UK, Ireland / Polish in Britain - will I get decked if I speak Polish to these people? [63]

Eastern European migrants have been a familiar fixture on the London scene since at least the late '70's:-) When I was first in England, I was walking along Oxford Street and can still remember the sign hanging above a small bookstore "BROKEN ENGLISH UNDERSTOOD FLUENTLY!"

Can you beat that?

Love / Why are Polish girls so attracted to German boys? [52]

Suffice to say then that no country has either a monopoly on beauty, success, and brilliance or a hammerlock on ugliness.

Love / Why are Polish girls so attracted to German boys? [52]

Therefore, the image of Englishmen is one of dullish, nerdy UNattractiveness compared to the "hot", "sexy" Polish woman??
No, it doesn't complicate matters, it bloody hell confuses the life out of meLOL

Love / Why are Polish girls so attracted to German boys? [52]

Implying then that Polish women are thus the opposite of English women in attractiveness??

Love / Why are Polish girls so attracted to German boys? [52]

Germans have always "suffered" from the reputation of being exceptionally ambitious, successful as well as money-driven, particularly in this post-Wall culture from roughly '90 onward up until the present:-) The US-hegemony also has been far stronger throughout Germany than Poland. Such has remained both a blessing, but also a curse for Germans, especially men.

Having spent time in both countries (Poland less the two days, Germany almost two-and-a-half years total), Polish women seem attracted to German men for practically the same reason German men are often attracted to Polish women; stereotypes persist regarding the "loose" Polish female vs. the alpha-male, testosterone-pumping German(-ic) superman, doomed to being "perfect" in every endeavor which they undertake!!

As in numerous cultures, opposites attract:-)

Life / Should I expect racism as a 'black' woman in Poland [149]

@Johnny, either by design or unintentionally, you completely misread my post!

I was saying that as W.A.S.P.s have always had the power, THEY have been the ones to make fun of the more vulnerable ethnics groups among us, namely African-Americans, Jews, Hispanics etc..

I am an assimilated Jew, though the scion of completely English-speaking and Americanized Jews who came from Germany.
Why shouldn't the "others" occasionally deride the white bread establishment, much as Woody Allen did in "Annie Hall" in that scene showing Woody and Diane Keaton at the dining room table and Granny Hall imagines Allen as an orthodox Jew in full garb. The scene showed the overly mannered, superficial setting of a typically caricatured Protestant family from the upper classes.

Priceless.

As far as racisim in Poland, I feel once again that a random, identifiable Jew would be at far greater risk than a black woman, as the latter is not seen as a threat to take over Polish society.

Stick to the topic about racism toward black people in Poland

UK, Ireland / Polish in Britain - will I get decked if I speak Polish to these people? [63]

Quite, I myself have been married now for nearly twenty years. The Polish phrase I posted simply means "Sweet dreams!" (lit. "Loving" dreams!)

:-)

UK, Ireland / Polish in Britain - will I get decked if I speak Polish to these people? [63]

Whatever floats yer boat there, Dreamergirl:-) Dream on....

Miłosnych snów!

UK, Ireland / Polish in Britain - will I get decked if I speak Polish to these people? [63]

Oh, just observed (more than) a few (minor) infractions, but then, hey, HE sure won't notice......in ignorance is bliss:-)

UK, Ireland / Polish in Britain - will I get decked if I speak Polish to these people? [63]

.....if his ladyfriend's his teacher, it seems doubtful he will ever learn it:-) No offenseLOL

Life / Should I expect racism as a 'black' woman in Poland [149]

Much like W.A.S.P.s are still the only "ethnicity" in the US one can tease without impunity, eh Johnny?
Well, maybe the reason why whites are the only race in the world whom one can discriminate against, is simply because it seems that they are the ones throughout history who have done most of the discriminating, by virtue both of their sheer number and situation:-)

Don't take it personallyLOL

Back to blacks in Poland. I know of no other European nation today which has had even ONE black in their central gov't for as long as John Godson, formerly in the Sejm.

UK, Ireland / Polish in Britain - will I get decked if I speak Polish to these people? [63]

Exactly! Who knows. You might meet an Anglophone who's learned to speak Polish as well as you (...perhaps even better):-)

Don't sell us short.

Life / Should I expect racism as a 'black' woman in Poland [149]

I'll grant you that what I've observed, Poland is indeed still fairly polarized between the average Neanderthal vs. cultivated hand-kissing aristocrats (compared with perhaps France or even Italy, certainly Northwestern Europe), it's really not that different from most Slavic countries nowadays. Probably the trend has even grown worse since the fall of Communism when at least there was a buffer between straight socialism and capitalism:-)

As soon as the former Jewish intelligentsia made a bee line for the States round about the late '60's with the rise of Moczar and the height of the Gomułka era, Polish society has probably been the worse off for it.

Racism as well was doubtless held in slightly greater abeyance back then!

