News / Multi-culti (in Poland) -- roadmap to disaster? [344]


You're quibbling about definitions and missing the main point here. None of the examples given are okay and none of them should be tolerated. Blithely saying there are no no-go areas is just enabling really negative behavior that no country needs.

(and yeah, white no go areas suck too as do no go areas for non-whites or muslims)

News / Multi-culti (in Poland) -- roadmap to disaster? [344]

As a group, Somalis are really the worst of both worlds. The traditional culture has always been very violent and they're mostly Muslim (with the backwardness and low social capital that comes with that).

The _only_ way that Somali immigration won't be a disaster is for it to be selective (not very many and more highly educatable) and keeping them as far apart as possible. Once you get a large number of Somalis together they tend to start acting as if they were in Somalia which is the very opposite of civilization.

(I would welcome any counter examples of large Somali communities with low crime and low use of social benefits and high education).

News / Multi-culti (in Poland) -- roadmap to disaster? [344]

Diverstiy only works for a society within a framework of similarity where the 'diversity' ends up being variations on a theme.

True diversity, where a significant portion of the society disagrees about the basic ground rules, leads to conflict and the greater the diversity the greater the conflict.

The traditional model of the US was built on a large common ground and as long as all groups accepted certain organizing principles - majority rule with protection for the minority, rule of law, the idea that every individual is supposed to pull their weight economically, if you are helped you should be grateful, etc etc there could be significant diversity in diet, religion, clothing, lifestyle etc. Even if a lot of people had trouble living up to the ideals in real life the fact that there was a common set of values held society together.

Conversely, a more homogenous society without much variation in religion or ethnicity can support deeper ideological divisions.

But no society can stand ethnic-lifestyle diversity combined with ideological diversity.

In the European context this is very clear with immigration. In short, importing large numbers of Muslim peasants (or groups with high rates of internal violence) does not do a single good thing for either the host country or the new residents. We know the results of that experiment very well and there's no reason not to pull the plug on it.

In terms of Poland immigrants (to the extent they're necessary or desired) should prefer culturally similar (non-Muslim) groups from the former USSR and/or groups with a good track record of pulling their weight economically, integrating and not causing problems (like the Vietnamese).

Life / Will Polish people be accepting that im only half polish? [63]


I don't know if they will but I'll personally find you and beat the crap out of you, halfbreed.

( I'll add that I'm just joking since many here are humor impaired).

News / Wal-Mart coming to Poland? [146]

Fifteen (or maybe even ten?) years ago this would be a major story. But now? Meh.

There's no innovation or change here as they would merely be taking over already existing stores of the same kind and won't be bringing much (or anything) new to the mix.

News / Poland's Kaczynski blames Russia for brother's death [30]

Not being interned during martial law? He can never forgive the communists for that slight.

News / Poland's Kaczynski blames Russia for brother's death [30]


Your only mistake is understatement. He's been using his brother's corpse as a political weapon since about a week after the crash - it's been one of the most gruesome political ploys I've ever witnessed. In the process he wrecked the tremendous outpouring of goodwill and hopes for reconciliation in this very divided country and tried to increase the divisions to keep his own career afloat (and/or exorcise the guilt he must be feeling). I will always despise him for choosing his personal political ambition over the wellbeing of the country.

There's about 25-30% of the electorate will still vote for his party for one reason only - they don't have anyone else. Oddly enough the long term beneficiaries of his current strategy are ... the left (including post communists who for all their corruption seem viable in comparison).


I did too but I got over it.

Life / Marketing Speak or mumbo jumbo talk from Poland? [22]

If you're talking about contentless (or fatuous sentiments) dressed up to sound either dynamic or trendy or formal then the communist period had lots and lots and lots of examples.

AFAIK there isn't so much reliance on business-speak in Poland. Business and working culture is very different from the US and Poles generally aren't prone to talk about the slog to make more money in glowing inspirational terms. What there is is usually directly translated from English and while it sounds dreadful (there's no way to say 'we will move forward robustly' in Polish and maintain your dignity) it's not really indigenous.

Academic speak in Poland and legalese can be pretty awful as is the language of laws (as in the language used to formulate laws) where nobody cares much about intelligibility or logic or consistency so that many laws are obscure and hard to interpret. Those wanting to legalize long stays in Poland often have problems because of pretentious (and unclear) wording that tends to be interpreted differently by different local authorities. But most of it doesn't translate in funny ways (unlike commie jargon which can be hilarious in its awfulness).

