Language / Polish pronounciation of: cz vs ć/ci, sz vs ś/si, ź vs ż and dż vs dź/dzi - how to make these sound diff [79]

In the first one, if you used "w" instead of "we", you would have three cosonants one after another, including first two exactly the same. The same is "we wtorek", but "w środę", "w czwartek", although there are people in Poland saying "we środę", "we czwartek". It may be a regional thing, I don't know.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


First of all, young people don't remember this. Even among older people there is a lot of those, who preferred that system to the current one. There was, officialy, job for everyone (another thing is that it just had to fail due to the economics). The government took care of a lot of issues that people have to organize now by themselves. For example, the companies (maybe it's not a proper word while talking about a system without a free market, but I have no idea how to translate Polish "zakład" into English) were organizing holidays for the children of the employees. You had to wait, sometimes a few years, for it - but everyone could get an apartment. If someone wanted to build a house, it was possible to get a loan with a very low interest rate. I don't say it was good - but a lot of people is considering it as good, due to all the social stuff which was then available.

The socialism wasn't a problem, the problem was that we weren't an idependent country. The Soviet Union was in fact ruling Poland, they were forcing us to keep an economical system which was deemed to fail. The lack of the freedom of speech, the censorship, persecution of everyone who was against the current system, also wasn't caused by the socialism, but by the politics of the Soviet Union which we just had to realise, otherwise they would enter Poland with their army. As they - as Russia - did now with Ukraine, or in 1968 with Czech-Slovakia.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]

The victory of PiS is, mainly, a result of the PO rule. I cannot say the PO were bad in everything. The country is developing. They built really a lot of road infrastructure (even though it was inaugurated when PiS was ruling, still a lot of this has been prepared and built by PO). But the cost was too high. First increasing the VAT tax. Then raising the retirement age. Stealing people's savings from the open pension funds and moving them to the state one (ZUS). Now this recordings scandal. Their time is out.

And I don't like that PiS is going to rule now, but really, PO couldn't do it any more. The only reason why PiS has won is, I think, that for the people who are not really into politics, PO and PiS are virtually the only parties they know something about. When someone wanted to vote just against PO, against the currently ruling party, the "natural" choice was to vote for their "main opponent" (promoted by the media), so for PiS.

I am really interested in how the rule of PiS will look like. They cannot be too radical, because otherwise they will fail in the next elections, in 4 years. They also cannot be much less effective then PO in terms of the country developement, it will also not pass unnoticed. I think there is more people in PiS than in PO, who are there because of family or acquaitances. Therefore, there is, definitely, not so many people there, who really know what to do. But maybe they will deal with it. We will see. I don't except a big change in the politics. Maybe it will get better than under PO? They have four years to show it to us.

And a really interesting thing is what will happen in the four years time. There are some newly emerged political forces. We have Kukiz, which is more like a people's movement than like a party. And they got really a lot of votes in these elections. There wasn't such a thing in the parliament until now. Maybe they will be more active as the opposition than the other, "old" opposition parties (regardless of whether it was, for a short time, PO, or, for 8 years, PiS), which weren't really controlling what the ruling parties did; they just tended to oppose any possible ideas of the ruling side and that was all. There is Korwin, which is an old politician, but he recently started to gather a lot of electorate among the young people. But in case of him, the problem is that he is too radical. He may be getting something over 5% (the threshold of joining the Sejm) in the future, but not much more. And he is hopeless in terms of public speeches. I mean, he is talking in such a way, using such metaphores, when he tries to convince someone to something, that he really gets understood by normal people, but the other politicians are just having fun of him. And there is this small, just emerging, left-side "Razem" ("Together") party, which seems to be also something like a people's movement (although it's officially a party, on the contrary to Kukiz) and may gain popularity throughout the time. A lot may happen within the next few years. People are starting to see that the most known parties are, in fact, just big groups of acquaintances, who are in fact doing everything for their own profit, not for the country. And, what is more important, they are starting to discover that it is possible to change that.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]

Yes, tomorrow afternoon. But I think it's about the specific parliament members who will take specific places. The number of seats for each party depends, I think, directly on the number of votes in general.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]

The National Election Committee statement finally announced, we know everything. Nothing changed compared with the polls. PSL gets to the Sejm, Korwin doesn't. Which means that PiS will be able to rule alone.

