Love / Polish and NON-polish... Clueless and Religious [13]

Well, the truth is in Poland, that vast majority of these religious things you do are straight out traditions. Most people in Poland believe in God like most other western countries. They're very Catholic, but for the most part Catholic by tradition. I love getting involved in all the Easter/Christmas traditions in Poland, they all stem from Catholicism but that shouldn't stop you from getting involved in the culture at all.

If you can sit around a table and drink cytronówka and say na zdrowie, you can also get baptized learn about the Catholic religion and make your teściowa happy it's all part of the game of falling in love with someone from another culture. Don't worry your kids will be even more confused. Religious crap freaks me out too, but I'm still not the kind of guy to just hate it all like some others are. They're traditions, they're door ways into another culture, and they're beautiful.

Now if only we could get the Polish to realize that about Russians and Germans ;)

Language / The best way for me to learn Polish [89]

The first thing to do is to find a basic course with real dialogues and listen listen listen listen. Translate the dialogues and study the vocabulary you don't know. Don't worry too much about grammar, you can check it out if you want but they most important thing is to listen to those basic dialogues A LOT. You'll build from that, filling in the blanks and trying to remember 14 forms in the singular and plural is crazy. It's enough to know they exist and that you suck them in slowly.

Get and ipod and a good course with dialogues (Polish in 4 weeks was good for me) and listen to the dialogues over and over again, you won't learn in 4 weeks but you start to internalize the language. After you're done withthat you can start moving on to real material and people and slowly step by step begin to internalize it better and better...

Life / Are Polish People Racist? [1037]

Probably not a good idea to fight racism with more racism my Polish friends ;).

Life / Are Polish People Racist? [1037]

Well I do think Mzola was being a little bit racist here. There are a couple of things no one points out in the big picture. Number England was the only country to really open their borders and they've taken the brunt of the immigration which is unfortunate because the majority of Poles who immigrate Polish males in their early 20's who are willing to live in subpar conditions to make more money. I think what Mzola should realize is that most of these people would love to stay in Poland. (in general Polish people are very nationalistic) but can't because their economy is **** because my country (US) and Mzola's country basically left them in the garbage. Now it should be expected that a sudden influx of another race/nationality is going to cause some racism. I really blame all the other EU countries that decided Poland gets to be in the EU but as secondary country. The grandparents and great grand parents fought for the west and we happily gave them communism. And when communism fell apart we happily rebuilt eastern germany but still left Poland to themselves.

So Mzola don't blame Polish guys who want to make money blame France and Germany who are only world powers because England and America allowed them to be and then they keep they're borders closed.

Life / What do Polish people think about Americans living in Poland? [48]

Oh yeah that's really wrong huh... Jestem z hispanskii right? sorry

Language / A Native American or a Native Pole: Who is better into which language? [116]

A lot of people that learn English seem to think it's easy. But really only the Polish English teachers really speak it correctly. Otherwise even the highest CPE level students still make a lot of common mistakes...

English is an easy language to understood in....but it's a difficult language to perfect. Polish I agree is hard but in a different. I find myself having to do a lot tedious memorizing for my Polish. So if memorizing equals hard then I agree Polish is very difficult. I don't see how anyone could learn without copius amounts of drills and memorizng.

Life / What do Polish people think about Americans living in Poland? [48]

Well I find that the Polish have a pretty negative attitude towards Americans in general. They think we're stupid and fat. (which true really) But as individuals I feel I'm treated very well. Once they get to know me it's perfectly fine. In fact my biggest problem is that when I try to practice my Polish they're kind enough to speak in English to me. Next time that happens though I'm going to say:

Przeprasam jestem do hiszpankii nie mowie po angielsku....

(forgive the lack of accent marks)

Work / New English Teacher, CELTA course [9]

Well I'm a English teacher not a typing teacher...

What's wrong though with Opole is about 120 000 people? Are you pointing out that I didn't use a comma? That's a bit of a stretch isn't it?

"The pay is...."

"They pay....."

Typing is like language it's a reaction so sometimes if you're thinking in a couple different ways your fingers will type something different. Sorry for adding stray "Y's" and forgetting about commas....

Work / New English Teacher, CELTA course [9]

I'm similar...

Except I live in Opole right in between katowice/krakow and Wroclaw....

They pay is pretty good here I'd say about 30 zl per hour... in theory the rent isn't so bad. Opole is about 120 000 people I think it's a little small but very comfortable. Teaching here is a great idea but kruk is right there's a lot of shady stuff going on because of the need for native speakers so if you get a really good deal I would try to get it in writing. If you get an alright deal to start try to avoid the contract though because it leaves you free to jump to another school if you find one with a better deal while you're here.

Oh and Polish women are beautiful inside and outside (I married one too)

Language / A Native American or a Native Pole: Who is better into which language? [116]

All languages have there nuiances.

I think its easier to be understood in English but harder to perfect....

Learning Polish involves a lot of doing exercises ad nauseum ....

The truth is any language should have you doing a lot of exercises (even if they're boring)
but the noun casing in Polish really can only be learned by drilling drilling.....

A lot of foreigners who are understood easily think that they are fluent (and they are maybe depending on how you look at it) but they make a lot mistakes with word order and don't sound intelligent at all to the typical British or American person.

Anyway that's my take. Btw no language is inferior you can express every idea in one major language into another

Chris Sarda
Dedicated (beginning) Polish Learner
English Teacher (in Poland)