Work / How to find work in Warsaw "if u don't speak Polish" ! [176]

Dolno,

English is the official FIRST language of nearly every field I can think of. Noone's denying that. The question is therefore, never so much "Can you.........speak English?", rather as I've been asking for years on end, more importantly "How WELL can you speak English?"

Usually the answer has been "well enough".

I rest my case!

Work / How to find work in Warsaw "if u don't speak Polish" ! [176]

So when President Duda met with China's economics minister several days prior, they were BOTH conversing in English??

Remotely possible, but most unlikely. Or, it was the world's briefest conversation (diplomatic and otherwise)!
:-)

Sorry, people. I enjoy teasing the Europeans about their English on occasion, as I'm sure they enjoy teasing us about, among other things, "W", not to mention our knowledge of foreign languages.

LOL

Work / How to find work in Warsaw "if u don't speak Polish" ! [176]

Indeed! Global language or not, expecting one's interlocutor to know a good level of English, be they at the front desk of the Warsaw Hilton or in some hole-in-wall smack in the middle of nowheresville, is just a recipe for desaster:-)

Work / How to find work in Warsaw "if u don't speak Polish" ! [176]

A foreigner, Ktoś, ALWAYS does those in another country the "favor" of communicating in the target language of that country, NOT their own!

In addition, you do us NO favors by writing in English. We're more than able, at least I speak for myself, to understand (and respond) in Polish. If you expect me, for instance, to fix my Polish, kindly do us the respect of fixing your English:-))

Not only the Americans, by the way, are guilty of not learning a foreign language and expecting the natives of the other country to speak English. The English are notorious for bragging that they've traveled throughout the world, never speaking any other language but own:-)

Work / How to find work in Warsaw "if u don't speak Polish" ! [176]

No, webreadw2! Not really. Ktoś's merely being what we on the other side of the pond occasionally refer to as a "character", that's all. Like many Europeans, much older Brits included, our friend is bemoaning the loss of his beloved homogeneous, familiar, przytulny (gemuetlich) Polish culture, and to a degree, I for one can't really blame him:-)

After all, you may be corresponding with a latent Trump supporter.

Having said that, not to get off the topic, we were arguing the merits of politeness vs. the lack thereof when dealing with visitors to Poland who have little to zero knowledge of language.

Work / How to find work in Warsaw "if u don't speak Polish" ! [176]

@Ktoś,

Sometimes your English is rather hard to follow, but if I get the gist of what you're saying, it boils down to this; people who have a problem with the "impoliteness" of Polish people towards foreigners trying to speak Polish, essentially, it's OUR problem, and not yours! Is that about right??

Incidentally, "Poles" is both perfectly correct and polite as well:-)

I'd like to add that Polish has a standard, on average, a higher one than, say, English, where, especially here in the States, it seems everything (and anything) goes and no one raises a finger in protest!

Once, there existed a similar standard to that of the UK, France and the rest of the continent, but those days are gone forever(:-

Work / How to find work in Warsaw "if u don't speak Polish" ! [176]

And so if a Pole comes to the US and speaks (usually!!) bad to horrible English, the shopkeeper should then switch to Polish???!
This is ludicrous, Ktoś. If someone comes to your country and speaks in your language, perfhaps not perfectly, the polite thing to do, even if we're unfortunately not always polite, is to answer in Polish, and not switch to broken English:-)

Chances are in reverse, that the foreign speaker understands Polish far better than they speak it.

Work / How to find work in Warsaw "if u don't speak Polish" ! [176]

Who else would have the nerve utter such heresy?
lol

News / Poland's election winning party: PIS proclamations [229]

Many ex-pat Poles with whom I've spoken hate Ms. Szydło, chastizing their fellow countrymen for electing a party which "ruined" Poland's economy years before! "Wstydźcie się, rodacy!", cry the pack:-)

News / Poland's election winning party: PIS proclamations [229]

Problem is though, to many a disenfranchised US voter out there, bloody sick and tired of "business as usual", much of Trump's agenda, i.e. refusing to allow immigrants who then take jobs native-born US taxpayers should rightfully have, is starting to sound just dandy!!

Work / How to find work in Warsaw "if u don't speak Polish" ! [176]

As a second-language speaker, Webkot (and frankly/entre nous, from one native English speaker to anotherLOL), that's hardly a surprise:-)

Work / How to find work in Warsaw "if u don't speak Polish" ! [176]

Webkot, Ktoś might not have understood what you meant to say. I think you said that you feel/felt as though certain store personnel were simply giving you a hard time, and understood your Polish perfectly, am I right? As I already stated, I found that when I visited Hungary many years ago, and I tried in my level-best Hungarian to order in a restaurant and would sometimes receive blank stares, as if to imply "Dude, what the hell are you tryin' to say??" Turns out they DID understand me (according to my girlfriend at the time), they were only being sarky:-)

Work / How to find work in Warsaw "if u don't speak Polish" ! [176]

I guess you and I've shared different experiences! I never found the Poles for instance, nasty, merely proscriptively corrective of my mistakes, that's all. On occasion, a stranger in a bank or even a store (if not too busy, which it rarely was) might recast my sentence into "correct" Polish, usually to aid clarification. No one switched to English, thankfully. Most couldn't.

