Life / Russian citizen wants immigrate to Poland [39]

Your English is frankly no better and no worse than most contemporary younger Russians who know the bread-and-butter basics of our grammar and orthography, however fall completely flat when it concerns natural, idiomatically-correct usage:-)

Back to Poland. LEARN THE LANGUAGE!! Don't rely on your Russian (or even your EnglishLOL) to get by in Poland. Many Poles also know German quite well, although nothing's a substitute for a solid grounding in the language of the country in which you intend to live and work.

Life / Russian citizen wants immigrate to Poland [39]

Your English's clear enough! Maybe I don't understand what Putin's doing, but I'm not sure YOU understand what Poland's going through right now either, Andrei:-) Indeed, as refugees come streaming into the West via Poland, Poles are going to be far too caught up in the moment and sheer survival against an onslaught of outsiders to really focus adequately on the idealistic dreams of a solo Russian visitor with his own problems and issues.

@Marsupial,

I read the Polish press daily and am quite well informed.

Life / Russian citizen wants immigrate to Poland [39]

Andrei,

Your premise about wishing to move to Poland because Russia is becoming too "aggresive" for you etc. seems to me at least somewhat over the top, if I might say so! You're still young, I assume, and rather idealistic. Good luck in your pursuits but don't be too bruised if your bubble bursts on impact:-)

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

Absolutely spot on, Dominic!

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

Well, obviously!

The principal reason I studied Polish was because most of my Polish-speaking clientel spoke no English whatsoever.
German on the other hand, the majority had studied in school, had participated on study trips to the FRG and many knew it fluently:-) They preferred of course to converse/do business in their native tongue.

Life / Is living cost in Poland lower than Germany ? [32]

One city was referred to as the Miracle on the Vistula, i.e. the Slavic Tiger, because of her miraculous development!

Life / Is living cost in Poland lower than Germany ? [32]

As her economy improves though, Poland will start becoming more expensive. Having never compared the living standard in either, I cannot accurately judge:-)

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

Surprisingly enough, more than one might think. The universities of, I believe, Dortmund and one in Berlin, offer full programs (and chairs) in Polonistik aka Polish Studies:-)

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

Grzegorz & others,

Curious if you or anyone else knows how many young Russians are fluent in Polish:-)

Life / Poles hard working or just born lazy. [58]

Unfortunately, there's also the reverse: "You get what you pay for! If something costs next to nothing, it's generally worth next to nothing!"

@Dougie, how much had y'all been drinking at the time?
LOL

Life / Poles hard working or just born lazy. [58]

Poles in my experience have a reputation for being an intensely hard-working people, on average! Nearly all the so-called "D.D.D." (Difficult-Dangerous-Dirty) jobs, at least in Germany for example, such as mining, farm work, construction etc. were always done for the most part by Polish laborers.

My first Polish textbook was a Communist-era paperback volume back in the '80's before I even thought of studying the language seriously, called "Pracowita matka" aka "The Industrious Mother".

:-)

Life / Spanish engineering student is moving to Bialystok - cost of life and information about the city. [38]

Once again best of luck to you, companero! You're going to need it. I'm pleased to see you've decided to "take the plunge" ( as we say here in the States) and learn some Polish. Even a simple "Dzień dobry!" (!Buenos dias!) etc. will take you a long way.

Poles, except the most wrongheadedly nationalistic, scarcely expect the average foreigner to speak their wonderfully intricate language, so any attempts in that direction are always greatly appreciated:-) Unlike certain other nationalities, if you make mistakes, you'll hardly be laughed at or belittled, you'll only garner the respect of the Poles.

Life / Spanish engineering student is moving to Bialystok - cost of life and information about the city. [38]

Manuel,

What are your plans for learning at least basic Polish? Kinda tough not to have even a rudimentary knowledge of the target language before moving clear across the continent:-) Contemporary Poles will doubtless want to try out their basic English on you, but without knowing what they're really saying/thinking, I'd advise you not to think you can rely solely on English or Spanish!

Buena suerte/Powodzenia,
Marek

USA, Canada / Finding a job without work permission in the US [32]

While scores of "illegals" do in fact work aka find jobs in the States, this ought to be the exception and not the rule! Sadly, as the US greed culture ever since ol' Ronald Reagan has worked its stranglehold on American business, if the average businessman -or woman can get something on the cheap, they'll do it (...with a vengeance) and, above all, with virtual impunity:-)

Genealogy / How many Jews lived in Poland and did they ever convert to catholicism, if so when? [62]

Jews have been living in Poland for perhaps a "mere" six-hundred years, but in Europe proper since the Roman Empire. We're surely no longer strangers, guests or visitors, but form the bedrock of the Judeo-Christian Occident:-) It was not until the Enlightenment however that Jews throughout much of the continent began to be granted the rights and privileges of national citizenship. Many did indeed convert to Christianity, yet remained proud Jews in secret, as a result, enormous contributors to European culture, the Germans Heinrich Heine, Felix Mendelssohn and Gustav Mahler, only to name but a few:-)

While Polish Jews/half-Jews were slower in coming to the fore, there was surely no dearth of great Polish-Jewish writers. etc., identified with their Jewish heritage or not, e.g. Juliam Tuwim, Bolesław Leśmian, Jan Brzechwa (his father was Catholic!), Tadeusz Różewicz and a host of others.

