USA, Canada / Polish Visa to USA from US Consulate in Poland [7]


What about Polish men?

Well, the US authorities claim that's it's the high percentage of overstayers/illegal immigrants that prevent Poland from entering the visa waiver program, but this policy only supports the status quo. If you already have relatives or other contacts in US, it's more probable that you're going to stay and work there illegally (at least it seems logical to me, but I don't know the statistics, so maybe I'm wrong).

I guess they don't have many tourists from Poland, and I mean the average middle class, who can afford to visit US during holidays, because not many sane people would simply throw 100 dollars or more (non refundable) to apply for a visa and get rejected without no valid reasons, just accordingly to the consul's mood and "interpretations" of one's intents (because that's how it works: the consul has to assume what someone's intentions are, if this person is planning to stay illegally or come back to Poland). If at first you don't succeed, you can apply again, pay again, invest time again and get rejected again.

So it means that most people who apply for US visa many times must have some "hidden agenda", if they are deparate to go, maybe there's something (illegal work for example) waiting for them, but I also read for example about Polish parents not being able to go to the wedding of their son/daughter, because the American consul suspected they'd stay in the US. And it must be really sad for those people.

All this are only my guesses. Once, in the 1990's, I was thinking about going someday for a trip overseas, just out of curiosity, but when I heard how this thing with visas works, I decided not to bother. I can live without the US, they don't need me, so it's a mutual aggrement :)

Life / List of Polish movies on DVD with English subtitles [30]


Did you buy the edition I mention in this post or the older release?

Travel / 7 days in Poland... need some advice... [20]

When you're in Kraków, you can make a short trip to Katowice to support the German ladies during the European Championship in volleyball (29 September - 1 October).

Travel / How to get from Okecie to Olsztyn! [9]

Edit: I don't know why I thought you wanted to travel to Białystok :(
So with Olsztyn the Gdańsk airport would be probably a better solution if you can find cheap flights to Gdańsk.

But if arrive in Warsaw, take autobus 175 from Okęcie to Dworzec Centralny and a train if such exist, check pkp.pl website (Okęcie-Centralny takes about 30 minutes by bus, and better to check the trains timetable when you know the exact date of your arrival).

Maybe someone who knows Warsaw better than me will be able to tell you if you can go to dworzec Warszawa Zachodnia from Okęcie (at Zachodnia, beside the train station, there's also a big coach station so you could possibly find an autobus to Olsztyn there).

USA, Canada / Need programs subtitled in English on TV Polonia [2]

Teletext (Televideo), pages from 301 up (where you can find their program schedule), if there are subtitles you'll see this star sign (asterisk) *.
The problem however consists in the fact that this asterisk is really poorly placed - somewhere in the middle - let's take as an exemple Wajda's classic from today's schedule (I'm writing from memory not having the TV in front of me, so it may not be 100% accurate, solo a titolo indicativo):

20:15 Ziemia obiecana - film fab. * odc.: 2/4 [yellow triangle] 12
(reads: 20:15 (8:15 PM); The Promised Land - feature film; English subtitles; episode 2 of 4; allowed for the age of 12 years or older)

Law / Questions about gaining a Polish citizenship and the process of getting one. [29]


I hope someone with similar experiences sees this thread and help you.
In the meantime - some less useful general informations (which may not be correct, as I'm Polish by birth, so it's all based on what I heard/read about such cases).

They should answer you, the various administration organs have different maximum times to address a complain/demand etc. Normally it's 30 days (they have to start processing your application during that time, when they will finish is another problem), I guess the president office has more time, but after 9 months they really should be able to at least inform you what's going on.

Unfortunatelly, it sometimes requires personal presence and if you're abroad and don't speak Polish it might be difficult (if you can afford a lawyer, such help could be useful, he/she could at least keep in touch with you and inform you about any progress with your application).

There are 2 procedures, the slower one for acquiring Polish citizenship in case your dad had to give it up.
The faster one is only confirming (it's applied when your parent(s) or grandparent(s) left Poland, but never waived his (her, their) Polish citizenships).

In some countries the immigrants could/can gain dual citizenship (country of origin + new host country), in other places you have to renounce your original citizenship to gain the new one (and if such was the case of your father, you won't be confirmed as a Polish citizen, you will be treated as a foreigner and you'll have to deal with all the requirements for foreigners).

I remember there was a thread about what is required to even apply for a Polish citizenship (you must stay in Poland for a minimum period of time, or be married to a Polish citizen and of course you must submit all the necessary documents in a prescribed way, if you don't do it, they may simply reject your application as incorrect), use the "search" function and maybe you'll find something on this forum.

Life / Filling Prescriptions at the Pharmacy [5]

Normally, the PESEL number is required on a prescription, but I guess there must be some legal regulations for foreigners living in Poland, I guess the passport/visa number should be enough, otherwise ask at your school in Dziekanat (Dean's office).

