Australia / Difficult situation with moving (Australia-Poland) [37]

I think once more, country music has the answer to one of life's problems

youtube.com/watch?v=ZQs3jZbxFTQ

to be a little less flip. Don't pay attention to what people say, pay attention to what they do.

Seen that way, he's being completely clear about what he wants - to not live in Australia (though for some reason he doesn't want to say it out loud). Nonetheless the message is right out there and completely unambiguous. You need a truck to hit you? He no goee Ozee.

And the desire and determination to live on separate continents really does seem like a deal breaker when it comes to staying married.

Divorce him and go back to Australia.

UK, Ireland / UK passports if resident in Poland [19]


This is easily the stupidest thing I've heard so far this year.

I was able to do my last US passport through the local consular office. I don't even remember having to leave my passport at any time. IIRC once I got the new one they invalidated the old one on the spot.

Drool Britiania!

Life / Doda's spiritual change [9]

There is nothing worse than a reformed skank.

No, I'm wrong. There is - a reformed narcissist.

But a reformed narcissistic skank is in a league of awfulness so out there by itself that it becomes kind of awesome.

Dammit Doda, you win again!

I am reduced to biting my own fist in envy and rage.

Genealogy / Is Wajman or Wayman a Polish name? [15]

I've run across people with the name in Poland, so yeah, it's a name that some Polish peopel have.

But it sounds like it was originally German or Yiddish.

History / Esperanto - an effort by a Pole ... [122]


Different people for different reasons.

It's an open question as to how much Esperanto speakers have a common culture. It's also an open question as to how much a culture is needed for what is intended as a bridge language.

German and French speakers using Esperanto to communicate is no more ridiculous than them using English (considering how hostile British culture was to both the French and German speaking parts of Europe).

History / Esperanto - an effort by a Pole ... [122]


Very true of animals. Less so of people. Granted many have a hard time telling the difference.

When it comes to identity I tend to rank a person's cultural and linguistic affinity over their genetic make up. Kowal McKowalski who was born to first generation Polish immigrants but spent his whole life in the US and only speaks American is less Polish to me than Nguyen Nguyen McNguyen who's lived in Poland for over 15 years and speaks more Polish than Vietnamese.

History / Esperanto - an effort by a Pole ... [122]


You're the racist alway attributing the worst possible motives to anyone and everyone here just because they're of a different ethnicity than you. Doesn't get much more racist than that. You racist.

You're also a sexist cause you immediately assumed "a Pole" was a man.

I think it's great that Ton Van Anh was granted Polish citizenship for several reasons, not least because she faced a very real threat of persecution had she been returned to Vietnam. The fact that she's probably spent more than half her life in Poland is also a factor of course.

To keep this out of the junk pile: The world esperanto congress next year 2012 will be held in Hanoi. Last year was in Cuba (where a bunch of US esperanto users were prevented from going despite earlier hints they would be allowed to).

History / Esperanto - an effort by a Pole ... [122]


Those who can actually read 1 : Harry 0

Ton Van Anh (the newly minted Pole in question) is a woman (obvious from the link without even looking at the article).

History / Esperanto - an effort by a Pole ... [122]

Gazeta Wyborcza weighs in (inadvertently) on the 'Who's Polish?' question

note the headline: "Vietnamese oppositionist becomes a Pole thanks to the president"

suck on that one, Harry (and other purebloodist reductionists):

President Bronislaw Komorowski granted Polish citizenship Vietnam opozycjonistce and activist for human rights Ton Van . At the end of January to petition the president went on to give Ton Van Ahn Polish citizenship.

History / Esperanto - an effort by a Pole ... [122]


AFAIK Polish, unlike Russian, has no way of easily distnguishing between an ethnic Russian (wherever they live) and a citizen of Russia (no matter what ethnicity). Come to think of it, it's hard to make the distinction (succinctly) in English too.

Let's create such a distinction here for Polish with Polak/Polka for the ethnicity and polski/polska for the inhabitant.

Zamenhof was born and lived most of his life in areas that are now Poland an adult he was more fluent in Polish than any other language (his claim). He wasn't a Polak, but you could argue that he was polski.

