Language / The final "ę" [29]

it all comes down to the style, if you talk in Queen's (or Royal or whatever you call it) English, you pronounce the words/sounds differently from a standard "street" talk, it's the same for Polish, final "ę" pronounced as "e" has been officially accepted by the linguistic/phonetical councils of Polish language, so it's not considered a mistake anymore to pronounce "dziękuje", "sie" etc., but if you want to speak in a very proper and correct way, then you should say "dziękuję", "się" etc.

Life / Getting a NIP or PESEL [21]



these informations aren't accurate

NIP (Numer Identyfikacji Podatkowej - Tax Identification Number) exists in 2 ways:

1/ corporate NIP (any company must apply for it, along with REGON number, before starting their activity.
2/ personal (individual) NIP - any tax payer must have one, even if you are employed by someone else, you simply need this number to send your tax declaration to the Polish IRS every year/month (so when you work here or buy/sell something, which is subject to taxes), it may also be required in other situations, I'm not aware of.

Normally, you get your NIP from Urząd Skarbowy (Polish IRS), that's at least how Polish citizens do, I never heard about receiving it from the Town Hall.

Life / Bolek i Lolek [30]


you mean Profesor Baltazar Gąbka (Professor Balthazar the Sponge, or whatever it was translated), the one with Wawel dragon and this nasty "Carrrramba" guy? I liked it.

"Pat and Mat" - doesn't ring a bell, probably not Polish

"Jezek" - doesn't ring a bell, maybe "Kretek" (Krecik in Polish) - it was Czechoslovakian

and earlier someone mentioned "Pszczółka Maja" here as Polish, unfortunatelly it was a Czechoslovakian/German (I think West Germany) co-production, not everything that was good came from Poland only :)

Real Estate / Disparity between land prices and retail price. [10]


Actually, you're completely ... wrong :)
He's a very nice guy, my school teacher back in the 80's, but he has to take care for the city, not for his ex-students.

I said mayor, but I meant the whole City Hall, there are several different departments, some make decisions about "planning" (planowanie zagospodarowania przestrzennego), others negotiate the prices with potential buyers/sellers etc. And the plot is quite small, so I guess he's not even aware of the whole thing,

Of course, the fact that I like him doesn't mean I'll sell for that price :)

and it's not that our City Hall is breaking any rules, that's how the things in Poland look quite often, if they changed the plot to "budowlana" and then bought it from us for a high price, they would probably run into some troubles with the surveillance bodies (like NIK - Najwyższa Izba Kontroli or Wojewoda), I really don't know what are the general guidelines of the Polish government, but I expect them to be not in my favour :)

USA, Canada / The best POLISH FESTIVAL ever!! - San Diego Oct. 13-14 [36]

what the heck is "terenowanie"?
am I already so outdated, that I don't know modern Polish words?

Law / moving a company to poland. [15]

there are also Special Economic Zones (SSE - Specjalna Strefa Ekonomiczna) in some areas of Poland with high structural unemployment (where the labour market was dominated by one branch, which after the fall of communism turned out to be incompetitve and thousands of people had been licensed from their jobs). In those zones you get significant tax reductions for several years, but I have NO IDEA how big your company must be to become eligible for those privileges.

Real Estate / Disparity between land prices and retail price. [10]

izzy, my parents have inherited a small "rolna" plot not far from the center of my city (a small city with 30 thousands inhabitants, no big industry), the city mayor wants to buy it from us for 25 PLN/sq. m., we've been waiting for more than 10 yrs for them to make it "budowlana" plot, because there's no rational excuse for keeping it "rolna".

40 yrs ago, when my grandpa bought it, it was outside the town, 20 yrs ago, when we inherited, it was on the outskirts, now there is a road just 20m distant from the plot, on the other side of the road the are +100 detached houses, 2 blocks of flats, so it's just normal city plot. The "budowlana" price would be (in my city) at least 4-6 times higher (100-150 PLN/sq.m. is still a good bargain, some plots reach 250-300 PLN /sq.m here).

But I guess they'll keep it "rolna" till we give up, sell it to them for 25 PLN and within a few years they change its status to "budowlana" and sell it later to someone for much higher price. Fortunatelly we don't need this money badly, and my parents already accepted the fact they won't get a penny from it, they just intent to leave it for us to inherit in some time.

And trhere was a major scandal recently, which resulted in resignation of our Agriculture Minister/Secretary being accused of accepting a huge bribe for making some "rolne" plots (that were sold by the Agriculture Agency to some investors) into "budowlane".

So yeah, you may speculate on land, wait some 10-20 yrs, but with the current state of affair it's a risky decision, because, I suppose, Poland will try to reach/maintain the position of one of the biggest agricultural producers in Europe, so they may decide to protect "rolne" plots even more, or maybe not, but it's a question of politics, not only a business decision.