Better for me anyhow, so as I wouldn't be treated as though I were handicapped:-)

Work / How to find work in Warsaw "if u don't speak Polish" ! [176]

True, Delph. On the other hand, I can also confirm to a degree what Ktoś says!

Like many struggling languages in Europe, among others Hungarian, Icelandic, even German, often, native speakers of those languages will be quicker to jump on the most minor grammatical infraction of a foreigner than one made by their own:-) The reason for this I think is that they are still rather defensive about their linguistic status and so don't feel as though they should give the foreign-born speaker aka learner the slightest edge......the latter will have to cope with correction just as they did.

Work / How to find work in Warsaw "if u don't speak Polish" ! [176]

Poles were delighted to speak with me in Polish (even if some might have spoken good English), because they saw that it was my way as a foreign visitor of merely showing the commensurate respect......mistakes and all!!!

:-)

Law / Setting up a sole trader business and becoming a resident in Poland - Procedure? [32]

The Netherlands is obviously part of the EU, therefore should be subject to the same taxation (belasting) as the rest of Europe, Poland included. I'd figure that the Dutch are welcome in the larger cities, e.g. Warsaw, Cracow, etc., as many of your companies have long since become multinationals, at least on the continent.

Learning Polish will surely be a challenge, but not an insurmountable one, I'm sure:-)

Law / Setting up a sole trader business and becoming a resident in Poland - Procedure? [32]

Sjors,

DAAD stands for (in English) "German Academic Exchange Service"! Unless it's a related site, this may not be precisely that for which you may be looking:-)

Polonia / What About The Poles In The Netherlands? [102]

Faulty language use is scarcely any reason to openly doubt the veracity of someone asserting their country of origin, Ironside!

By your logic, Lech Wałęsa must be a foreigner, as I've heard tell his (NATIVE!!!) Polish is nothing to write home about:-)

Polonia / What About The Poles In The Netherlands? [102]

Ironside's just trolling, that's all:-)

Polonia / What About The Poles In The Netherlands? [102]

From which country then do you hail, JanekP?

Work / Any Speed School of English in Poland? [54]

Just make sure both you and your students are insured against flying objectsLOL

Work / Any Speed School of English in Poland? [54]

Sounds almost a bit like the Rassias Method, popular here in the States some years back, started by a chap named Dr. John Rassias, professor of French at a New Hampshire college (NOT Middlebury, by the way!), who'd typically throw various objects around the classroom, not necessarily aimed at students however, in order for them to "grasp" the concept both physically and corporally, e.g. "LA CHAISE!!!!, LA CHAISE!!!..", while hurling a small chair across the room, etc.

Not sure in the end how effective it was, but he made quite a name for himself, not to mention ruining a lot of furniture:-)))

Work / Any Speed School of English in Poland? [54]

"Speed School"?? Hmm, that seems an odd name! One automatically thinks of "Crash-Course" School for learning English quickly, not necessarily thoroughly:-) Why "speed", anyway? What's the hurry? I've vaguely heard of "speed dating", but that's about it. Don't mean to knock it. If it's authentically good, then fine!

LOL

Is this linked in any way to the concept of "super learning", once popular in Europe in the late '90's, I was told by a German acquaintance?

Only curious:-)

Work / How to find work in Warsaw "if u don't speak Polish" ! [176]

Bingo:-)

Right on, Maf!

Work / How to find work in Warsaw "if u don't speak Polish" ! [176]

Righto, Harry!

They do enjoy practicing their English. I too appreciate it, so long as they realize it's a two-way street; we practice our Polish and they practice their English:-) Ktoś is right too. Many do not like to speak a foreign language.

Work / How to find work in Warsaw "if u don't speak Polish" ! [176]

Lee'v,

I agree with Polsyr on that! Learning even a little "survival Polish" however, would scarcely hurt:-)

Work / How to find work in Warsaw "if u don't speak Polish" ! [176]

Learn Polish, it'll only help.

Kinda tough, once again, to get by in Poland with only Romanian, English or Spanish:-)

Na rog!

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

...as is the whole world, UNFORTUNATELY!!!!

We're losing our language....not only the Polish, German, and French; every language, perhaps English most of all, is in danger of mutating into some faceless, anonymous muddle, shapless, boring and unrecognizable to its closest relatives:-)

Language / Good quality graded readers for Polish? [4]

More than ok. Didn't even bother correcting the few pittling mistakes:-)

Powodzenia i bądź pilna!

Language / Good quality graded readers for Polish? [4]

I sent you a private message earlier this morning. Did you get it? Curious as to how long you've been learning/studying German!

Stay in touch.