Capisci?

News / Pubs in Poznan kick out Roma? [256]

Harry, you're awfully quick to condemn others, but what do you think Polish (or other) government policy towards gypsies should be?

News / Pubs in Poznan kick out Roma? [256]


Cause it created some of the most successful societies in world history?

And please, go find some gypsy and tell them that eating meat is dirty and disgusting brutality. I'd pay money to watch that.

History / Esperanto - an effort by a Pole ... [122]

Zamenhof never self-identified as Polish.

News / Pubs in Poznan kick out Roma? [256]

Gypsies (nb I've known a number of them personally) present a challenge for social liberals.

Gypsy culture ..... isn't. That is, it's not a potentially autonomous system, gypsies cannot set up their own society (because there's too many necessary things that gypsy culture won't let them do) they have to live in someone else's culture (a host society).

While they're quick to complain about discrimination (and have suffered from discrimination) they're unwilling to actually do anything that their host cultures value.

Gypsies openly disparage education and hard work and don't have any qualms about victimising non-gypsies (they're somewhat more ethical with each other). I know they're victims at some level but they seem okay with that. Certainly more okay with that than with getting an education and skills and not depending on outsiders to maintain them.

Notably in a special recently shown on Polish tv about gypsies in Slovakia they were quick to complain about a lack of government support but (despite a few complaints about lack of jobs) did not address the fact that they're unsuited to most work (any work where you need the formal education they despise) and mostly don't have any skills that are needed by anyone. They didn't complain about a lack of schools or job training, it was all 'give us, give us, give us or who knows what we'll do'

The overl sefl-righteous, like Harry, tend to overlook the realities of gypsy existence in favor of vague calls for tolerance (or self-righteous posturing).

Life / Support wanted to stop the sale of live carp in Poland [74]


One may!

Meat eating is hardly in the same category as your list unless you accord a cow or pig's life as much value as a human being's.

And let's make this more personal (always safe!) what about your parents? Are they guilty of 'dirty and disgusting brutality'? Your grandparents?

Language / correct word for 'leave' or 'leaving' [5]

beginning with baby steps

to leave a place : wyjść, pójść (both perfective) the second is commonly used in questions of the time 'has he left yet?'

to leave (something somewhere) : zostawić / zostawiać (perfective form first cause that's the base form)

to be left, to remain : pozostawiać (most always imperfective)

to leave (abandon) sth : opuścić / opuszczać (again perfective first)

zostać is either stay (in a place) zostać w domu (stay at home) or become (with instrumental) zostać żołnierzem (to become a soldier)

Life / Support wanted to stop the sale of live carp in Poland [74]

I'm not happy with a lot of modern practices regarding meat, but


is hyperbole. Humane slaughter is a quicker, less painful death than most animals get in the wild and you're spitting on thousands of years of your ancestors who made it possible for you to be so preachy and self-righteous.

Life / Support wanted to stop the sale of live carp in Poland [74]


So?

Language / Polite forms in Polish vs English [49]

I was once told that Proszę + infinitive can sound kind of condescending as if you're talking to a child. Although that was with someone you're 'na ty' with.

What I would probably say would be: Proszę, niech Pan siada!

How's that?

Law / Online Polish banking (in English) [27]


Screw him. There's no excuse for that.

USA, Canada / Education transfer USA (Micro biology from a technical university in Poland) [30]


It depends on why you want it. If you want an official translation then yes, they treat it as a Masters and you can put that on your CV. If you need some kind of certification then they might make you take some courses before they ceritify you.

If your purpose is to go to school (say for a PhD) then that's up to the university you're applying to and it mostly likely will be accepted as a bachelors. But then US universities often don't give full credit for diplomas from other US universities. I once new someone with an MA from a state university and wanted to switch for her PhD (to a state university in another state) and her MA was accepted as a BA (meaning they wanted her to start from zero with a masters).

USA, Canada / Education transfer USA (Micro biology from a technical university in Poland) [30]


That may be true but US educational policy is to not accept foreign educational qualifications as equivalent to US ones.
That may be unfair but it's the way it is right now.

