History / Poland's biggest historical blunder? [341]

Weren't Germans compulsorily drafting even teenagers towards the end of the war as their man force was heavily depleted? As for not deserting wasn't death the punishment for deserters (like in the Red Army)?

Regardless, those were individuals, not Polish troops as you name them. Polish troops were only on one side in Africa, among Desert Rats.

History / Poland's biggest historical blunder? [341]

Poles compulsorily included in German army (like Tusk's grandfather) don't exactly count as Polish troops.


Lithuanian government which was not set in Vilnius. Period.


Maybe. It's not like Lithuania, Czech, Germany, USSR and Ukraine played it all fair, either.


Shame for Lithuania that they entered the theatre of war and lost? Maybe, but they bet on the wrong horse and got what they deserved.

Language / The usage and future of the special Polish letters: ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ż, ź (Polish language) [203]

Once I met one German guy that had such thick accent that I thought he was speaking German unless I really tried to understand what he said. German pronunciation of 'th' is especially funny.

What does 'vremya' mean?

Language / The usage and future of the special Polish letters: ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ż, ź (Polish language) [203]

I didn't judge his competence though, simply stated that he does an awful lot of spelling mistakes.


I saw several German people making attempts at learning Polish and let me say they weren't natural born geniuses LOL. Even their English is usually very wonky.

As to one of your earlier questions, 'ą' used to be nasal 'a', but transformed into nasal 'o' when the long vowels disappeared in Polish. Maybe you already know that, though.

Language / The usage and future of the special Polish letters: ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ż, ź (Polish language) [203]


Well it would be nice if you clearly stated why you wrote that what you wrote in the brackets and a) if you knew what wave interference was at the time of writing, b) you knew that it was not wave interference that actually caused the invisibility (or weaker visibility) of stars in urban areas.

So far everything looks like you look for sketchy and far-fetched sources just not to admit that you were wrong.


There are Caltech sources and there are Caltech sources. I know Feynman's as well as the textbook's editors' contributions to physics, additionally the textbook is worldwide recommended and used tool for education on the first year of physics(-related) studies. OTOH the website you posted could be made by a freshman student.


That's hilarious. You make a lot of spelling mistakes and when I pointed that out, you spin it that I shouldn't judge your English skills. The second excuse is even more amusing, since a) you should review your text before submitting (should take ~15 seconds), b) pretty much every piece of software checks spelling and underlines unknown vocabulary, which makes correcting even easier.


Of course. But earlier on you stated you had no interest in scientific point of view.

OK, I'm out of this discussion and won't reply anymore, since it's pointless.

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]

Population of Poland + Russia = 180M
Population of the USA = 300M

Number of gold medalists 45:18

I added up Poland and Russia as the languages are ultimately similar in terms of grammar structures, declension etc. Unless you suggest that the probability of natural born geniuses is that much higher in Slavic countries, you can clearly see that the language does not slow down creativity or independent thinking.

There are things to improve in the education system, though.

History / Poland's biggest historical blunder? [341]


Go educate yourself, then go back here.


According to Lithuania and Lithuania only.

History / Poland's biggest historical blunder? [341]


A bunch of lunatics? Pretty much trhoughout WW1 until November 1918 Vilnius was under German administration, in November 1918 the city was under Belarussian administration and fell into Soviet hands a month later.




Simply, in September 1920 Lithuanian were together with soviets on the front that was purely Soviet in June 1920:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Niemen_River

History / Poland's biggest historical blunder? [341]


Except there wa no Lithuanian administration there, but whatever.


That territory was Polish before the Soviet offensive. When Soviets were withdrawing Poles encountered Lithuanians in the regions previously, effectively Lithuania was a Soviet ally. The truth of the matter is, if Poland lost the Battle of Warsaw, Lithuania would be conquered soon after by Soviets within days. So not only Lithuania made an alliance with a state that wanted to capture them, they also tried to f*ck the country that effectively saved them. Luckily Vilnius went to the fatherland in 1922.


58% according to the German census in 1916.

History / Poland's biggest historical blunder? [341]


Not true. Poles made 60% of all inhabitants of the region.


Again, not true. In November 1918 Vilnius was claimed by newly formed Belarusian state, however shortlived that was (Soviets captured it next month, Poland in April 1919). There was no Lithuanian presence there until the end of August 1920, after Soviets lost the Battle of Warsaw.


Not really, since Poland making counteroffensive in September encountered Lithuanian troops where they were previously pushed back by Soviets. That's effectively joining the war.

