News / Komorowski - Russian stooge, traitor background [42]


Well with Poland's particular system there's no guarantee a government can last five years, the last PiS government didn't.

And the president isn't such an important position (the powers of the position are all negative).

And BK is not in the league of Lepper (convicted criminal whose policies have no basis in reality) or K-M (who fortunately doesn't know any better than to say what he thinks which keeps him safely marginalized). He's a competent, if unspectacular and not very charismatic politician.

If JK wins, expect more of the same as the country got from his brother (constant bickering over trivial issues of protocal and/or roadblocks for the sake of roadblocks).

If BK there will be something different, I'm curious about what it might be.

News / Komorowski - Russian stooge, traitor background [42]

Poland had a PiS/PiS government and most people didn't like it (since PiS invited proto-fascists and known criminals into their government),

it had a PO/PiS government and wasn't much happier about it,

why not try a PO/PO government for a change?

If they don't like it, they can always try something different.

News / Komorowski - Russian stooge, traitor background [42]

I wonder, wonder, wonder ......

News / Komorowski - Russian stooge, traitor background [42]


And he never forgave them for that slight....

Life / Does anybody care about the elections in Poland? [26]


**** off every other country for no good reason and bring about deep buyers' remorse as quickly as possible?

(what I expect to happen should he win)

Language / będzie potrafił? [34]

To further muddy the waters,

umiem to zrobić - I know how to do it

wiem, jak to zrobić - I know how to do it

IIRC the difference for most speakers is the first implies that you've done it before, while the second doesn't (or maybe it's the other way around, my mind is a little muddied itself at the moment)

Life / Cosmetic surgery in Poland... [40]

My advice, unless you have a real physical problem and/or debilitating condition - dont do it.

Many people who go in for cosmetic procedures are thinking about some feature in isolation (instead of how it works with the rest of their looks) and forget that changing that one feature changes how everything else looks in relation to everything else. The overall result (to me) almost always seems to be a net loss in terms of attractiveness. Just my opinion....

Language / Can you recognise the nationality of foreign Polish speakers by their accent? [43]

Don't Silesians do something like that too?

Love / I'm a black African man and can't cope with my Polish mother in law [34]


Well in her culture, not really. In a lot of Polish families the idea is that getting upset and yelling some is no big deal. Nobody wants that all the time but a certain amount of arguing doesn't bother most Polish people. Loud arguments don't really indicate a lack of respect or concern for each other. If anything she'd be showing a lack of respect if she didn't try to impose her will (it's hard to understand but that's the way Poland is).

My advice is yell back some or at least be open to arguing. Don't overdo it, but most of the time Polish people respect people who show some temprement and stand up for themselves and they don't respect people who sulk or expect to be 'respected' but won't engage in negtiation or give and take.

News / Komorowski - Russian stooge, traitor background [42]


Who are you talking about? Komorowski's father? Kaczynski's father? Both? Someone else?

Language / będzie potrafił? [34]

This brings up the old commie slogan - Polak potrafi!

I might (very freely) translate that into modern American as "Poles get it done!" or "Poles can get it done!" (I think the plural is more idiomatic in modern English)

Language / będzie potrafił? [34]

I would say that potrafić is neither perfective nor imperfective (being both is functionally the same as being neither). It's one of the places where that distinction breaks down (or has broken down with this one verb).

Semantically, it seems (in my non-native intuitions) to be more perfective in that it implies some kind of completed action.

Morphologically and etymologically it looks perfective too (perfective trafić = plus a prefix po-). And IIRC there used to be an imperfectve counterpart potrafiać which is no longer used.

But as będzie potrafił indicates, it functions syntactically in modern Polish as an imperfective.

USA, Canada / Polonian or Polish food in America better? [26]


Polish people in Poland have a hard time finding the ingredients to make Polish food? What the....?

IME American raw ingredients don't have the right taste, while the finished product may be okay it doesn't have that Polish taste. I've never had ogórki kiszone in the US that compared with Polish ones.

The same thing works in reverse, I find it hard to replicate the taste of home prepared American food in Poland. I tried using maślanka in a recipe that called for American style buttermilk and the result just wasn't the same... (I like drinking maślanka more than American buttermilk, but it's not so good in cooking while American buttermilk makes any dish it's in better).

News / Komorowski for complex-ridden Poles? [94]

A vote for Komorowski is basically a vote for Tusk.

He (Tusk) has said and done some dumb things in the past but IMO he's basically not too horribly wrong in where he wants the country to go (how's that for a rining endorsement?)

It would also be interesting to see what would happen without the deadlock between a PO PM and president.

A vote for Kaczyński is basically vote for all the things that most non-PiS voters disliked about his brother and more so.