News / Wal-Mart coming to Poland? [146]


I'll go you one further. For a while, one of the first McDonalds in Poznan was a date restaurant (including candles on the tables).

News / Wal-Mart coming to Poland? [146]

Does this mean that soon Polish people will soon start to look like this? walmart shopper

courtesy of the splendor that is People of Wal-Mart

peopleofwalmart.com

News / Lithuanian ambassador 'Poles not loyal citizens' [63]

While the Polish government is quick to condemn Lithuanian authorities it should also be pointed out that Poland has a history of not honoring bi-lateral agreements on minority education. Specifically it has historically underfunded (or just not gotten around to opening) Lithuanian language schools for the Lithuanian minority in Poland.

And as pointed out, Lithuanians in Poland can't use specifically certain names in dealing with the Polish government. How is this different from what the Lithuanian government is doing?

I'm all for Poles in Lithuania being able to use Polish and I think it's hypocritical for Poland to complain about conditions there when it hasn't lived up to its word either.

News / For all Americans worried about Schengen in Poland, dont worry about it. [142]


That doesn't bother them IME, ignoring rules is the national sport. What bothers them is foreigners who don't know how the system works (which includes learning which rules to break and how) and also refuse to learn and expect the country to adapt to them and who get all preachy when it doesn't.

A certain kind of foreigner in Poland tries to play rugby when everybody else is playing soccer (and then gets mad when they're sent off the field).

Poles generally expect that the longer you're in Poland the more you should play by Polish rules. They don't mind making allowances for short term guests but don't like people who've spent years in the country and still expect special treatment.

Language / Czech language sounds like baby talk to most Poles. Similarities? [222]

Meh. I far prefer Slovianski, far more Slavic in terms of grammar and 'feel'.

steen.free.fr/slovianski/

Language / Czech language sounds like baby talk to most Poles. Similarities? [222]


What about cislo (number) is there czyszło or czyslo or something like that?

Also, quickly, there are two different issues.

1. degree of closeness - how 'close' the languages are in the linguistic family tree

2. mutual intelligibility - how easy it is for native speakers to communicate

They're two separate issues. Polish and Czech are very close in the Slavic language tree (closer than Polish and Russian or Ukrainian or Belarussian) but are less mutually inteliigible.

IME Czechs understand more Polish than vice versa (this kind of assymetry is very common). One reason (suggested by a Czech I knew) was that Czechs are used to hearing different kinds of Czech (regional dialects, informal and formal registers) on a regular basis (not to mention Slovak) while Poles mostly just hear Polish (which doesn't have so much dialect or register diversity anymore).

Language / Czech language sounds like baby talk to most Poles. Similarities? [222]

Antek, from a formal linguistic point of view Polish and Czech are very close. Many of the funny differences are still based on cognates that any linguist can spot.

Czech laska is a cognate of łaska, kolo of koło etc.

The problem is that Czech and Polish built their 'educated' vocabulary (words you need for government, science and the arts) separately with different priorities accepting and rejecting different western words (as opposed to Romance languages which simply imported words from Latin). But the basic grammar is very similar to Polish though the relatively small differences will seem larger to Polish and Czech native speakers.

Life / The Polish Way to Ask Questions [41]

More what I call a theoretical word than a real word, that is it can still be found in dictionaries but a native speaker can comfortably go their whole life without ever using it.

Words in -an are unpredictable and the only way to learn if they're nouns or adjectives (or both) is trial and error. That's the kind of irregular and unpredictable derivation that makes high level fluency so elusive.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


What is this based on? I've spent some time in Hungarian and living standards are not higher than in Poland. And Hungarian society is a lot more stratified than Poland with a small elite and larger have not class (not to mention gypsies). And Hungary had the misfortune of the disastrous socialist Gyurcsany government that devestated the economy.

Every year in the early 2000's I spent a couple of weeks in Hungary but had a break between 2005 and 2008, in 2008 the country seemed to have gone backwards economically. This year things seem to (maybe) making a modest upswing. Differences in lifestyle make direct comparisons difficult but I wouldn't say Hungary is better off than Poland (Czech republic probably yes).

News / For all Americans worried about Schengen in Poland, dont worry about it. [142]


They're avoiding you?

