Language / Should I learn both Polish and German [147]

But the KUL as you say is a university, i.e. it has lots of different faculties; I would be much more inclined to forgive such ignorance if this lady was not a student of English or Polish literature, for example... On the other hand, if she was, she probably flunked her exams anyway... ;-) So then you couldn't really call her educated, half-educated would be the word!

I'm not sparring or kidding, just curious.

And by the way - KUL is not the best in Poland. I would say it is in a group of 4 or 5 very good universities, but UJ, UW and UAM would have to be tops. In my humble opinion at least.

Well, if she studied agriculture I wouldn't in the least mind that she was ignorant about American literature. I'm rather ignorant about milk production and species of sheep myself... ;-)

Language / Should I learn both Polish and German [147]


But what was she studying? 'cause that does make a difference. Was she a bright mathematician with no interest in literature, or a reeeally dumb linguist? ;-)

Language / On nakłada spodnie. Is it correct Polish? [23]


Michał, about a day ago:
"Is it really worth a massive debate after such a little point of grammar? Ja jestem w Albionie i jutro ja pojade ku Polsce or ja jestem w Anglii i jutro pojade pociagiem do Polski. W koncu, wszysko jedno!"

So is it or is it not "wszystko jedno"? Where has your 'live and let live' attitude gone? ;-)

News / English vs. Polish hostility [323]

I can totally sympathise with that. Sometimes I think history is nothing but a huge joke.

Language / Should I learn both Polish and German [147]


Honoured, I'm sure :-)

Language / Should I learn both Polish and German [147]


Blah blah blah, which means I wanted to sparr with you over this, but never mind, that's all water under the bridge anyway, at least now I know what you meant! ;-)

Yes, I do ENG-PL and PL-ENG, with some Czech occasionally thrown in for good measure.
Tak, jestem Polką i mieszkam w Londynie; przyjechałam tu trzy lata temu i mam zamiar za jakiś rok wrócić do Polski! :-)
By the way, my grandmother was German/Kaszubian and I had four semesters of German at university, not that it did me much good. ;-) I finally gave up when we started declinating adjectives... You know, when they tell you to take a phrase like "my beloved old gray-haired grandfather" and run it through the cases... And each of the adjectives gets inflected differently. OMG. Totalna porażka! ;-)

Language / Should I learn both Polish and German [147]


And what exactly would you mean by that?!
Both Iwaszkiewicz and Tuwim were great masters of the Polish language. They would not be my personal first choice for curling up on the sofa with, but I cannot but admire how they wrote!

By the way, Czech has a lot more consonant clusters than Polish: vlk, vrch, krk, blb, to list just an anecdotal few ;-)

Language / Double negative in Polish language [24]

The double negative is normal in Polish, in other Slavonic languages as well, for that matter.

Nic nie powiedziałem = I said nothing.

Powiedziałem nic = nonsense, not even bad grammar. If you said that, people would probably assume you actually said "Powiedziałem 'nic'" i.e., "I said 'nothing'", like a quote, you know.

It's actually quite simple, you just need to remember that in case of negations, Polish is quite the opposite of English ;-)

UK, Ireland / Why do Poles come to England? [514]


Well I am sorry to say the above about sums it up... Even though Poles (name of nationality as in Finns, Danes, Czechs, Russians, etc) are supposedly very patriotic and proud of their country, the truth is that they can't wait to leave it :-(

I haven't met a nationality so eager to complain about their country of origin, and yet so full of themselves (a typical Polish paradox I guess).

I have also wondered why so many Poles have come to England and Ireland when there are other countries happy to accept them - Sweden, Spain, and recently the Netherlands if I remember right. You could say it's because of the language barrier but most of them don't speak English either, so what's the difference?

And here I am complaining about the Polish mentality, so that makes me one of the lot! ;-)

History / Communist Era in Poland: Some questions [28]

I don't remember the good ol' Gierek years because I was in India then (as a child). But I was a young teenager in the eighties, and boy was life hard (in Warsaw). I think one occurrence just about sums it up: I was in Prague with my Mum, I could have been about 15, and we went into a sandwich bar to grab a bite to eat. And my Mum said: you can only have one sandwich, I need the rest of the money to buy something else. I remember looking at all the different tempting sandwiches on display (salami, egg, mayonnaise, ham, bacon, you name it) - and bursting into tears. I just couldn't make up my mind. It seemed so cruel to have to choose. I only got to eat "fancy food" about once a year, when I visited my family in Czechoslovakia... Back home it was bare basics, secondhand clothes I used to dye and adjust, bread lines (my parents thankfully never stood in line for carpets or TVs, just went without), empty shops full of vinegar bottles and sacks of salt. I still remember the shock when I could buy sugar or butter without food stamps. I daresay things have only improved since then.

The reason a lot of people have much fonder memories is probably because they remember the golden era of Gierek's rule in the seventies: he raked in millions of dollars in international loans, mostly American if I remember right. Farmers were granted credit which was usually written off. It was a fools' paradise and Poland is saddled with debt repayments to this day, unless I'm very much mistaken.