Language / Polish pronounciation of: cz vs ć/ci, sz vs ś/si, ź vs ż and dż vs dź/dzi - how to make these sound diff [79]

It's not impossible in Polish, but it's a bit difficult to pronounce - two "hard" cosonants one after another. I don't think there are words with such a connection. "śł" also rather doesn't exist in practice.

In terms of foreign exceptions, there is not so many of them in Polish, this language likes to adapt foreign words to its own rules.

In the past, in the beginnings of football (soccer), Polish newspapers were calling a football match "match footballowy". Now the only proper spelling is "mecz futbolowy", not to mention, that the adjective "futbolowy" is not too popular these times, one would write rather "mecz piłkarski" (when you say "piłka" as a name of sport, it's by default "piłka nożna", so football/soccer), or, most likely, just "mecz" - again, the "default" sport in Polish language is always soccer. Of course, unless you know from the context that it's basketball, volleyball or whatever else.

From some modern things - among the young people, when someone or something is getting a lot of bad comments, not necessarily on the Internet and social networks (although it came from there), what it "gets" is called now "hejt", from English "hate". A fact of clicking "Like", "Thumb's up" or a similar button in a social network is called "lajk" from English "like".

Language / Polish pronounciation of: cz vs ć/ci, sz vs ś/si, ź vs ż and dż vs dź/dzi - how to make these sound diff [79]

Śły (if such a word existed - it doesn't) and siły have different pronounciation. It's pronounced "śiły". An exception for this is for example "silos", generally, some words which came from foreign languages.

Language / Polish pronounciation of: cz vs ć/ci, sz vs ś/si, ź vs ż and dż vs dź/dzi - how to make these sound diff [79]


Regardless of whether you want to pronounce this "i", or not (when there is a vowel after it), the effect is virtually the same. Even if you don't want to pronounce this "i", it appears there somehow automatically.

It's different when there is a cosonant after, then "śwy", if such a word existed, would be pronounced differently from "siwy". Examples of such two really existing words also exist, but the only one I can think of for now is quite vulgar (both words, of course, with different meaning).

Language / Polish pronounciation of: cz vs ć/ci, sz vs ś/si, ź vs ż and dż vs dź/dzi - how to make these sound diff [79]

You don't have to be so perfect.

Hardly any Pole can pronounce correctly the English "th" and it doesn't make any problem for talking in English and being understood.

"ci" is in fact "ći" in terms of pronounciation. That's all. The same with "si", "zi" and so on.

Travel / From Wroclaw to Warsaw - is traveling long distances expensive in Poland? [7]

I don't really know much about the Białowieża Forest, I have never been there. But the town from which it has its name is Białowieża. There is no train to Białowieża, trains go to a bigger town nearby - Hajnówka.

There is a direct bus from Warsaw to Białowieża, but as far as I can see, it is only once a day:

There are more direct connections from Białystok to Białowieża, you can find them at E-Podróżnik.

There are direct trains and buses from Wrocław to Warsaw, you don't have to change in £ódź. Some of them don't even go through £ódź. Maybe there will be a direct train from Wrocław to Białystok in February? You have to check it too.

There is also a lowcost plane from Wrocław to Warsaw, operated by Ryanair company. It goes to the Modlin airport nearby Warsaw, so it will be not necessarily convenient, but you should check it too. Sometimes it is possible to get a really cheap ticket (although you cannot take a big luggage, only a hand luggage is allowed for this price). There is a direct bus from the Modlin airport to Białystok:

plusbus.pl/r_modlin_new.php?ln=PL

===

There will be a direct train from Wrocław to Białystok from December. It is not yet present at the PKP-Intercity webpage, but there will be such a train after the December timetable change, three times for a day.