Life / Power cuts in Poland [5]

In my city it's really annoying :(
Two years ago there was a "psycho" running rampant, who knew how to sneak into the company's grounds (I guess they weren't properly guarded) and he was cutting off the power for half the city :(

They caught him after a year (even though they had a limited circle of suspects, because that man knew too much about high voltage, so it was someone with specialist knowledge/experience, probably a former employee)!

Now it's mostly storms, when a thunder hits a tree, the branches may not fall immediately, but for example the next day and cause short-circuits, there are still too many air lines instead of cables in the ground, so they are susceptible to all kinds of bad weather.

On the other hand, my phone line is in the ground and when last summer they were laying new pipes (water + sewer) the workers cut off our phones every single day, because they didn't know exactly where the cable was located (or were just too careless to proparly trace it, because the old projects from communist times were good for nothing, and the cable wasn't running like it was supposed to), so if there are many works (roads and pipes) in your city, you may be experiencing the same situation.

Life / Why the Poles don't like AC (air conditioners)? [16]


Zion has been complaining about anything in Poland for years (even before I joined Polish Forums, he had an other account earlier, then went inactive and had to create a new one, if I remember correctly), yet he can't persuade his gf/wife to move to a better place, so he's been venting his frustrations here, successfully annoying many posters, including Grzegorz_ :)

Life / Exchanging Money (Canadian bills) and opening an account in Poland [2]

CAD is not the most popular currency, it all depends on in which city you'll be - no problems in a big one, I guess.

Many bigger kantors have their online sites, so you can search the prices (skup = buys at, sprzedaż = sells at - sometimes those price refer to a minimal amount, like for example 1000 euro).

Google search for:
kantor "dolar kanadyjski" skup

If you find a kantor in the place you're going to, there should be some contact details (e-mail, Skype, phone number), write to them and ask about it.

1000 bills (Canadian dollars) = banknoty tysiącdolarowe (dolary kanadyjskie).
When you exachange bigger amounts (different limits in different kantors) of cash, you can negotiate prices.

And please be careful, if some muggers notice you with big amounts of cash, it may be dangerous (I guess it can happen anywhere), for example 5 bills of CAD 1000 = 13200 PLN = 66 bills (as 200 PLN is the biggest bill in Poland), so even if enter the kantor with a few Canadian bills, you will leave with your wallet full.

Also check the Polish/European/Canadian limits for importing/exporting cash, if I'm not mistaking bringing in/out more than 10,000 Euro (or equivalent in other currencies) requires a customs declaration.

The currency of your account depends on the purpose of it.
If you're going to use this money only or mostly in Poland then I don't see any need for Euro account, but if you're going to regulary spend some significant amounts in Euro (buying in Euro-zone, frequent travels) then of course an account in Euro could be useful.

Travel / Can't find my passport do I need it to travel from Poland to Czech Rep.? [11]


The airlines, however, have to follow international regulations and I'm afraid he cannot count on his luck and charm (some nice lady, enchanted with WarsawNoob's smile, letting him board the plane without a passport).

You could travel by land without a passport as the probability of border control is quite low (no more checkpoints), but on international flights it will be close to impossible.

And I read somewhere that the driver's licenses (American or European) are NOT considered ID cards for the purposes of border crossing or even personal identification abroad, so you need your passport even in Poland when the police has any questions to you.

Life / Xawery Żuławski's film 'Chaos': does the Polish DVD have English subtitles? [9]


Well, I made an extensive online search (websites of SPI, Merlin, Empik, google images search and other sites) and everything seemed to be confirming that there are no subtitles ... until :

Item on Allegro
Picture of the DVD back cover

I'm not sure if you're familiar with Allegro ("Polish e-bay"), 3 sellers repeat the standard (mis)information, but 2 other sellers say differently and I somehow doubt the seller would take the hassle necessary to photoshop the back cover of the DVD :)

That's what it says on the back cover:
Sound: Polish DD 5.1 / Polish DTS
Subtitles: English
Aspect ratio: 16:9 / 1.77:1
Extras: Scene selection (12 scenes), trailer
Region: 2
Colour
Duration: 123 minutes

I also found elsewhere that it's a 2-layer disc (DVD-9)

Other seller's description, also mentioning English subtitles, but no picture of the back cover

I know Polish distributors suck at making good descriptions of their DVDs, in this case they probably didn't care enough (the movie was a total flop at cinemas).

Language / PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH WORDS IN POLAND [24]


This name is so un-Polish that it doesn't really matter how they pronounce it, it doesn't look/sound good any way.

Life / Misplaced registered mail ticket, can I still claim mail from Poczta? [4]

Normally you don't need this claim ticket (awizo) to receive your letter/parcel at the post office, the Polish ID card (dowód osbisty) is enough (it states your permanent residence), if you don't have dowód osobisty, then your passport should do (assuming the letter was addressed to your first name / surname).