Life / sports clubs for kids in Wroclaw? [8]

to go into Teemu Selanne's footsteps, your son would probably need a better coaching level than in Poland, I have no idea how good these school clubs are, but our national team isn't a match for top teams at any age category. When he's older you may consider sending him to a club in the Czech Republic, it's not as close as Opole, of course, but they know how to play hockey for sure :)

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

here's the linklk the betterversion:
teledyski.us/1826,tsa_8222trzy_zapalki8221.html

Language / Learning Polish online help [21]


If she writes it with the Polish letters in an electronic form, you should be able to simply copy & paste them, I can copy & paste Russian letters/words in MS Word (but not in Notepad) and in my browser (Opera), even print them and I don't Russian fonts installed on my computer.

If you actually need to write those Polish letters yourself, there are several threads about installing Polish fonts - just look at the section "General Polish Language"

Or maybe your problem is linked to the declination/conjugation and you are looking for wrong forms - here's an example, from an other thread, of what I mean


If you don't need to use Polish fonts too often, and don't want to change any settings on your (or especially on someone else's) computer, you can always use Polish Wikipedia (pl.wikipedia.org) - when you type a word they don't have in their definitions, a bigger search window appears and right under the search bar you can see "Klawiaturka:" and then Polish fonts follow

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

krz - is always pronounced as "ksz" (ksh).

a little off topic:
Voiceless (I hope I'm using the correct English term) doesn't mean mute, voiced-voiceless pairs of consonants are for example g-k, b-p, d-t, and by the way, in English sometimes you pronounce k, p, t, in a little different way than in Polish, with more aspiration. Polish has pretty strict rules about voiced/voiceless pronounciation, the voiced consonants (b, d, dz, dź, dż, g, w, z, ź, ż/rz) become voiceless (p, t, c, ć, cz, k, f, s, ś, sz) at the end of the word (Bug, bóg, buk - all pronounced the same in nominative case) and in the proximity of other voicelss consonant (that's why the voiceless "k" changes the "rz" into "sz")

This rule doesn't apply to the voiced consonants that don't have a corresponding voiceless sound in Polish phonetics (j, l, ł, m, n, r), and originally "h" was voiced and "ch" voiceless, but now only few people (with a very "good ear", old-school actors, and some people originating from pre-war Eastern Poland) can pronounce the voiced "h", normally both "h" and "ch" are voiceless

And now I've realised I made a mistake in my post about Majchrzak having a voiced combo of "chrz" :)
I took off my headphones (I was listening to some music), said both words (Majkrzak and Majchrzak) aloud, and it's like I just wrote in the general rules, "-chrz-" is voiceless ("-hsz-"), sorry for a confusion, if someone read it :)

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

btw, Majkrzak is a little incorrect form of Majchrzak, it probably comes from the fact that in many (especially rural) ares the combination of "-chrz-" is prononuced like "-krz-" (in "chrz" both sounds are voiced, in "krz" both voiceless)

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

there you go, I suck at recording sounds on the computer, so I decided to look for a famous song from the eighties (Trzy zapałki - Three matchsticks - by TSA), where you can here the word in the song's refrain (first - 1min32sec into the song, and then also at the end - 3min59sec)

it's a youtube style video clip



oops, I think the Admin edited my post and linked ANOTHER live version of the song (by some other singer, I think), which is unfortunate, because the sound is poorer and the pronounciation is a little worse (and you can forget about the exact moments I indicated with the word "trzy" - they don't match)

Life / sports clubs for kids in Wroclaw? [8]

that's what I found about hockey on the site of Polish Hockey Association (pzhl.org.pl)
it looks like the nearest town to Wrocław with hockey clubs is Opole, which isn't close enough for a 9 yrs old kid to go to :(

Opolski Okręgowy Związek Hokeja na lodzie
45-083 Opole ul.Barlickiego 13
tel./fax. 0-77 4544800

(for younger children)
UKS ORLIK
przy Szkole Podstawowej Nr 6
45-083 Opole
ul. Barlickiego 13 fax. 0-774539161

(for youth)
MIĘDZYSZKOLNY UCZNIOWSKI KLUB HOKEJOWY - ORLIK
45-015 Opole, ul. Barlickiego 13
tel./fax (0-77) 4419759

probably among the biggest cities in Poland, Wrocław and Poznań don't have hockey clubs at all, there are hockey clubs in Warsaw, £ódź, Kraków, Gdańsk, Katowice, Bydgoszcz, Toruń, generally hockey is very popular in Katowice area (Śląsk - Silesia) near Kraków and in highlands areas (Podhale with Nowy Targ, Krynica, but also in Sanok which is in Bieszczady mountains, closer to Ukrainian border)

