things Polish but I have probably seen as much as most foreigners have and my experiences do cover a lot of hitorical ground. though I am out of touch now as I very rarely visit the country except for little short journeys to Warsaw where I like to walk around the Old Town.

The word ewwwwe was not my word, and is not a word, that I have ever used. It was quoted at me by The Kruk. In teaching a foreign language I can only say that on my TESOL course, we had to see what it was like to learn a foreign language and for us it was Finnish and the instruction was also in Finnish. I found it impossible to learn a language like that as it was impossible to relate to almost anything! I would scertainly need English grammar guidance-but then again, that is just me. I have helped Polish people to come to my country and find work as well as doing little bits of translation work, letter writing and C.V.'s ect. so I can not see why I have an attitude problem with the Poles. If I remember rightly it was TheKruk, who wrote somewhere that he had an a very limited knowledge of the language but maybe he was writing about a long time ago and again it has been taken out of context.

Language / Znajdz czas dla wszystkiego - phrase [9]

You may have difficulty in finding such a verb in the dictionary as it is the command form of zlalezc and there would be a dote over the z so the word would be pronounced znajtch. It actually means 'find time for everything'.

Life / New English Language Magazine for expats in Poland? [24]

Is Radombrit in the town of Radom? If so, I know Radom quite well. I been there several times. Do you teach English there? I know of several schools in the area.