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

@Ziemowit,

You're referring to old quip attributed to Voltaire who once commented to a friend who suggested he learn English for his first voyage to England, "But my dear! What is English anyway but French spoken badly?"

:-)

@Polsyr,

Must be tough for Poles especially distinguishing "peeling" from "pilling", such as happens to the thread of a sweater with overuseLOL

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

I've heard both for "brainstorming", actually:-) Guess it depends on how one measures sanityLOL

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

Indeed, Polonius! I'd neglected to mention those:-)

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

As interesting for me as a foreigner who studied Polish is the presence of numerous Latinate words with highly divergent meanings in English, e.g. "dymisia" (resignation), "postulat" (determination) etc.. In English a "dismissal" is not a "resignation", nor a "postulate" a "determination".

Polish does use "outsourcing" and "brainstorming", though doubtless there is a Polish equivalent somewhere:-) I suppose in the end it's rather much like using "origami" in English instead of the cumbersome "Japanese folded paper shapes.." which sounds (and looks) pretty ridiculous!

Language / "Pan" or "Ty" - how people address each other in Poland? [55]

When I address my dog, I only use "Ty":-)

News / Kiszczak burial without state or military honours [44]

Ever wondered why, jon? It's called corruption (korrupcja), sometimes, smoothing the way (łapówka), take your pick:-)

News / Kiszczak burial without state or military honours [44]

Well, guess the judges were bought off somehow! SURPRISED??

News / Kiszczak burial without state or military honours [44]

After massacring striking miners, I think ANY suspension's a travesty!

News / Kiszczak burial without state or military honours [44]

After seeing that movie "Kret", I can well understand why Kiszczak and such ilk would be so buried.
And he never even saw gaol time?? A national disgrace!

Language / "Pan" or "Ty" - how people address each other in Poland? [55]

As a foreigner, I'll typically use "Pan" or "Pani" when addressing a stranger, even an older teenager. Once I assess the nature of the situation, i.e. friendly vs. formal, only then will I switch register!

Law / Starting a business in Poland as a Norwegian (EU) citizen - without a work permit or Polish citizenship [19]

Ktoś,

NP's Norwegian, not Syrian, Russian, Sicillian or Romanian!! This person's least likely to cheat Poles. More likely, if the reverse were the case, and a Pole were looking to set up shop in Norway, the chances are more probable that the Pole would try to take advantage of the Norwegian rather than the other way 'round:-)

At the risk of sounding bigoted here, I'm no "limousine liberal" nor am I a saint, and I don't pretend to be one either! The truth is that for many decades, Poland (like the rest of Eastern Europe) practiced Black Market bribery, something more or less alien to Nordic countries on the whole.

Language / How hard is it to learn Polish? [178]

I then repeat my query from when I originally posted on this thread. If English is deemed so much "easier" than "any Slavic language", why do those who claim such usually speak English so poorly??

The double standard remains; Europeans, for instance, can merrily poke fun at our Yankee accents/ faulty grammar etc. in their respective languages, while we Yanks must politely endure often the most egregious infractions against our (equally) beloved mother tongue, silently putting up with the sneers and snickers from many Europeans, not daring to say a word, lest risking a backlash!!

As far as Polish being a proverbially "hard" language, I maintain that English spelling is at least twice as complicated as Polish morphology... or at any rate, nearly on a par:-))

Language / Beginner learner of Polish having trouble with nouns - they change as well as numbers? [27]

Thanks for the tip:-) You see? Always useful to know the stem!

Language / Beginner learner of Polish having trouble with nouns - they change as well as numbers? [27]

Often, genitive plural of nouns, e.g. "mieszkań", "pań", and "urodziń" will have the compulsory "soft sign" (mnaki znak, borrowed from RussianLOL), while certain others don't:-)

Among the many wonders and worries of the beautiful Polish grammar!

Law / Starting a business in Poland as a Norwegian (EU) citizen - without a work permit or Polish citizenship [19]

NP

We all agree you should be fine with your obviously fluent English skills and knowledge of business admin already in hand!
Learning Polish ought pose no problem:-)

Law / Starting a business in Poland as a Norwegian (EU) citizen - without a work permit or Polish citizenship [19]

Rules for fellow Poles, Norwegians, etc..... are often DIFFERENT for the same "rules" which apply (loosely speaking) to foreigners, for that matter, any outsiders to the fold/business clique!

Same here in the States:-) Don't kid yourself.

Law / Starting a business in Poland as a Norwegian (EU) citizen - without a work permit or Polish citizenship [19]

Pardon, I meant Norway was adamant about not joining the Currency Union:-) My mistake! Of course, Norway, along with that-time West Germany, France and several others were among the first to become NATO members.

@Niko,

Bribery in Poland, is like Nazism in Germany; it'll ALWAYS be there, difference is, now it's "officially" illegal lol

The Black Market didn't disappear, as you and others naively suggest! Like cockroaches and other pests, it will probably survive forever:-)

Law / Starting a business in Poland as a Norwegian (EU) citizen - without a work permit or Polish citizenship [19]

After Prime Minister Gro Brundtland Harlem's (in-)famous "NEE, TAK!" to her country's joining NATO way back in the late '70's, Norway's steadfastly maintained its independence, both from the rest of the Nordic Nations, and from the Continent of Europe as well.