Language / Polish pronounciation of: cz vs ć/ci, sz vs ś/si, ź vs ż and dż vs dź/dzi - how to make these sound diff [79]

I am a native Pole and I have tested it :) When I pronounce "cz", my tongue doesn't stay at the "ceiling", like in case of "ć", but it moves in the direction of the teeth. In case of "sz", it hangs somewhere in the middle, at some distance from the teeth.

When you are English, it should be easy for you to pronounce "cz" and "sz", it's like "ch" and "sh" in English.

Life / Need the best Poland data sim card provider for use in personal unlocked wifi device (mifi). [21]

With Play "Rok Ważności Konta" everything is OK.

Travel / From Wroclaw to Warsaw - is traveling long distances expensive in Poland? [7]

The train ticket you can buy online at the website intercity.pl

It is possible not earlier than a month before departure.

The problem is that it's possible to buy there only a ticket for a single train, not for a whole route with changing trains, which normally is cheaper, but still, if you buy two separate tickets online beforehand, it will be probably cheaper than a single ticket just before the departure.

For the local trains in the most of the country, the website is: biletyregionalne.pl - although in some areas they are operated by other companies, and then it's usually not possible to buy them online. But for the local trains, there is no price difference in time.

Whether it is much faster, it depends on the route. It's definitely more comfortable. Maybe except the rush time, when the trains can be crowded. It's better to travel in the middle of a week than on weekends, especially in February, when the trains might be full of school students who have just begun their winter holidays or their holidays are just about to end (they last two weeks, each week in February some regions of Poland end them and some begin). Then it might be better to take a bus. Buses usually don't take more people than the number of seats, trains do it. Even though they inform passengers about it, there is often a lot of people who risk travelling by train without a seat and the result is the train corridor full of people. This is, of course, only in special cases. Normally, the trains are much more comfortable. And the exception are EIP (Express Intercity Premium) trains, which take people only on seats.

For PolskiBus you can buy tickets on their website. For some buses they are available at e-podroznik.pl or at the website of the specific company - but in case of buses, it's often only possible to buy a ticket at the station (not always) and from the driver.

About entering Białowieża Forest on foot by yourself, I don't know, but I think it should be possible without any problem. There might be an entry fee of something like a few PLN, it's sometimes so in national parks.

Remember that February is the middle of winter in Poland. It will be cold, and, most probably, snowy. It shouldn't cause any transportation problems (there is usually a lot of problems just after the first big snowfall during the specific winter, but it is usually in December, sometimes at the end of November or at the beginning of January, and afterwards everything becomes good and the problems "magically" disappear), but still in case of a big snowfall, there might be some delays of the trains and buses. Take it into account when you are going to change between means of transport. When you are going to change between trains, when your train has a delay and you tell the conductor about it, they will either keep the train you want to change to at the station, or change your ticket to a later train. But when you are going to change from a train to a bus, from a bus to a train or between buses, it's not possible to do much with it.

Travel / From Wroclaw to Warsaw - is traveling long distances expensive in Poland? [7]

It depends on where you are from, but as for the European standards, travelling in Poland is cheap.

I can also recommend trains, especially for long-distance travelling.

In case of trains and some buses (like PolskiBus), you can save some more money by buying the ticket possibly early.

From Wrocław to the Białowieża Forest, you will, most probably, go through Warsaw.

The public transport is really well developed in Poland, although the timetables of buses on some local routes might be not accessible online.

Remember that there is always a big change in the trains timetable every December, and then there are smaller changes every few months. The bus timetables do not change so frequently.

USA, Canada / Transfer of funds between Poland and Canada [5]

A more important for you is to choose a proper account in a Canadian bank, from which the international transfers will be cheap.