Language / Which books is it essential to have read to be a good Polish student? [23]


if course some of them were translated, but some of the books (for example Gombrowicz's essential works) were translated into Frnech and German, and from those translation they compiled an Englis version, it's actually shocking that the editors lowered themselves to such level. Fortunatelly there are newer translation now directly from original, but it only shows that you must be careful while choosing a translated book :)

and you should find a lot of Polish books on Amazon.com (at least the USA division, but I hope the French division of Amazon would have some too)

Language / Question about the Nickname Ola versus Aleksandra [9]

the form Alek also exists, but it sounds more "distinguished", so it's used for example by grown-ups who don't want to be called by the long version, they sometimes introduce themselves as Alek. Olek is just a standard diminuitive used for callings friends (if they aren't too snobby) or kids

Language / Polish Present Tense [16]

porta, we all worry about the future sometimes :)

Language / Which books is it essential to have read to be a good Polish student? [23]


well, I usually don't confront the film with the book, when I'm watching it, because the languages of novel/film are different, I don't care if the film is true to the book or not, because it doesn't make it better or worse, there' have been good movies made of mediocre books, but mostly it's viceversa. I just have a problem with J. Hoffman's cinema, because it's too academic, predictible, nothing of unexpected, no revelations, no scenes you remember for a long time, no real directing, just filming the images and taping the sounds plus the dialogues are sometimes too cheesy. And I completely forgot the movie a few weeks after I had seen it, so I won't start any analysis now, sorry

Work / Working as a Referee in Poland [8]

Grzegorz, that's what he's going to do, contact local (in this case Lubuski) ZPN :)

Language / Past and future tense examples in Polish [19]


post #8


post #16

Michal, don't try to ruin the thread, it's already been answered and even you agreed (your post #8)
(Zacząłem nowy projekt w ubiegłym tygodniu. - that's how we say it),
using the imperfective form (zaczynać) would require a very specific circumstances in this case, the perfective form is the way to go.

Sometimes there is an analogy with the use of perfect/continous tenses in English and Polish perfective/imperfective verbs, for example:
I was starting to like the guy, but then he did something so stupid that I don't want to see him ever again - Zaczynałam lubić faceta, ale wtedy zrobił coś tak głupiego, że nie chcę go więcej widzieć. (continuous in English, imperfective in Polish)

Zaczęłam czytać "Ogniem i mieczem" - I've started reading [to read] "With Fire and Sword"
(perfect in English, perfective in Polish)

unfortunatelly it's not a rule, just a hint for someone coming from other linguistic tradition, who might have problems with understaning the difference in usage of Polish perfective/imperfective verbs.

Life / Used book stores in Poland [10]


those shops are rather called "antyki" in Poland - they sell different old things though, not only books, some pieces of art, some stylish furniture, paintings, different household objects/appliances etc., anything that is old and has also some other values (cultural, artistic, for collectioners)

and a good "antykwariat" should have both 15-20 yrs paperback edition of some Stephen King's bestsellers and some rare editions (in Polish often called "białe kruki" - "white crows") for high prices, just maybe not on the shelves.

Love / POLISH SIBLINGS SLEEPING TOGETHER! [172]

maybe ask his parents about that, if you say they liked you

Love / POLISH SIBLINGS SLEEPING TOGETHER! [172]

this sounds very strange, indeed, and I don't know any Poles who would choose such a solution for bed arrangenments

Life / Used book stores in Poland [10]

they are usually called "antykwariat"

Language / Past and future tense examples in Polish [19]

I hope you don't get scared, I have the tendency to bomb you with too many details, but just take them step by step, noone is expecting you to be fluent within two weeks, I hope :)

Language / Which books is it essential to have read to be a good Polish student? [23]

yeah, Animal Farm's first legal issue in Poland is only 1988, it was popular earlier, but it was on a black list, so only underground editions existed


probably Tadeusz Borowski's This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, a collection of short stories, some about the life in the occupied Warsaw, some about Auschwitz (Borowski was imprisoned 1943 and sent to Auschwitz, later transferred to Dachau)

And my favorite book, reading it was a harrowing experience, is Zofia Nałkowska's Medaliony, it was obligatory in high school, otherwise I wouldn't have probably started to read it, I don't like Polish martyrology too much, but this short stories deserve reading.

and Ronek mentioned lots of adventure-war books, I guess he likes them, but don't get the false impression that Polish literature is all about fighting, it's not, though it's not so hard to find references to battles or living under occupants' oppression even in books dealing with different themes, because in the last 230 years Poland was ruled by foreign forces quite a lot, so it was very hard to completely ignore those circumstances

and I hated movie/TV series of both "Przedwiośnie" and "Ogniem i mieczem", so I wouldn't recommend them to anyone, just read the books, if you want (and I'm not aying that because I'm a bookworm, actually I prefer movies, just well made)