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]


I'm happy you put a link to support me, I'm somewhat unhappy that you put such a misleading title to the link.


Seriously, just drop this theory.

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]


Bollocks.

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

You're fast :P

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]

I'll answet to a page 1 post :)


Yes, it's very confusing, but keep in mind you encounter all such cases at the age 2-5 already and your mind remembers a lot of that stuff. Little children make a lot of mistakes - they're just constantly corrected until they get it right. Again, by the time when formal education starts they have problems only with a bunch of examples (eg. poszedłem and poszłem :))

It is amusing to see that you have mostly problems with noun declension as verb conjugation is also in Spanish and can also be quite irregular, yet I don't think you consider it something that slows children's progress down. Language is a tool that is used throughout a person's life and it's better to make the learning curve slightly higher, but keep it powerful, flexible and prone to subtleties that make our life and conversations often so interesting. :)

One example in Spanish that I'm sure you're aware of and is quite basic are verbs ser and estar - all other languages I know simply use one verb for it (PL - być, EN - to be, GE - sein, FR -e^tre) and so on. Every foreigner who study Spanish must wonder why they Spanish would complicate their life that way. Yet I'm sure for you it's very intuitive and you never make mistakes with that verb. Another interesting example, but one that would cause problems only to English speaking people is the words saber and conocer. English only use to know for it, so when they learn mainland European languages, they have to encounter some difficulties, at least initially. And so on and so on.

I'm sure you noticed that Polish doesn't have definite and indefinite articles - when we start studying Germanic or Roman languages, it's a HUGE barrier for us as the concept is totally alien.

Anyway, you have to practice, then practice and finally practice a little more. Also, at least attempt to think in Polish and don't mind that the sentences aren't correct initially - eventually you'll just "feel" the language. The beginnings are always the most frustrating when you study a language, when the sooner you jump into the deep water, the better!

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]


This is quite simple to explain. The expression "to jest/to są" always goes with mianownik, otherwise it always goes with narzędnik.

To jest mój nowy samochód.
Alfa Romeo jest moim nowym samochodem.

To jest górnik.
On jest górnikiem.

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]

Your approach is your biggest mistake. You constantly look for analogies between languages you speak and Polish. Now you way of constructing sentences is:
abstract idea -> formulating it in Spanish(?) -> trying to translate it into Polish
Whereas it should be
abstract idea -> trying to formulate it in Polish

Because you focus on learning new grammar structures and try to look analogous structures in other languages, Polish grammar rules seem unnecessarily complicated and you don't see the benefits of it, ie. huge flexibility in its use. For example, order of various logical parts in a sentence can be totally random and the sentence has still the same meaning. Let's take a look at a simple English sentence:

A cook bakes cookies.
You can't really mess around with the order of words as the sentence would lost its sense. OTOH in Polish all the following sentences mean the same!

Kucharz piecze ciastka.
Ciastka piecze kucharz.
Ciastka kucharz piecze.
Kucharz ciastka piecze.
Piecze kucharz ciastka.
Piecze ciastka kucharz.
The last two are quite awkward and the first one is the most common, but they are still all understandable and might appear in daily conversations - while for you the noun declension requires a lot of effort, for a native Polish speaker it's his/her second nature and even if he/she makes a mistake, he/she instantly realizes it and corrects it (it just sounds off). For you Polish declension is only a huge complication, for a Polish speaker rigid sentence structures in other languages can be seen as such.

Germans simplified the orthography a little bit (which is by far the worst in English), however they didn't change much else. A language is a process, not something that you can change at hand by law. A child has no prior experience with other languages and speaks and hears a couple of thousands of sentences a day - naturally the language is learnt quickly and does not interfere with creativity etc.


In fact, quite the opposite. Misspellings are mostly of aesthetical nature, you can be still perfectly understood.

Law / Does Poland have the most prehistorical and strictest banking system in the world? [57]

This thread made me giggle. If anything is prehistorical, it's definitely checks themselves!

History / Poland's biggest historical blunder? [341]

Temporarily Lithuanian. And I was talking about August 1920.

History / Poland's biggest historical blunder? [341]


There were pretty much no Lithuanians in Vilnius. It wasn't their land, either.


We wouldn't had Lithuania agreed on plebiscite.

History / Poland's biggest historical blunder? [341]

The city was Polish and no such incidents occurred.


