UK, Ireland / a trip to Dublin at Christmas? [30]


...except that Dublin's public transport system is poorer than in most cities.

But if you don't mind rain it's worth a look, in the same way as any other city would be.

UK, Ireland / POSK, London - what is it like these days? [27]


I kind of liked the tube station though. Curvy.


King Street, St James' - in The City?

UK, Ireland / POSK, London - what is it like these days? [27]


Well they did say they could order any book and that it might arrive...
I did go looking for a specific book which they, um didn't have.

As I said, it did remind me more of Romania than anything else :)

Actually, "polish London" was a disappointment - I expected a larger degree of Polishness. Dublin's polish zone is much better.

Language / Polish verbs (in English) [9]

In french you have reflexive verbs (se laver - to wash oneself) and non reflexive verbs (laver - to wash). The french verbs use "me, te, se, etc" in the conjugation.

Polish uses reflexive verbs a lot (nazywać się - to name oneself/to call oneself) and non-reflexive verbs (nazywać - to name something not being oneself). In french nazywam się Johnny = je m'appel Johnny, not Je suis Johnny. Polishe uses "się" in all persons of the conjugation.

It is likely that Polish uses reflexive verbs in a similar manner to french.
Hope this helps to clarify (with apologies for my poor french, it's a long time since I've used my french)

Polish verbs are actually quite logical (at least I find them so), but complicated.
Try looking them up in this grammar book here:
polish.slavic.pitt.edu/grammar.pdf
Verbs are covered in detail and ther are a lot of examples of the conjugation.

UK, Ireland / POSK, London - what is it like these days? [27]

I visited POSK a while ago, mainly to go to the bookshop there. It reminded me a bit of the hard currency shops that used to be in Romania...., in a kinda cute way.

Lots of books though :)

News / Engineers build train tunnel in Warsaw too small for trains... [18]

Aww this happens all the time - engineers are human, they make little mistakes when adding their sums up...
When the tram lines were being built in Dublin it was discovered that the gauges of the tracks were different. That was an expensive mistake, not as bad as a tunnel though :)


That was done on purpose. The city policy makers decided that they didn't want supertrucks in the city at all.

News / 44 killed, 650 injured in Poland in road accidents during the weekend [32]

Why not go via Slovakia and Hungary instead?
I've done Bucuresti-Cluj-Budapest. Once you're into Hungary the roads are better as are the drivers.
Romanian roads (at least those around Cluj) are pretty bad.


They do. But most accidents are down to speeding and bad driving amongst other things.

Language / Polish Language Pronunciation - Example Words and Phrases [178]


lol - I call mine Gosia, works for me

Language / whats the easiest and fastest way to learn and understand Polish?? [6]

Lots of links here to freely available learning resources on the Language Learning Links thread, hmm, LLL for short: polishforums.com/language-17/learning-links-8328/

of which
polish.slavic.pitt.edu
is one of the best.

You might also see if you can buy an old Linguaphone Polish course - they concentrate on speaking the language. eBay is a good place to look (none there at the moment, but there have been three in the last year that I spotted, bought one of them)

Then, lots of work! :)

Language / Polish language MP3s [24]

Yes, finding the time to actually study all of the pdfs and mp3s is a serious challenge. Remembering it all then is the real challenge!

Language / (part 2) Polish Language Pronunciation - Sample Words and Phrases [311]

Like the English "Leela"

Btw, love your Avitar :D

Language / Polish language MP3s [24]


Hey Sausage - good link. Dzięki

Helena, the file is 63.4 MB in size. It unstuffed for me ok.
If your copy of it is smaller then you may not have the full archive.
Also, I suggest that you update your version of the (free) winzip unzipping program in case the ENPL-all.zip file was created by a newer version than that which you have. One of the error messages in this case is that of "corrupted archive"

Try some of the resources on
polish.slavic.pitt.edu

(my favourite site lol - I'm always championing it)
mp3 files are included of some of the texts.

Language / free polish -english dictionary online [52]

There's a good free (yes FREE) pdf dictionary here: polish.slavic.pitt.edu

Click on the dictionary link to download. It's PL-ENG, but using Acrobat's search function you can look up english words also.