His biggest strength is in deal making while his biggest fault is ... deal making. Barely has the ink dried on the last agreement before he wants to re-negotiate. That's one major reason PiS never got anything done when they had the chance. That and all the wasted time putting the fools and charlatans of SO and LPR into the government.


Oh you naive dreamer. A candidate has to be a fool to take a specific position on a specific issue (in this particular election). Both candidates prefer image and vague slogans to real positions that they could be held accountable for.

I'll reformulate slightly:

A vote for Komorowski is a vote for more of what Tusk has been doing.

A vote for Kaczyński is a vote for more of what his brother had been doing.

We're not gonna get anything more concrete than that (actually I don't think we need it). Anyone who expects anything else than what I've written is in denial, misguided or a fool.

USA, Canada / US Polonia 70% for Kaczyński [343]

It's not a cult of personality, it's one of the ... defining features of the Polish political scene.

In short, a political party is a vehicle for a specific leader and any dissent means the dissenter leaves to either retire from politics or start up his own vehicle. The term used to be 'pocket party' in Polish and it's what both PiS and PO have turned into.

Ironically, they both started as attempts to create traditional kinds of European political parties with different voices and internal debate but both quickly devolved into leadership vehicles for the Kaczynskis and Tusk repsectively as anyone with any kind of serious disagreement with the leaders were muscled or frozen out.

The only real political parties in any traditional sense are SLD and PSL. And although PSL has largely become the vehicle of Pawlak, but it predates and will survive him whereas I doubt if PiS or PO could survive the departure of their current leaders.

SLD of course had the advantage (if you want to call it that) of inheriting a party structure and functioning like a political party by doing little things like keeping internal squabbling mostly out of the public sphere and grooming younger members to play important roles in the party, both of which are neglected by PiS and PO as far as I can tell.

USA, Canada / US Polonia 70% for Kaczyński [343]


I think they do, but ...

A lot of Polish in the US don't have US citizenship.

Even if you give up other citizenship, some governments (including, I think, Poland) will issue you another Polish passport. What the US government doesn't know won't hurt the dual passport holder.

USA, Canada / US Polonia 70% for Kaczyński [343]


Plus, they've never had to live under a government with a Kaczynski in charge.

Most of the Napieralski (and JKM) votes were protest votes against Komorowki's gaffe-prone campaign and most of those should go to Komorowski in the next round.

But my biggest fear is the run off. A lot of potential Komorowski voters will be on vacation and the PiS voters won't.

As one talking head on tv said, in the first round (Polish) people vote for lots of different reasons, in the second round they vote against the candidate they like least. I imagine that despite the core popularity of JK he has bigger negatives than BK.

If JK does, somehow win, I expect the Polish public will find out just how little he's changed and regret trusting him (just as they regretted trusting him the first time around).

That isn't to say I completely dislike him. I just think that PiS functions better as an opposition party than a governing one.

Life / Small change in shops in Poland!? [95]


But you made the fatal mistake of trying to explain and/or reason with her. Don't do that, it just encourages them. You have to learn the flat, indifferent I-don't-care stare and wait her out. Look at it as a war of nerves. You might find it hard, culturally, in the beginning, but it gets easier.

You can also try the nuclear option: say 'trudno' and give up the entire purchase (without offering to put anything back where it goes). That usually works wonders in producing hitherto missing change.

Life / Small change in shops in Poland!? [95]

This is slightly annoying at times, but as cultural scripts go, it's very easy to manage. Watch what Polish shoppers do and do something similar.

1. When you hear the amount, first look for small change at the end and give any you can. Don't be afraid to offer a few grosze less than the bill (especially in smaller shops). If i'ts 16.28 and you offer to give them 23 grosze they'l usually jump at it.

2. If they ask and you don't have it, all you have to do is make a show of looking in your wallet and say one magic word: Niestety. (literally: "Unfortunately", here it means "Nope, no small change. Your problem."

3. Here's the tricky part for obliging English speakers. Don't do anything else (esp try to explain in English, that's just dumb). Just stare straight ahead and let time pass.

4. The person behind the counter will figure something out. They may go elsewhere to find change (like the store next door) or they may ring up a few customers in back of you who do have small change. Maybe something else. Don't worry about it. Eventually you will get your change.

Interestingly, in Hungary it works in the opposite direction. If you try to give anything like exact change they glare at you and/or throw it back at you.

UK, Ireland / Do Polish People Litter their own country (just like they do in the UK)? [84]

IMO Polish people don't think about litter. If you point it out they say they don't like it, but mostly they can just not see it and many who say they don't like litter will casually litter themselves.

At home, most Polish people are very clean and organized but they don't much care if parks and forests and streets are littered (certainly not enough to do anything about it).


And we call those people 'filthy pigs'. Really, that's just so disgusting.

