Travel / About tram tickets (Poznan) [22]


Depends how long you're going to be in Poland, if you're going to be here long enough then the three or six month tickets are better value but you have to get the electronic card first.


All the more reason to learn Polish.

Travel / About tram tickets (Poznan) [22]

Or look it up

ztm.poznan.pl/fares-tickets/fares-new

Life / One of more conspicuous Polish traits - inconsequence? [37]


The fact that it can be found in a dictionary doesn't mean

a. it's in normal frequent use (like niekonsekwenty in Polish)

b. most educated native speakers would understand it (I only understood because I know the word niekonsekwenty)

c. it's a good way to get the idea of 'niekonsekwenty' across in English.

A far, far better translation of niekonsekwenty is either 'inconsistent' or some kind of phrase 'don't finish what they start' or 'do everything half way'.

News / The un-Civic Platform of Poland? [60]


What on earth would you know about Varsovians? How much time have you spent with your feet on the ground in Warsaw?

News / The un-Civic Platform of Poland? [60]


Actually, his agressive bluster about a mythical Poland that never existed, combined with his disinterest in hearing from or living with people in Poland..... is the most Polish thing about him.

News / The un-Civic Platform of Poland? [60]


I look forward to a list of concrete objectively verifiable examples of misrule.

If none is forthcoming I will assume you're just blowing smoke out of your dupa.

Life / Going to Poland in a hijab - Polish people and Islam [154]

"since I'm supposed to be hiding my beauty"

So, you're saying the point of hijab is to make women less beautiful, modesty through making yourself look less attractive.

That seems about right as they are pretty ugly to look at, not as hideous as niqab, but still, it's not a nice look.

UK, Ireland / Daniel Pelka murder: Polish mother and stepfather face life sentences [96]


Ain't multiculturalism grand? What are a few kids' lives compared with the self-righteous glow of not offending anyone?

Life / Przystanek Jezus to the rescue [47]

According to GW on the idiot that attacked Miecugow:

"W zeszłym roku zaatakował werbalnie z widowni prezydenta Bronisława Komorowskiego i Jurka Owsiaka. Dwa lata wcześniej podczas spotkania z Jerzym Buzkiem pytał byłego premiera, czy ma pochodzenie żydowskie"

Last year he verbally attacked president Bronislaw Komorowski and Jerzy Owsiak from the audience, two years earlier during a meeting with Jerzy Buzek he asked the former premier if he had Jewish ancestors.

POLONIUS3 WHY ARE YOU DOING THESE THINGS????

Work / Average IT salary in Poland [60]


If you don't speak very fluent Polish you have about a one in a thousand chance of finding a job in Bydgoszcz. Don't go to Bydgoszcz unless you already have a job waiting.

News / Nationalist-socialists gaining ground in Poland [24]


It's also worth noting that while the US and UK calculate unemployment to have as small a figure as possible, they do the reverse in Poland, calculate it so that it's as large as possible (not their goal, but lots of employed people are officially unemployed because they don't have access to full social benefits.

Official figures don't say very much unless you know how they arrived at the figure.

News / Nationalist-socialists gaining ground in Poland [24]


It's all comparative, compared with Spain, Greece and Portugal (and maybe Hungary and some others) Poland is doing well.

Being in a recession is not fun excactly, but it beats the hell out of being plunged in a crisis (esp one with no possible exit) like Greece.

Work / Average IT salary in Poland [60]


Very hard. If you don't have a job lined up before you arrive you'll have a very hard time finding anything.

Real Estate / What's with the commitment for rents in Poland? [9]


Well, after that first year it's not at all unusual to drop the lease and go month to month basis if the landlord trusts you (you take reasonable care of the place and aren't late with rent).

News / Demolish Poland's Palace of Culture? [55]

Sickening, and not very Christian. Any catholic involved should have felt deeply ashamed.

Life / Freedom of religion v animal rights in Poland? [38]


I appreciate that, and in the original middle eastern conditions that gave rise to that form of ritual slaughter they probably did make a lot of sense and were more humane than other options. But technology marches on and there are far more human options now that make use of knowledge not available to early followers of middle eastern religions.

There's also a question of economy of scale where increased populations make k/h slaughter either completely uneconomical or degrades the process so that it's not very close to the original conditions (not to mention the fact that much modern ritual slaughter is done in free rider conditions within non-ritual conditions).

In the context of Europe, halal seems less about anything like religion and more about maintaining religions for their own sake and or keeping the lines between muslims and non-muslims as distinct as possible (making it easier for parents to subvert the assimilation process by passing on their culture shock trauma to their children).

News / Demolish Poland's Palace of Culture? [55]

Obsessing about the Palace of Culture = living in the past.

It's part of the history of Warsaw for good and ill and should not be demolished (a daft idea proposed by silly people who want to erase the past rather than figure out how to live with and learn from it).

Personally I'm kind of fond of it in an ugly pet kind of way.