Life / Expats, do you use Polish language for most of time when you are in Poland? [12]

Depends, I've had times when I spend more time around English speakers (mostly natives) and times when I've spent much more time around Polish people. With Polish people who aren't my students I use about 10 times more Polish than English even if they do know English.

I also prefer to use Polish with other foreigners if they do know Polish (unless they're native English speakers).

USA, Canada / Education transfer USA (Micro biology from a technical university in Poland) [30]

There is a service (I forget everything about it but the fact that it exists) that verifies foreign academic qualifications. They'll need an English translation (it didn't used to have to be official) that's as literal as possible (no matter how awful it sounds - they can deal with that, they can't deal with people spontaneously being creative.

Typically a Polish degree translates as a lesser degree in the states. This has less to do with educational standards and a lot to do with the desire to get paying people into classroom seats.

And US universities do not necessarily accept what the other agency says.

That is, if the agency says she has the equivalent of a BS (quite likely) then if she wants a masters a given US university might only accept that as having finished three undergrate years and make her redo the final year of a bachelor program.

If she just wants to work, something from the agency would probably suffice.

History / If i could write European history i would unite Europe under Polish language [67]


You are one seriously crazy guy, Crow.

That is all.

News / Far-right party organizes 'pro-Polish' march in Silesia [20]


Except the part that's in the Czech Republic.....

Life / How many English native speakers in Poland? [28]

I think you need to distinguish between people sent for a couple of months or years by some multi-national (and who don't interact much with the local population except to order people around), those for other kinds of short term goals and long term residents who actually live in normal Polish reality.

Work / Advice for a worried English stranger / Native speaker who wants to move to Poland [23]

I pretty much agree with delphiandomine, there aren't so many women native speakers (especially from the UK?).

Your market position isn't going to be with explaining fine points of grammar. Tell students that up front (always be very clear about what you can and cannot do).

Your strength is in helping learners connect with real usage (and not textbook language). You can help ultimately help them sound more natural and idiomatic (and improve their overall communication skills as they can't fall back into Polish as soon as the going gets rough). You might not appreciate just how needed that kind of instruction is, but once you start working you will.

And if you like being around small kids you should be able to get lots of work that way. Again, make it clear you're not giving the kinds of lessons they can get in school but first hand direct experience. You might make a point of collecting materials for fun language games and other ways to keep small children entertained.

Maybe things have changed recently but even though I'm a man when I was still doing private lessons people were constantly trying to get me to teach their kids and I did do some lessons (it could be fun but since the kids knew I knew Polish it was often a chore keeping them on task).

Don't get discourage by the naysayers you have some real strengths (from what you've written). The biggest question has to do with your people skills and adaptability. If those are reasonably functional then you'll do fine.

Love / Culture of Polish people (searching for a Polish guy who is the father of my baby) [45]

I don't have any fancy academic references, but IME (observing and listening to people I know)

1. If he was interested in being a father, he would have gotten married before the birth. Sex before marriage is the norm and visibly pregnant brides are very, very common. Getting married is the sign he's going to take responsibility (without a fight). Not getting married (for whatever reason) is a sign he's going to head for the hills.

2. I would not believe any Polish man who said he was "trying" to get a divorce. He's either in the process officially or he doesn't want one. There are no other realistic options. Wives trying to hold onto husbands by refusing to grant a divorce just doesn't happen. Sorry.

3. Polish men mostly don't feel any responsibility for the children of women they're not married to (for whatever reason). There are exceptions but that's the general rule (see 1.)

4. The big unknown is his family. There are equal odds that they'll a) bring whatever influence they have (usually a lot) to make sure he owns up to his responsibilities (so they can have access to their grandkid) or b) think of you as the wh*re of Babylon trying to ensnare their perfect little boy by purposefully getting pregnant. There's not much in between those two extremes.

Language / cookery, word usage question [19]


This insidious lie needs to be laid to rest. I like szarlotka but the taste (and pastry part) is not like real apple pie.