Life / How do Polish people see Deaf people in Poland? [14]


Word of advice for a newbie that you're to this site, do NOT follow southern's advice!

Language / Parę - two or a few? [26]

What Ziemowit wrote + extra info about the z- prefix:

I. The general rule: if the word starts with 1/ a vowel (a, e, i, o, u) or 2/ a voiced consonant (b, d, g, j, l, ł, m, n, r, w, z, dź/dzi) or 3/ the letter "h" or 4/ the voiceless sounds "s", "sz" "si/ś" - the prefix stays unchanged (z-)

II. Before words starting with a voiceless consonants - it's more complicated, the prefix is changed from z- to s- before the following voiceless consonants: p, f, t, k, c, cz, ch

III. If the first sound in the root word is the voiceless and soft "ci/ć", the "z-" prefix through voiceless "s-" becomes softened "ś-"

(for example: ciąć >> ściąć, cierpieć >> ścierpieć).

Note:
Historically "h" was voiced and "ch" voiceless, today both are pronounced as a voiceless "h", but the old rules remained and create some confusion among native speakers.

No words in this context begin with "ś" or "dź" or "ć", I just used them to underline the soft pronounciation the combinations "si", "dzi", "ci".

Genealogy / Help with these Polish names: Pelagia and more. [13]


For me it "sounds" more like Alsace-Lorraine now French, but in the years 1871-1918 this 2 regions (Alsace and Lorraine) belonged to the German Empire (Second Reich) and a big part of Poland was also under the German rule (partitions of Poland period, from the end of the 18th century till 1918).

Travel / how to travel from Warsaw to Chorzow? [3]

Chorzów is almost Katowice, so take any express/IC/EC train and you should be there in about 3 hours, then take a tram (or bus or taxi) to your destination in Chorzów.

rozklad-pkp.pl/?q=en/node/143 - Timetables

Examples (Monday 27th July 2009):
7:58 from Warszawa Centralna, 10:54 in Katowice (EX = Express, 97 PLN)
9:25 from Warszawa Centralna, 12:07 in Katowice (EC = EuroCity, 100 PLN)
16:25 from Warszawa Centralna, 19:10 in Katowice (IC = InterCity, 107 PLN)
The indicated prices are for 2nd class, 1st class costs 34 PLN more.

You can also take a cheaper train (POS = Pospieszny) at for example 13:23, but then you travel 1 hr longer (17:23 in Katowice), but you'd pay only 50 PLN (or 77 PLN in the 1st class).

Language / weather forecast/prognoza pogody [3]

from a Polish encyclopedia (PWN):


from Wikipedia (pl):


So yes, it looks like klin and zatoka mean more or less the same, at least for a non-professional :)


In the PWN encyclopedia there's no such thing as "klin niskiego ciśnienia" only "klin wysokiego ciśnienia" and "zatoka niskiego ciśnienia".

I guess Wikipedia explains the difference between "klin" and "zatoka" - it's about the shape of the isobars on the map, klin has a U shape, zatoka - V shape.

Life / Differing Brand Names In Poland/Europe and the UK [20]


It's actually the same company (Reckitt Benckiser), but when they entered the Polish market the dishwashers were a rarity (they still aren't very popular compared to many countries), so they used the name Calgon for their laundry detergent (washing powder), and when they finally introduced the dishwasher detergent they had to choose a slighty different name to avoid confusion, I guess.

Language / declension? Masz mapę gratis? how did mapa become mapę? Thanks [4]

Yes, it's declension (deklinacja or odmiana przez przypadki). There are seven (in practice six, the seventh is quite limited) grammatical cases (przypadki) in Polish and it's a long process a) to learn the different endings (that depend on the case and on the gender of noun) and b) to learn when which case should be used.

Which case to use will result mainly from:
- the verb (like in your example, the verb "mieć = to have" requires an Accusative case (Biernik),
- the preposition ("travel/go/walk to" requires a different case than "stay/be/remain at").

In your exemples the Accusative case would be:
lampkę, książkę, kubek, krzesło (you made a spelling mistake, there's no "ś" in krzesło, just "s", although there are different cases and sometimes the "ś" will be used as well, in the form "krześle" which is Instrumental case - Narzędnik).

And of course it's even more complicated, if you substitute the loan-word "gratis" with and adjective (bezpłatna, darmowa) then the adjective needs to be declined too.

bezpłatna mapa
Masz bezpłatną mapę?

As I wrote, there are seven cases (in singular and in plural), but the number of endings for a word is usually (always?) lower, some cases have identical endings, unfortunately the identical endings don't follow a straight forward pattern, it depends, again, on the gender of the noun and on some other factors (I don't want to annoy you with the details right now), but as you could see, the neuter noun (krzesło) and the masculine, object - not a person or animal, noun (kubek) have identical endings in the Accusative and Nominative cases, while the femminine words (książka, lampka, mapa) have different endings.