To be sure, it's not incompatible.

@NPBusiness,

Cheers indeed! You'll need a drink or two or three or four in order to clinch a deal with those Black Market buzzards!!
Intrigue dead and buried in Poland, you say??? If they work the same as they do here in Queens, you got another thing coming. Til Lykke:-)

Law / Starting a business in Poland as a Norwegian (EU) citizen - without a work permit or Polish citizenship [19]

First things first. Contact an English-speaking/Norwegian-Engish native speaking business lawyer before you do anything else. They'll be able to show you the ropes, so to speak, of local business culture in Poland, doubtless quite different from that to which we're used:-)

Bribery's common throughout much of the former Eastern Block, it's rather "in your face", in fact, therefore BE PREPARED!

News / Our (UK) Trash tabloid has this exclusive story on the Sobibór Nazi death camp in south-east Poland [35]

I'm only personally familiar with the plaque inside the Buchenwald Camp, not far from Weimar, Germany. On it, virtually NOTHING is written concerning the fact that a large percentage of those killed were Jews, merely, that they were "Communist freedom fighters", at war with the Faschist State of the Nazis!!

Talk about white-washing history.

:-)

Language / Verb classification in Polish language [9]

Chemikiem did just fine.

Language / Verb classification in Polish language [9]

Same here, yet your explanation was a tad more "fleshed out" than mine:-)

Language / Verb classification in Polish language [9]

You seem to know it very well! What is your native language?

Life / Polish culture versus rotten West [279]

And so am I to conclude that you, along with our friend ktoś doubt the need for democracy in Eastern Europe?
To quote Sir Winston Churchill, "Democracy is the most ineffectual form of government known, yet is there anything better?"

Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Tojo and many others have offered a far more expedient form of rule than democracy. But was it worth it all in the end, some over one-hundred-million lost lives later??!

Language / Verb classification in Polish language [9]

I too learned Polish as a foreigner and frankly was often just plain stumped in the beginning!
Context clues are the way I learned the case distinctions, especially hard for me because I came to Polish from German and case usage ofte varies considerably from language to language.

The Genitive is perhaps the most widely used case in Polish, followed by the Instrumental, usually when providing nationalities and/or professions etc... e.g. "Jestem Polak[iem]." = I am Polish."(m.) vs. "Jestem Polką. = I am Polish" (f.), "On jest tłumacz[em]." = He is a translator etc.. As English has no such equivalent, it takes time getting used to.

The Dative always requires an INDIRECT object, e.g. "Pomóż mi!" (Help me!)
The Accusative always requires a DIRECT object, e.g. "Widzę książkę." = I see [the/a] book.
and so forth, and so on...

From hereon in, things get much more involved:-)

Did my reply make sense?

The Genitive was probably the toughest for me to wrap my mind around. On the one hand it indicates possession, on the other hand, it is always used following certain prepositions such as "do", "według", "u" etc.., each one without a straightforward translation into English! As soon as I quit trying to rationalize and make them fit English patterns, I began slowly to think in Polish to the greatest extent possible.

Life / Polish culture versus rotten West [279]

I trust you're being more than a little facetious, Roger5.
LOL

Life / Polish culture versus rotten West [279]

Ktoś,

It is precisely that sort of isolationist arrogance on your part that similarly led the Germans down the garden path straight into hell, both for themselves as well as the rest of us!! Slavs, Germans, Magyars be damned; YOU'RE ALL EUROPEANS, sharing the same continent, and you darned well better not forget it either!!

Before you start trashing the West and, a la "Czar Vladimir I", believe yourselves superior, just remember all the things you owe the non-Slavic Occident, e.g. democracy (via the ancient Greeks), flush toilets (courtesy of the English) and haute cuisine (by way of the French) etc....

:-)

History / "I was more afraid of fellow Poles than Nazi German Officers", says Bartoszewski [130]

@Ktoś,

The reason why undoubtedly many Jewish merchants aka money-lenders etc. may have in fact overcharged usurously in certain cases, was thanks to the Church which expressly forbade them from entering "Christian" trades, thus forcing the Jews to do the thankless job of money lending, FORBIDDEN by Church teaching to gentiles!!

Read your history:-)

History / "I was more afraid of fellow Poles than Nazi German Officers", says Bartoszewski [130]

Hatred cuts both ways, ktoś! Jews did't necessarily start out hating gentiles. Quite the contrary. But when the latter began by burning the Jews' houses aka The Lincolnshire Massacres in 13th century England, the Rindfleisch Massacre in Germany etc...., forbidding them from integration into daily life until they converted forcibly..., well, I suppose I would have turned anti-Christian myself.

It was not the Jews, after all, who instigated the ensuing hostilities, now, was it? Whereas the Christians didn't suddenly wake up one fine morning in May and decide they'd become anti-Semites, the Church stoked such ill will by prohibiting Jews from certain profession, i.e. from joining the guilds, then came the Inquisition. and so forth and so on.

So you see, it's not always so easy to point the finger of blame; there's plenty of mutual finger pointing to go around, my friend:-)

History / "I was more afraid of fellow Poles than Nazi German Officers", says Bartoszewski [130]

As of course you haven't a shred of proof to support your last statement, why even bother to have made it? You merely succeed in embarrassing yourself and your trolling ways.