Check Alior Kantor: kantor.aliorbank.pl

You can open there a Polish account in Canadian dolars, transfer your money from Canada to this account and exchange it to PLN using their online exchange service for a better exchange rate then with a standard bank transfer directly to an account in PLN (when the money would be probably exchanged first to US dollars and then to PLN).

News / Poland - land of uni students? [11]

It's not a movement, it's just a YouTube channel showing how uneducated people in Poland are.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


Anti-catholic is definitely not the same as anti-clerical.

There is a lot of really believing Catholics who really do not like the current situation in the Church.

Like in the Kukiz's song - the priest has a Toyota (and the song is from 1992, short after the fall of communism - I can imagine there were definitely not many western cars on Polish streets these time and they had to belong to rich people), the police have only a Nysa:

google.de/search?q=nysa+samoch%C3%B3d&biw=1366&bih=617&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIi4WuorbXyAIVyTcUCh2bkQq8

- in other words, the money go to the Church and not for the country needs.

Looking at the title ("ZChN is coming") - it seems to be a vision how the country was supposed to look like if the ZChN (Christian National Union) party won the elections. Which is definitely exagerrated, but the Church in Poland isn't definitely poor, and it's common that a priest has a good car.

And this is the subject of criticism.

Ok, there is also the thread of the priest getting drunk in that song - but still, it's a criticism of the Church, not the catholicism.

Travel / Getting from Wrocław to Lubin [17]


IF you can buy a ticket at the bus station, then you can usually buy a return one, but it's not cheaper. Of course, it may happen that a specific bus company has such an offer (it's not frequent though), but you need to check it on their webpage.

Sometimes it's possible to buy a ticket online, then it may also be possible to buy a return one at once.

On a bus it's not possible.

Real Estate / Why are toilets and sinks in Poland always separated by a door? [33]

GFI is exactly the same what is called RCD in Europe.

In Poland it's been obligatory for years, but it's theory which doesn't have a lot in common with the reality.

Real Estate / Why are toilets and sinks in Poland always separated by a door? [33]

In Poland the norms determine some zones around the bath and the shower, in which there should be no electrical devices and outlets, but noone really cares about it. Which is definitely not good - cases of death due to a powered hair dryer falling down to the bath (which would be almost impossible if no sockets around) or due to a broken washing machine with a case under voltage, powered and standing near the bathtub (and the lack of not only RCD, but even the earth wire in the electrical system at all) are not so rare here. It's not difficult even to meet a bathroom with a power outlet just above the bathtub, which is definitely stupid and dangerous.

Real Estate / Why are toilets and sinks in Poland always separated by a door? [33]


Probably. But there is also a simpler explanation. You don't have to look for the switch in darkness.

In normal rooms it usually happens that you are there and it gets dark - then you need to turn on the light. Since you are inside then, it would be impractical to have a switch outside.

In case of a bathroom, it rather doesn't happen. You enter it for a moment (ok, an exception might be when you want to have a bath) and leave. So it's just practical to have a switch outside. In addition, it's safer - generally it's recommended to avoid electrical devices in bathrooms. I don't know whether it's true, but I've heard that in the country of 2 separate taps they really don't use electrical devices in bathrooms, maybe except a hair dryer and a shaver, and, for example, washing machine is usually located in the kitchen (in Poland it happens only in flats with so small bathrooms that there is no space for a washing machine there).

Travel / I discovered Poland - a nice country [62]

That's the reason people in Poland still tend to possess a car if only they can afford it and to use it in every-day journeys to the work. Which creates a vicious circle - the more cars on the streets, the more obstacles for the public transport. The more obstacles for the public transport, the slower and less reliable it is. The slower and less reliable public transport, the more cars on the streets. And the transportation within the city gets slower and slower.

An isuue which doesn't help here is also a tendency of people to move out from the city to the suburbs. Which is also a result of increasing road traffic in the city, and resulting noise and pollution. They start to have to far away to the job, it's often not affordable for the city to provide good public transport to places where not so many people live, so they need to use a car - and increase the congestion in the city.