Language / PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH WORDS IN POLAND [24]

Generally, using foreign words in advertising is a bad idea. Maybe some other langauges, but not English where almost every single letter has a twisted pronounciation (from the point of view of most European languages).

One of the biggest fails (in my eyes) was Fa (perspirant) campaign with a slogan "How FA will you go". I'm sure the percentage of people who associated "FA" with "far" was ridiculously low among the target population.

Language / The Dative Case [62]


Yes, you are right, WiHar.
M. książę
D. księcia
C. księciu
B. księcia
N. księciem
M. księciu
W. książę

(plural)
M. książęta
D. książąt
C. książętom
B. książąt (?)
N. książętami
M. książętach
W. książęta

(I hope I didn't make any mistakes)

Life / PRICE OF DENTAL SERVICES IN POLAND? [8]

Can't you just type in Google "gabinet dentystyczny" +cennik?
Some examples:
Warsaw (in English)
Kraków (only in Polish)

Language / wysłać SMS-a / SMS-y [15]


This theory isn't mine, some linguists say so.
My opinion: the animate male nouns group is so "strong" and often used in everyday speech (just think of all the male names, professions etc.) that it gradually overshadows other declension patterns for masculin nouns. It may even lead to the creation of an uniform masculin gender in the future, but first we (and our descendants) will face this chaotic transition period, where more and more words will NOT behave accordingly to historical patterns.

For me the accusative case (biernik) of "gol" should equal the nominative (mianownik), so I can't really explain why in hell it became "gola" (= dative, dopełniacz), but of course I say "strzelić gola" as everybody does, just can't justify this form and that's why I expect a real mess in the Polish language in the near future.

Naturally, the Poles will do fine, but for those who start to learn Polish not as kids, but as grown-ups it will be even more difficult than it is now.

Language / wysłać SMS-a / SMS-y [15]

Maybe the word "gol" isn't that old in Polish as you think :)
Besides, this process is now so wide-spread, so it must have started a while ago, not just over night. Structural language changes take a lot of time before they become common for most users.

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

I agree that the Nobel prize can't be a measure of an author/book quality, just look at the first 50 years: 11 awards for Scandinavian writers (1/4 of the total, because the Prize wasn't awarded in some years) and having among laureates such mediocre authors like the Norwegian Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson is just a laugh (yes, I did read some of his works).

Back to the original question (from February), it's strange, you won't ever reach a consensus in such matters, I wonder if the English speaking world has one book that they nominated "the best" :)

Language / The Dative Case [62]

Hello. Daj osłu marchewkę :)

Language / The Dative Case [62]


Anyway, osłu is the regular form when talking about an animal, osłowi refers to people (when you say osioł about someone stubborn or lazy, stupid etc.).

Law / OBTAINING PERMENANT RESIDENCY IN POLAND...for an English person [4]

I'm not an expert (as I'm Polish citizen by birth), but here are the results of the search I made:


excerpts (from Mazowiecki Urząd Wojewódzki):

Submitting the documents:
ONLY IN PERSON, at your local Urząd Wojewódzki (Voivodship Office - I'm not sure if it's Szczecin or Gdańsk for you as I don't know where exactly you live)

Right to the permanent residence for an EU citizen:

Required documents:

- 1 copy of the application (link to the PDF file - in 3 languages - PL, EN, FR) filled in IN POLISH (they suggest, however, submitting also 3 photocopies of the application for faster precedure)

- photocopy of your travel document or other document confirming your identity and citizenship (they suggest, AGAIN, submitting also 3 extra photocopies for faster precedure - lazy bastards, don't even bother to xerox the documents by themselves),

- 5 current photos, not dammaged, clear, colour with dimensions 4,5 cm x 3,5 cm, with your head not covered (no hats or other burkas), dark glasses not allowed, your left semi-profile should be on the photo and the left ear must be visible, the light on the photo must be uniform on all parts of your face.

- documents confirming a non-interrupted 5-year period of work,
- confirmation of temporary residence (if you have zameldowanie, a registered address, for a temporary/permanent residence)

Time for processing your application:
from 21 to 30 days

The division responsable for processing the application:
Wydział Spraw Cudzoziemców (Foreigners' Affairs Division/Department) at your local Urząd Wojewódzki

Fees:
30 zł payable to:
(find this info online with account number, and bring the original and probably also a photocopy, just in case - you'll have to make some photocopies of other documents anyway - of the transfer together with your application)

Pomorski [or Zachodnio-pomorski] Urząd Wojewódzki
Wydział Organizacyjno-Administracyjny
Bank
Account no.
tytułem
"wydanie dokumentu potwierdzającego prawo stałego pobytu obywatela UE"