Study / Turkish guy to study at a university in Poland. Is that problem for Polish people? [139]

Unlikely, but, hope springs eternal:-)

UK, Ireland / Polish in Britain - will I get decked if I speak Polish to these people? [63]

If a someone wrote/said "What's app?", silly me, I might logically (as well as innocently) conclude they honestly wished to inquire "What's an app.?" aka "application" in computer slang:-)

Many times, misunderstandings of this nature are indeed based upon mispronunciations of the English word, later understood INCORRECTLY because they are thought by the foreign speaker to be the word they have in mind!

News / More Poles speak English than French or Spanish! [34]

It is factually true that more Poles today "speak" English rather than either French (as once the custom) or Spanish. The difference is, they speak the latter usually far better than the former, a language everyone in Europe is basically forced to learn!

:-)

UK, Ireland / Polish in Britain - will I get decked if I speak Polish to these people? [63]

Which is more "patronizing" aka condescending, Rubaszny? Some clueless foreigner blithely asking "Cześć, jak się masz?" upon first meeting, in an embarrassingly bad accent, or, an equally clueless Pole innocently inquiring in something resembling English after having been introduced "Hallaoo, meesterrr John! Chaooo arrr dooink?"

Both sound fairly ridiculous, if you ask me:-) As always in such cross-cultural situations, gobbledygook cuts both ways:-)

Study / Turkish guy to study at a university in Poland. Is that problem for Polish people? [139]

@Lixt1, how can you expect to work/live in Poland, for example, knowing only broken English?
You're a joke which has long ceased to be funny:-)

Study / Turkish guy to study at a university in Poland. Is that problem for Polish people? [139]

You're clearly a troll with a primitive English level, so kindly stop infecting out space with your pointless, illiterate rants!

News / How will BREXIT affect the immigrants in UK and Poland. [1114]

I see now, thanks! Immigration though may well be her Achilles heel:-)

News / How will BREXIT affect the immigrants in UK and Poland. [1114]

Namely?

News / How will BREXIT affect the immigrants in UK and Poland. [1114]

Always easier to attack without all the PERTINENT facts! "Go thou forth from the wicked man from who thou dost not perceive the lips of knowledge!"

News / How will BREXIT affect the immigrants in UK and Poland. [1114]

What I've been able to read up on PM May, she's a reduced Maggie Thatcher incarnate, scarcely socialist, I should think:-) She prides herself according to what I've read on being fairly button-down traditional and conservative to boot.

UK, Ireland / Polish in Britain - will I get decked if I speak Polish to these people? [63]

Depends on the crowd, Iwonko!

Remember the old saying: "Among the blind, the one-eyed man is king!"

An oldie, but a goodie, and still true nowadays:-)

UK, Ireland / Polish in Britain - will I get decked if I speak Polish to these people? [63]

Think again:-)

While intercultural bullying per se is repugant to me as well, the Germans certainly do a decent job of PR for their country and their language.

The Poles might well draw a lesson!

UK, Ireland / Polish in Britain - will I get decked if I speak Polish to these people? [63]

Yo, hon! Tell it to the bleedin' Germans! They've been pushing for it for years and by golly, they finally got it ....AT LONG LAST:-)

Well, shows how far a nice black market "łapówka" can get yaLOL

UK, Ireland / Polish in Britain - will I get decked if I speak Polish to these people? [63]

I too, Iwonka!

I find it most interesting how people some twenty years in Greenpoint, Bklyn, can live in the US all that time without really knowing English, yet they have US passports:-)

Something's wrong with this picture.

UK, Ireland / Polish in Britain - will I get decked if I speak Polish to these people? [63]

Again, as in many immigrant communities of my country, the US, all too many can conceal themselves for years at a time, nestled in a golden cocoon of self-congratulation, later, self-flagulation and most of all, good ol' fashioned self pity, lulling themselves into the mistaken belief that they don't need to integrate into the host culture!! This is DEAD WRONG!!

Should your boyfriend choose not to learn English, then to be blunt about it, he deserves whatever low-wage, nowhere job he gets until he decides to learn the language of the country which has given him refuge, if for no other reason, out of sheer respect for being allowed to remain a virtual guest in the host culture:-)

Mobility, after all, isn't largesse from the state, some right for the annointed few, but a sacred privilege which must be earned, as with citizenship!

Perhaps too Ms. May, as with Maggie, will end the free gravy train for those who can simply "buy their way" to liberty.

UK, Ireland / Polish in Britain - will I get decked if I speak Polish to these people? [63]

Well then, it's high time he learned now, isn't it?

This is the sort of situation which fueled Brexit voters and something which PM May is going to have to address, in short order too!

Britain aka England simply voted NOT to continue a "United States of England", where every and all from any corner of the globe a la the US melting pot can simply take up residence in the country without knowing the language:-)

UK, Ireland / Polish in Britain - will I get decked if I speak Polish to these people? [63]

I once, can no longer recall when precisely, experienced a group of Polish tourists in Berlin. They barely spoke any German except a sort of "phrasebookese" and the Berlin native whom they stopped on the street to inquire spoke no Polish and so the German woman began in a kind of pidgin English, thus making the Polish visitors feel almost as if they were in their comfort zone!

When the two groups parted company however, the Poles were just as confused as before:-)

Moral of the story is that English is not necessarily the panacea for all communication difficulties.