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


Who's making that argument? The argument is that while Poland is not as rich as the richest western countries that doesn't mean that it's poor (esp by world standards).

Another part of that argument is that generally living standards are increasing for most people and a lot (not all, maybe not most, but a lot) of the poverty that poverty does exist can be traced to dysfunctional behavior (chronic alcoholism, lack of family planning and/or education etc).

Enough with the strawman arguments.

Food / Ok, what is it? Golumpkis or Golabkis? [13]


I'll take that into consideration as soon as Polish speakers stop using forms like

jeden beatles
dwaj beatelsie

jeden hipis
dwaj hipisie

The correect forms in (American) English are

one golumpki (or whatever, I'd just say 'cabbage roll')
two golumpkis (or golumpkis)

one pierogi
two pierogies


hipisi even

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


Or like wanting to put someone with a cold into a hospice....

Poland is definitely poorer than the richest countries in Europe.

There is poverty in Poland.

But calling Poland 'poor' in a blanket statement is insulting to those places with real poverty. Poland is not well to do, but it's getting by okay and living standards are increasing for most of the population.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


In order Buenos Aires, Manila and Jakarta (there are lots worse pictures of living conditions that make those look not too bad but I didn't wanna bring everyone down to much).

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


Exactamundo!

Those who insist on calling Poland poor are going to have to come up with an entirely new vocabulary in English to describe this

or this

jakarta.indymedia--09.jpg

Love / My Polish girlfriend's mother called her a prostitute because we live together [113]


Catholics in Poland don't read the bible to any special degree (and the dictates of priests are more often honored in the breach. If it's thought to be wrong then why are there so many visibly pregnant brides being married in church? If anything Polish people IME are a little suspicious of a woman who's still a virgin in her early 20's.

All the evidence I have is that while random sleeping around is discouraged, it's assumed that a serious couple will be having sex and pregnancy serves as a catalyst to set the date and legalize things.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


That's not the point. The point is they make (at least) 1800 more zloties a month than is counted in any official statistics. I've known more than one 'unemployed' person who made more than the national wage off the books. Official statistics just don't give a very good picture of the real numbers.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]

Things that stand out here.

- By most standards, Polish is poorer than the richest countries of the west.

- By those same standards, Poland is probably richer than most countries in the world.

- There is some real poverty in Poland.

- Most people in Poland are not wanting in terms of meeting basic life needs.

- Living standards are mostly improving in most parts of the country.

- A lot of Polish people who aren't poor by most objective standards still have a subjective feeling of being poor.

- Some people don't want to think of Poland as a poor country.

- Some people really do want to think of Poland as a poor country.

Out of these, the most interesting to me is the last. I'm really wondering about the reasoning of those who insist that most Poles are poor when, by local standards at least, they're not.

Life / bicycle feasibility in Warsaw [11]

I really like bike riding and would happily bike to work in nice weather but there's no way I'm going to share the road with crazy Polish drivers (there are some very good drivers but there's also a higher percentage of horrible, dangerous drivers than I'm comfortable with).

a few reasons:

- corrupt licensing - in the past it was often easier (and required!) to bribe the driving instructor than to actually learn how to drive safely. I'm not sure if the system is still as corrupt as it once was but I've been in a car or two with people who have no business having a license.

- brawura - I'm not sure if there's any correlation between reckless chance taking and age/experience. But enough Polish drivers (experienced or not) like the idea of speeding around and taking chances that driving is on the dangerous side no matter how safe any indivicual driver is

- Polish people are so used to stupid dysfunctional rules that they have to learn to ignore that many of them can't recognize good rules (and don't see any point in following them).

Love / My Polish girlfriend's mother called her a prostitute because we live together [113]

Without reading every single comment so far, this is a little extreme on the mother's part.

As far as I can tell there's never been any special idea in Poland of pre-marital sex being wrong. If anything it's expected. Parents aren't necessarily happy about it but it's what they did and so they don't have a lot of room to complain.

On the other hand, living together without being married was considered wrong (and still is often enough). I'm not surprised at all that her mother is unhappy for her co-habitating with some guy in a foreign country with no plans of marriage on the horizon. That's completely understandable.

On the other hand her reaction was kind of .... extreme. I assume that there is more going on here than we're being told.

Study / Need advice on MA programs in Poland [13]


And won't have the support structures that Poles use to economize either....

Polish universities in Polish can be very good, in English? Not so much.