UK, Ireland / Polish is suing because she cannot speak english!!! [45]

Lol, I meant to say "disability" not disability!

UK, Ireland / Tell me about Glasgow [59]

There's loads of Polish in Glasgow now!

I was over there a few weeks ago (sister lives there). It's a tough city, but then so are most of them. But I like it, doesn't take itself as seriously as Edinbugh.

They're doing some good rebuilding now and Glasgow is emerging from about half a century of decline.

River Clyde flows through Glasgow, and it's got an airport..., in case you need to leave fast.

UK, Ireland / Polish is suing because she cannot speak english!!! [45]

.....should always understand something before signing it......
once it's signed, tough. Doesn't matter what disabilities are involved.
I have no pity for someone demonstrating such stupidity.

UK, Ireland / Going rate for Polish tuition in London? [11]

20 squids is about the going rate per hour, per language...

UK, Ireland / UK house for rent "no foreigners"...advert condemned [8]

Heh, in this case "no foreigners" can refer to Catholics/Nationalists from only a few blocks away!
A funny old world.

Language / Verb patterns 'BYC' [29]

LOL as if Polish wasn't complicated enough with just być!

Life / Mac users in Poland? [9]


Yes. You can find a free dictionary program here - it's vocabulary though small is expandable: hipercom.pl/en/eppe.html

Also, Rosetta Stone's software has a Mac version.

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

Gotta watch out for taxes and Ryanair's charges...

Food / COFFEE BRANDS IN POLAND & ELSEWHERE? [17]

Polish coffee brands here in Ireland are about half the price in the Polish shops that coffee costs in the supermarkets, so I have been tasting my way through all the Polish brands available to see which tastes best...

My current caffeine extractor is a 20 year old Ufesa (Spanish manufacturer I believe) standard configuration drip feed device.

Lavazza is my default brand of coffee - always good.
May get to try Kelleran Coffee someday too...

Life / Mac users in Poland? [9]

I use a Mac (Irish, learning Polish) and I have found a lot of Polish Mac stuff on the internet, so there must be a lot of people in Poland developing stuff for Mac = lots of users.

Life / Customer Service in Poland, what are your experiences? [106]

lol - In my Romania days I sometimes had to speak on the phone to people with no English, with my poor Romanian, but they were always nice, maybe because I started out speaking in their language. I even managed to call to Hungary a few times with my one carefully learned hungarian phrase... The real trick is to get past the receptionist / flunkie / whatever who's day you have disturbed and connect with whoever it is you need to speak to.

The worst country for this sort of thing, impolite disinterest, I find is France, particularily Parisians, and especially taxi drivers and building concierges - the latter sometimes won't speak English to you even when they know how to understand it, having spoken it with you on earlier occasions!

Pig ignorant stupidity, that's what it is.

People who are paid to answer the phone should always be willing to tolerate calls from polite callers who can't speak their language. Even if their first reaction to such a call is abject terror!

Life / Customer Service in Poland, what are your experiences? [106]

Heh, Heh, you should go to Romania for excommunism!
My worst ever experience was in a cafe there (ok, so it's not Poland).

I went in with a friend, sat down, empty cafe. We were ignored by the half dozen or so staff for about 15 minutes, who were chatting to each other,. Then we left. I wanted to start a row or something but I wasn't allowed by my friend (a Romanian), who just said well this is how things are in Romania.

A strange surreal experience..... :)

Language / Learning Polish - need courses or books !!! [17]

Why not start on Polish now then... It's GREAT! :)

Language / Correct Polish spelling [69]

I know several Małgorzatas here in Ireland and all of them use Gosia as their first name. It has the added advantage that english speakers can pronounce it correctly.

Language / Translation Dictionary [10]

Try this online dictionary:
portalwiedzy.onet.pl/tlumacz.html?qs=tradition&tr=ang-auto

News / What does Poland mean to you? [66]

Poland?
It's the land of that terribly difficult language I am trying to learn...
...and wonderful women :)

Language / Tips for me or any really good audio books to learn Polish? [14]

An old Polish Linguaphone course, from around 1990 or earlier. They are very good, but they don't make them any more. you should be able to find one on ebay occasionally. That's where i got mine :)