Life / Freedom of religion v animal rights in Poland? [38]

The most humane methods of animal handling up to and including slaughter are probably those worked out by the American autistic Temple Grandin, who claims to understand who animals think and who helped develop a protocol for not distressing the animals before they are quickly killed before they can tell what's coming.

Here she discusses animal handling and processing in a beef plant.

youtube.com/watch?v=VMqYYXswono

and here a pork plant.

youtube.com/watch?v=LsEbvwMipJI

It looks far preferable to the kosher/halal videos (where the animals often seem far too aware of what's about to happen).

Language / Przeszłem, przeszedłem [4]


The same place that the Poles' saying it comes from - the general tendency for people to regularize irregular forms and to prefer shorter over longer forms. Basic linguistic principles.

I used to have a tendency to overregularize -ami and would say things like przyajacielami (instead of przyjaciółmi) when i asked native speakers why they never corrected such forms they said "eh, I understood, and some Polish people say things like that too".

I'm hopeless with numbers and mostly make no real effort to decline them and no Pole has ever mentioned it as a problem.

Also I'm not good with subtler questions of register (language variety associated with life role). A friend was once horrified to hear me say 'na razie' to a colleague who outranked me so I stopped saying it to higher ups.

Language / Talk radio station (in Polish to learn Polish) [15]

The closest I've heard is TOK FM but still they also used songs, usually in English, as buffers.

This goes back to the old Polish tendency to think of music in English as instrumentals.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]

Assuming that PiS wins the election (not unreasonable since the Polish electorate likes to regularly change the party in power) who the hell could they ever form a coalition with?

Kaczynski has basically accused the leaders of every other party of being criminals (or worse).

And he's shown himself to be a highly unreliable partner anyway, barely does the ink dry on one agreement before he wants to change the terms again. He loves the deal making process but never wants to live with the results. A party would have to be masochistic or crazy to get into (metaphorical) bed with PiS as long as kaczynski's in charge and he won't let anyone else close to the driver's seat.

The only way PiS could govern is by getting an absolute majority which I don't see happening.

Travel / Just visited Poland - here is my random rant [154]


Huh? No one wants to visit a European country to see new modern buildings. You want to tear down the Warsaw starówka and replace it a big shopping mall?

Older buildings can be made comfortable and modern without tearing them down and destroying the history of a place.

Law / Unemployment aid in Poland for an EU citizen [14]

First, how much chance would a Pole who speaks no Hungarian have in finding a job in Szeged or Miskolc?

Work / Multinational company in Poland - high school diploma , they will check?? [15]

In Poland having the right qualifications on paper is very important.

They will not be amused if they found about your dishonesty. Whether this leads to dismissal is impossible to say without more info (which you'd be a food to give here).

And I don't know if they'll settle for a scan forever, better start looking for a good counterfeiter....

History / Foreigners in Poland during Martial Law [8]

I have a friend who arrived in Poland shortly before Martial Law and who stayed throughout (working as a teacher).

They travelled quite frequentlyin and outside Poland thru an ingenious method I'm not at liberty to disclose...

They also couldn't conduct a 90 minute lesson because 40 minutes into it all the students were jonesing for cigarettes so bad they couldn't pay attention....

Food / How to cook Frozen pierogi? Boil or Fry? [90]

But aren't samosas essentially deep fried pierogi (with spicier ingredients)? Do you dislike those?

I remember some years ago experimenting with different ways of preparing pierogies (a kind of pierogi fest) and the deep fried ones were pretty good (baked with an egg coating were kind of disappointing).

My favorite is boiled and then topped with brown onions (slow cook sliced onions in sunflower oil until they turn brown after about 20 minutes)

News / Shops in Poland to be closed on Sunday? [208]

This issue is like Jason in Friday the 13th, it shows up every few years, gets stabbed and shot, set on fire and then thrown down a bottomless well and people think they're finally done with it..... and then a few years later it's back!!!!!

I think it has no chance of success whatsoever, it's playing to the cheap seats, Polish style. Create some noise about an issue people can get self-righteous about and then don't do anything.

I tend to avoid hypermarkets and malls (except for the Browary in Poznan) but closing them on Sunday won't accomplish anything good.

Food / How to cook Frozen pierogi? Boil or Fry? [90]


hmmmm hippies is already plural, no need to make a polonized plural...

Travel / Do you know any good english cabarets in Poland? [4]

If you mean Polish style kabaret done by English speaking people then I don't think it exists. It's just not a format anglophones use (as far as I know).

If you mean Polish people doing Kabaret in English then.... why?

UK, Ireland / Domestic arguments caused by differences between Polish and English culture [109]

The best way to handle domestic arguments: As soon as you realize you're right, apologize profusely.

Google graphic is inconclusive. Though at least one graphic has pepper in the shaker with fewer holes.

For myself I'd never use a pepper shaker, only a grinder so the question is moot. Were I forced to use a pepper shaker I'd put pepper in the shaker with fewer holes because salt is more likely to clog (especially in a damp climate like the kind I grew up in) so you'd want more holes for it. Pepper needs fewer holes because it doesn't clog as much.