I was talking about Bolsheviks, the only side that recognized Lithuania's rights to Vilnius in August 1920. As Poland did not recognize Bolshevik government until November 1920, your claims that Lithuania entered Lithuanian territory on August 27th is wrong. They were occupying ethnically Polish land until Żeligowski kicked them out.

History / Poland's biggest historical blunder? [341]


With whom? A party not recognized by the international community as legitimate government of any country?

History / Poland's biggest historical blunder? [341]


Why did Lithuania enter Polish territory on August 27th, 1920?

Language / The usage and future of the special Polish letters: ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ż, ź (Polish language) [203]

You original wording:


The way you put interference in brackets would suggest that interference causes Venus not to visible. People use brackets to give more specific explanations that aren't relevant to the main issue, not to throw even more general and incorrect statements, so instead of admitting that you had no idea what interference is, you start personal insults. How typical. Anyway, if you want a reliable source on the matter, I recommend Caltech's "The Feynman's lectures on physics" vol. 2


You surely do a lot of misspellings for an expert, I thought this was another one of them. I never saw "effect" used as a verb (or saw it only on message boards) and my American friend once told me how their teacher were bashing them for misspelling effect/affect back in middle school.


The original wording clearly suggests the physical phenomenom.

History / Poland's biggest historical blunder? [341]


What massacre? It became legitimately Soviet after WW2, because Soviets won the damn war and they were dictating everything.

History / Poland's biggest historical blunder? [341]


Yes, very much so.Lithuanians have been living there for almost 70 years, ancient history doesn't matter.


If you go by "who was there first should rule there forever" than Germany can have no claims over Gdańsk.

Listen, there was no Polish or Lithuanian state prior to 1918 and everything was reset at that time (otherwise you should argue that 1914 borders should remain unchanged). The dominating doctrine at the time was self-determination* and if the inhabitants of Vilnius wanted to be a part of Poland, then they should be and Lithuanian government was the occupant no matter how you slice it. Here's what happened in 1918-1920 period:

November 1918 - Belarus claims Vilnius and surroundings
December 1919 - Soviets conquer Vilnius
January 1919 - the local Poles try to fight Soviets back
April 1919 - Polish army's offensive is successful
June 1920 - Soviets launch an offensive, reconquer
15-20 August 1920 - Poland kicks Russians' butts
27th August 1920 - Soviets withdraw from Vilnius and hand it over to Lithuanians, effectively Lithuanians help Russians to shorten the front and give military support as Poland regains territories lost in June

September 1920 - Soviets lose yet another battle, Poland tries to negotiate with Lithuania to no success
October 1920 - in order to minimize to the bloodshed, Poland signs a treaty with Lithuania to keep their guard down, launches offensive the next day.

Really, Lithuania tried to f*ck Poland but lost at their own game. If Vilnius was Lithuanian, they shouldn't have entered the battlefield, simple as that. As they did enter the battlefield, they should have expected we would fight for it.

*didn't stop Britain from crushing Irish uprising in 1916.

History / Poland's biggest historical blunder? [341]

Pointless question as we wouldn't allow that many Chinese into our territory in the first place. Poles had been tha majority in Wilno and surroundings since XVIIIth century, maybe even earlier.

History / Poland's biggest historical blunder? [341]


Are 60% of Poznań's population Scottish? Are 60% of Iraq's population American?


Pretty much every invasion on Polish territory throughout centuries. And why do we have to list breaking of treaties against Poland only?
And your suggested alliance, while beautiful in principle, couldn't have worked. Germany would still overwhelm us.

History / Poland's biggest historical blunder? [341]


Wilno wasn't Lithuanian at the time, that the thing. It only became Lithuanian because Lithuania entered the battlefield between Poland and Russia. If you enter any battlefield (and aid one of the sides), you shouldn't expect to be immune to fire!


Poles didn't come as guests, they had lived there for centuries. I don't know about Kosovo, is that what people over there want? They're not a part of Serbia or Albania in any case.

History / Poland's biggest historical blunder? [341]

Lithuanians were a Baltic tribe/nation who had their own state and Vilnius was the capital of Lithuania in XIVth-XVIIIth century. At the beginning of the XXth century, Vilnius was inhabited mostly by Polish population.

History / Poland's biggest historical blunder? [341]


It was supposed to be a Polish occupation zone initially though. Everything was ultimately decided by Stalin, what we wanted didn't really matter.


Pretty much all countries broke treaties at some point. If this is supposed Poland's biggest blunder, than we are indeed saints compared to our genocidal neighbours.


Vilnius was Lithuanian at some point, but became gradually polonized during Polish-Lithuanian union.