Travel / Travel with my 2 months old daughter from Poland to Germany without passport [7]

I don't think that the birth certificate is enough. Maybe your embassy is able to send to you a temporary document to enable you get the passport for the child?

Have you tried just to call your embassy by a phone?

Travel / Travel with my 2 months old daughter from Poland to Germany without passport [7]

The simpliest would be to call the embassy of your country in Germany and to ask. Generally, there is no control at the Polish-German border (if nothing has changed due to that refugees problem), but in Germany the police is entitled to check your documents, and if they find that something is wrong with them, you may have a problem.

Travel / I discovered Poland - a nice country [62]


And here we come to the conclusion that Poland is just different, like each country is different from each other.

But really, there are aspects in which Poland is more similar to Italy than to Germany. Of course not in terms of savoir-vivre, culture in general and climate.

What do you mean as "civilisation" or "westerness"?

Travel / I discovered Poland - a nice country [62]

I don't think Poland is much different from the countries like Italy, Spain or Greece (so ones which are definitely considered as western-European, belong to the EU for years) in terms of order in the streets, city planning etc. Sometimes it's even more civilised. If you want Poland to look like Germany or nordic countries... It would be no more the same Poland.

Castles are nothing specific for Poland. Maybe it was something new for you since you don't have castles in America...

Food / Supermarket or small corner shop for grocery shopping in Poland? [23]

It's not easy to buy a really raw milk (not pasteurised) in Poland.

Generally, there are 3 types of milk available in the shops. Within each of these types milk of a different fat content is available, which is usually distinguished within the types milk of a given company by different colors on the package.

1. UHT milk - usually sold in cartons, you can find the UHT abbreviation on it - in a more visible or a less visible place:

Stays fresh for the longest time, don't have to be kept in a fridge before opening, but it's most processed (it's heated to about 135-140 deg. C and then quickly cooled down to about 20 deg. C) and, probably, most unhealthy.

2. Pasteurised milk sold in bottles - described as "pasteryzowane":

Stays fresh much shorter, has to be kept in a fridge, but it's less processed (it's heated to about 60-90 deg. C to kill germs) and, probably, less unhealthy than the UHT milk.

3. Pasteurised milk sold in plastic bags - also described as "pasteryzowane":



When you leave it for a longer time in a mug in a warm place, it will not get spoiled, but soured. I don't really know how it's different from the pasteurised milk from bottles, but it's somehow more similar to the milk "straight from the cow". This type of milk is rather not met in chain supermarkets, but it's possible to buy it in local shops.

The last type is fresh milk "straight from the cow". Some time ago in bigger cities, near shopping malls, vending machines selling such milk started to appear, but AFAIK, they disappeard as quickly as they appeared. I know that they are still in some places - you need to google under the term "mlekomat". You can also look for it at local street markets.

Life / How to transfer money from a prepaid simcard (PLAY) to another prepaid simcard [9]

It seems that they abandoned it and started it again later.

Yes, 20 PLN.

Life / How to transfer money from a prepaid simcard (PLAY) to another prepaid simcard [9]

For example plus.pl/uslugi/teleprzelew

Translating:
- send SMS to the number 5511 with the content: P [amount of money to transfer] [target phone number], wait for an incoming SMS with confirmation, send a confirming SMS with the content:

- costs 0,05 PLN
- the time of validity of the account to which you send the money is not lengthened
- within 30 days you can send or get maximum 30 PLN
- users of the offers Sami Swoi and 36,6 cannot use this (BTW, AFAIK, the first one doesn't exist any more)

In Orange it was possible to 4 March 2013.

Each of the 4 main networks allows to send money to a pre-paid user by a regular subscriber (paying bills on the post-paid rules).

Life / How to transfer money from a prepaid simcard (PLAY) to another prepaid simcard [9]

Some networks (not Play in pre-paid) allow to transfer money from one account to another in the same network. But between the networks - not. It's also not possible to exchange it back to real money, except for the mentioned services, where you lose a lot.