News / Pole-basher Gross up to old tricks [284]

@Ironside, old fellow, if I'd meant "verified" (prawdziwe) I'd have written it, believe me. I meant "valid" in the sense of "legitimate":-)

Before you leap on a questionable word choice in one of my posts, the word choice errors in yours would fill a page, sir!
LOL

News / Pole-basher Gross up to old tricks [284]

Don't blame all Jews for the missdeeds of some, Grzegorz!! Norman Finkelstein has spoken of an "Auschwitz industry", an alleged attempt to turn the Holocaust into a sort of sympathy factory. That's practically as grotesque and revolting as those who have tried to scam the legitimate memory of survivors and the their families by publishing fake stories of their own experiences.

Both are horrid, but don't let's throw the baby out with the bathwater:-) Valid recounts of what happened must be preserved in the collective conscience FOREVER!!!

News / Pole-basher Gross up to old tricks [284]

Just maybe when certain events in history or people are demonized, it's for a good reason. 'Really think that Jews enjoy drumming up quasi-sympathy twenty-four seven??! We have better things to do with our time:-)

News / Pole-basher Gross up to old tricks [284]

You mean the Brothers Grimm, Ironside!
LOL

News / Pole-basher Gross up to old tricks [284]

@
Ironside, do YOU understand the meaning of historical revisionism?? Of course the Poles don't want Gross' research to come to light, as it's clearly a source of wounding shame to all but the most intransigent of anti-Semites. Decent thinking people, TRUE Christians, not Sunday churchgoers, be they Poles, Germans, Hungarians, whatever, believe that such things that happened were wrong.

Sadly too, there are others among our tribe who seek to profit from both the ignorance and suffering of others. This is the real shame here!

Israel's another not too dissimilar example. There have been numerous cases in which Palestinian Arabs have been killed unapologetically by Israeli forces. They've been hushed up however, precisely because they are a source of embarrassment, hence branded as lies by most Israeli Jews.

I might add at this point that more than half of all Holocaust survivors never saw as much as a penny in compensation aka restitution! Therefore, the myth of the "sneaky Jews" en masse enriching themselves from their suffering's a bunch of hogwash not to mention a particularly venal slur.

News / Pole-basher Gross up to old tricks [284]

Well, something sure must've happened in that barn all those years back for there to be such a fuss made, that's for certain! Many a "true" story has been ruined by OVERverification!

"FIction", Ironside??! Same folks are saying the identical things about the Holocaust itself.

News / Pole-basher Gross up to old tricks [284]

Again, six or six-hundred, it naturally should never have happened in the first place! Noone's questioning that it happened, rather, are the stats massaged or accurate:-)

News / Pole-basher Gross up to old tricks [284]

And so Jedwabne and Kielce are grounds for questioning Gross' Polishness or patriotism???

News / Pole-basher Gross up to old tricks [284]

Gross merely has to prove his case, that's all. As with the equally contested lunar mission of '69, Neil Armstrong until his dying day ALWAYS maintained his crew's and his participation in the moon landing, i.e. that is was NOT some hoax cooked up by Nasa in order to beat the Russians.

As with the photographs now housed in some Japanese probe either showing or not showing the lunar module left on the surface of the moon all those decades ago, all Gross needs is the hard forensic evidence to support his ugly claims.

After that, he's basically home free and it turns out that Jedwabne was not a fig newton of some Pole-bashing Jew's fervid imagination!!

:-)

Classifieds / Private English Lessons by Experienced Professional Teacher in Poland (Warsaw) [107]

Being an honestly competent professional, rozumienic:-) What's hard to understand about that??

News / Pole-basher Gross up to old tricks [284]

Thanks for the link:-)

I knew it must have been a typo.

Classifieds / Private English Lessons by Experienced Professional Teacher in Poland (Warsaw) [107]

Just maybe, it's because the educated natives among us honestly DO know the ins-and-outs of our language more naturally and aesthetically correctly than a foreigner, that's why! Allright, Joseph Conrad wrote such stylistically perfect English that even I was fooled reading "Lord Jim" in high school. And yet he could never have taught it, as based on reports at that time, his Engish accent was sooooo Polish in both intonation, rhythm, even word choice, that he was all but barely comprehensible:-)

My point is that an intelligent foreign-born English teacher, for instance, always defers to the native born-English teacher, in terms of professional ethics etc.

News / Pole-basher Gross up to old tricks [284]

Interesting "missprint" in our local Polish paper. "POLACY ZABILI WIĘCEJ ŻYDÓW NIŻ NIEMCÓW." What was probably meant, though misstranslated from the English, was "POLACY ZABILI WIĘCEJ ŻYDÓW NIŻ NIEMCY", as Gross' statement concerned the alleged fact that "The Poles murdered/killed more Jews than (the) Germans (did)" vs. "The Poles murdered more Jews than Germans"!!

For want of a definite article, the meaning in Polish may have been more than slightly skewed. Undoubtedly, Gross issued his statement to the German press in EnglishLOL

News / Pole-basher Gross up to old tricks [284]

@Polonius, old chum. Whether it was one-thousand or three hundred, it was three hundred too many:-)
Fact of the matter is that Poland engaged in pogroms even after the War had been over, e.g. Jedwabne and Kielce.
Figures may become massaged over the years, yet the pain is never erased!

Leave us not split hairs.

News / Pole-basher Gross up to old tricks [284]

Gross wrote a book many years ago (in English!) called "Fear" aka "Strach". I read it and it was about Jedwabne.

Is anyone else familiar with this volume?