Work / Working as a Referee in Poland [8]

probably your mistake is trying to contact the Polish FA, if you mean PZPN, because they are responsable only for I and II division (so only I and II division referees, too), and I guess you should start at a lower level, in such case you should contact regional FA,

Lubuski Związek Piłki Nożnej
65-525 Zielona Góra
ul. Ptasia 2A
(or the following P.O. box:
65-514 Zielona Góra
skr. poczt. 7)
tel. (68) 452-82-01
faks: (68) 452-82-02
e-mail: lubuski@zpn.pl

if you've already contacted them, not the national FA, and still no answer, then I don't know :(
maybe you wrote in English and noone understands English there (it wouldn't really surpirse me)

Language / Past and future tense examples in Polish [19]

ah, the verbs, the most difficult part to learn, I guess
so here we go

the only good thing about Polish tenses is that there are 3 of them, not 16 like in English :)
past - present - future, you basically have to learn 4 forms of the verb -

A/ imperfective (robić = to do, to make):
1/ past (robiłem/robiłam, I'll give ONLY examples of 1st person, singular, both male/female, if the difference exists)
2/ present (robię)
- future - created by the use of the future tense of the verb być + infinitive or past tense form (since the auxiliary verb "być" has normal conjugation here, the forms of "robić" used are only those of 3rd person m/f of singular/plural,

so "(ja) robiłem/robiłam, but "(ja) będę robił/robiła, "(my) robiliśmy/robiłyśmy, but "(my) będziemy robili/robiły)

so the future tense of robić is będę robić or będę robił/będę robiła (for a foreigner it's easier to use być + infinitive scheme, because you don't have to worry about the femimnie/masculine and singular/plural endings in case of być + past tense form)

B/ perfective (zrobić):
1/ past (1st person - zrobiłem/zrobiłam)
2/ future (1st person - zrobię)
- there's no present tense for perfective verbs

and of course the division of imperfective/perfective it's not that easy like with the verb robić/zrobić, where you simply add the affix "z-"

- other popular affixes are:
- (prefixes - usually create the perfective form) 'po-" (imperfective jechać - perfective pojechać) , "prze-" (imperfective szkolić - perfective przeszkolić), "za-" (imperfective proponować - perfective zaproponować),

- (suffixes - usually create the imperfective form) "-yw/aw" (perfective być - imperfective bywać, perfective dać - imperfective dawać )
that's off the top of my head, the list of affixes (mostly prefixes) is longer.

and sometimes the stems (roots) differ a lot:
in your example
"zaczynać" is imperfective, while the perfective form is "zacząć"
other examples with quite different roots (at least apparently):
imperfective - perfective
iść - pójść (to go, by foot or figuratively)
przychodzić - przyjść (to come)
brać - wziąć (to take)
zabierać - zabrać (to take away)
mówić - powiedzieć (to talk, to speak, to tell, to say)

technically (or rather grammatically) the sentence
"Zaczynam nowy projekt w przyszłym tygodniu" is in PRESENT tense, it's the "w przyszłym tygodniu" that makes it has a meaning of the future tense,

the same in English
"I'm starting to like him" (Zaczynam go lubić) is present, but "I'm starting my holidays tomorrow" (Jutro zaczynam wakacje/urlop) is future because of the use of the adverb "tomorrow"


if you look closely at those verbs, you notice the "false" (apparent) perfective form:
why isn't 'zabrać' (prefix "za-" + imperfective verb "brać") simply the perfective form of "brać"?
those prefixes very often modify (sometimes a little, sometimes much) the meaning of the original stem (root), and become separate dictionary entries, so even if they are indeed perfective, they don't match with the original imperfective form, but create an perfective-imperfective pair of their own

Language / Which books is it essential to have read to be a good Polish student? [23]

batoniasty, you just need to know the classics if you want to fully understand cultural life or even language (there are lots of literary metaphors or sentences that gradually enter the common language, how Mickiewicz wrote, "trafia pod strzechy") and I was trying to answer only the first question:


I guess every country has its classics that aren't many people's favorites, still they are read at schools or considered important for the culture/history of the country.

And noone is forcing all the foreigners in Poland (or with Polish roots) to read all those things, but if someone, like Marek3, wants to know, why shouldn't I answer him?

History / Memories of the Polish communist era [115]

I just wanted to add that there's also a huge amount of ignorant people in Poland blaming every misfortune on the post-communist period and praising their Gierek, the truth as usually lies somewhere in between, but the historic fact that communism (both Russian and Polish) had made a mess of Poland, is so obvious, it doesn't even need to discussed