Law / HELP IN IMMIGRATION SOUGHT " PERMANENT RESIDENCE IN POLSKA" [20]

By 'original' I meant 'notarized copy' of course. The distinction I intended was that I showed them that (with a xerox of the notarized copy) and they kept the xerox not the notarized copy. I thought that 'original' would same some space, in vain.

Law / HELP IN IMMIGRATION SOUGHT " PERMANENT RESIDENCE IN POLSKA" [20]


That's backwards, AFAIK they're within their rights to want to see the original and a copy together. Then they keep the copy and return the orirignal (at least that's what happened in my case, but the local office liked me, even suggesting I apply for stały pobyt when I didn't realize I qualified....

News / ANTI-POLONISM IN EUROPE [39]


Huh? 'refused' presupposes that they could speak English. Was this in Italy? Britain?

(I've never been, but from what I hear English doesn't get you very far in most of Italy, French goes a lot further).

As for most Anti-Polish country in Europe, I would nominate Belarus.

Real Estate / Rights To Partners Flat In Poland - Cohabiting Agreement [21]


She may not have any intentions on scamming you at all. But, be aware, when Polish women break up with non-Polish men, very many of them (not all, maybe not most, but many) acquire a 'take no prisoners and give no quarter' attitude.

If you break up (esp if break up is less than cordial) chances are she will not pay you back any money you feel she owes you and will not live up to any verbal agreement she made previously. She will regard the apartment as hers and hers alone no matter how much money you paid into it (and she will not regard any money you paid into it as anything that she needs to worry about).

Also, in cases of mixed Polish/non-Polish break ups, Polish law used to overtly favor the Polish partner (and that's when they had the benefit of a marriage contract). Even if the regulations have been changed, I doubt if the enforcement has.

Long time residents of Poland who've seen acrimonious break ups (or experienced them) will back up what I've written.

Your girlfriend might be a wonderful person who'd never do anything like that, but enough Polish women (and men) will do things like that that you need to be aware and protect yourself.

My advice: Don't do this unless you get married and both your names are on everything (or you don't mind losing any money you put into it if you break up).

Don't say you haven't been warned.

Life / Driving test, English speaking driving school in Warsaw? [95]


If the motionless person who is obeying the law is not Polish and the driver that ran into them is, then the police will find in favor of the Polish driver. One of the many, many reasons I don't want to drive in Poland.

Cars and anything related to them are the festering black heart of corruption in Poland. Another reason to not like them or their influence on society.

Latest proof of my thesis that Polish people loose almost all sanity when it comes to cars: the increasing existence of semi-suv type vehicles which do not fit into Polish infrastructure in any possible way.

News / Polish, non-speakers told to bring interpreters to municpal buildings [7]

I can't get too upset about this. This is an office for dealing with foreigners who plan on being in Poland for awhile.

If such a person can't

- speak Polish

- find a friend to translate,

- afford an interpreter

There's probably no reason for them to be here because that means they have neither the personal or financial resources needed to justify a long term stay.

If you're talking about an office that has frequent contacts with foreigners who are here very short term, then yeah you need some foreign language back up (not just English, but French, German and Russian too).

But I see nothing wrong in not facilitating longterm stays by people who can't (or won't) learn Polish.

News / Crash of Tu-154 at Smolensk-North--could it have been a bomb in the Polish plane? [233]

Olga, if you want to be taken seriously you need to

1. source your allegations (provide links or give info on how the interested can find the hard copy) when you don't do that it creates the impression that you're making things up in your search for answers

2. think things through, a bomb on board means it was planted in Poland, do you really want to go down that particular road?

3. provide a narrative, who (singular or plural) was the target? and how were things planned on such short notice? who benefits? who loses? In those terms you could almost construct a narrative that PiS was responsible as they stand to gain the most in the short term (their poll numbers have increased recently and they have a better chance of getting Jarosław into office via sympathy vote than they did of getting Lech re-elected.

I've been pretty unimpressed with the evidence so far put forth. So far there seems to be exactly the kind of confusion and different stories one would expect at this stage (everybody involved and all witnesses saying the same thing would be far more suspicious).

I do think you're sincere in your desire for answers, but on the other hand, it seems you've already made up your mind (damned russkies!) and are just looking for confirmation rather than trying to understand the event on its own terms.

I'm open minded about the idea that foul play was involved (given compelling evidence) but I'm also open minded about it being a simple tragic accident. I think you're in denial that the latter possibility is a possibility.

News / Is it possible that Polish president was assasinated? If so then, by whom? [921]


He's the last of the European Soviets, a committed totalitarian thug.

News / Is it possible that Polish president was assasinated? If so then, by whom? [921]


It was? Can you give the 100 word version here? (or pm me if you don't want it in this thread).

I don't believe the official story, but I've never sifted through everything enough to decide for myself what did happen.

UK, Ireland / Polish opinion of England as a country and the English nation [64]


Oh lord, no.