News / American soldiers beat up in Torun, Łódź [141]


There's no contradiction because "American" does not describe a race . Try and find me an scientific article about "American genetic markers" (and I'm not talking about native Americans).

American is a nationality so this may well have been a xenophobic rather than racial attack.

Have you read any of the comments under either of the articles you have linked to, or the comments in the original linked article? There's no mention of race... but there are a lot of people that seem to be pissed off with the US military presence, or Americans in general.

The truth is, American policy makers do not help their image abroad, and as far as I'm aware the Poles aren't exactly happy being taken into wars for oil and being on the shite end of American "greencard" policies. The US military are the face of the US government. It's not surprising therefore that a couple of uneducated drunken civilians attack the face of the US military. Not everyone in Europe loves the US presence here, and the uneducated certainly cannot tell the difference between the government and its people, or the people serving in their military.

News / American soldiers beat up in Torun, Łódź [141]

Maybe it was more to do with a few drunk Poles disliking a foreign military presence in their town, rather than race?

I have an angry emotional response whenever I see American military in Hungary. They have no business there.

I wouldn't beat them up cos I'm well mannered and a girl - but not everyone is that well mannered....

My hunch is that they were beaten up for being American Soldiers.

There is absolutely no evidence that this attack was racially motivated, speculate until the cows come home if you wish, but until there is any actual EVIDENCE there is nothing to discuss.

Study / Polish language schools in Krakow [30]

I have some friends studying medicine in Krakow. They say the course provided isn't great, but if you're studying there the lessons are supplementary to your course and you don't have to pay for them.

What can we do? Boycott them, I suppose, until the schools realise they are missing a trick. I met a guy who's "teaching" me Polish, in exchange for English conversation. He's an English teacher himself, so he knows how to teach. I'd love to be able to learn Polish properly for reasonable rates, I just happen not to be a millionaire (like most westerners my age..... LOL!) so can't afford it.

Study / Polish language schools in Krakow [30]


Looked at the prices here. Ridiculously expensive, regardless of whether the teachers are good or not.

When will the language schools realise that just because we're from "the west" it does not automatically make us all gazillionaries, with our pockets bursting at the seams?

The English language school which I used to work at had a per hour rate at £6.50 to learn English per hour IN LONDON. and a £20 registration fee

The Glossa prices are (for a class of 8) 2180zl for 60 hours , which works out at 36zl per hour, or £7 per hour to learn Polish in Poland. They also have a 50E registration fee.

Polish language schools charge roughly 19zl per hour in Krakow to learn English, or £4 per hour to learn English in Poland.

Students wanting to study Polish here should bare in mind that Polish is NOT a foreign language in Poland, and that earnings here are one third of what they are in the UK, and that in affect all of these language schools are ripping us off. Time to say no!

Polish schools need to realise that they don't just cater for "rich foreigners"... most of their students wanting to learn Polish actually live and work in Poland and earn Polish wages. Their classes need to be priced accordingly.

Language schools like Accent, Glossa, Prolog which teach Polish to Foreigners are ripping us off and deluded. What a joke! A well priced Polish school would find themselves making a ton of cash, from all of us English speakers who are not rolling in it and need to learn Polish to survive here.

Work / Briton teaching freelance - and the law in Poland [21]


That's what I was earning per hour and before tax when teaching English in London.

Your employer (or you) need to pay income tax and national insurance (ZUS).

You can get a ZUS number (called a NIP) by asking for a NIP7 form at the tax office, akthough this form is only if you are the employee. Self employed people need a different form, but I don't know which one.

You in order to get a NIP you will also need a zameladowanie, which you can get at the town hall. You will need some proof of address.

Genealogy / My dad's last name was Polak - Do I look in any way Polish? [57]


But she DOESN'T HAVE a Facebook account! Remember?

Genealogy / My dad's last name was Polak - Do I look in any way Polish? [57]


I shouldn't need to prove anything if you are the person asking a favour off the forum community here.

You're also a fake photo posting, unregistered troll. I'll give you 5 out 10 on the trollometer. Not a bad score I'm sure you'll agree.

Oh, and if I were a guy I'd also do you. You're hot.

Good day.

Genealogy / My dad's last name was Polak - Do I look in any way Polish? [57]



Oh for goodness sake!


This basically.

It's a nice photo. I like it, and you look pretty. But it doesn't suit your question because:

a) your hair covers most of your bone structure and we can't see your face shape
b) the photo is too overexposed and we cant see any facial definition
c) which is compounded by the fact that you are clearly wearing quite a bit of foundation (not because you have bad skin - but because as someone who spent a lot of time working in a design company who regularly worked with professional photos of people - I can tell)

d) your eye-liner is accentuating the inner part of your eye, which distorts/accentuates them to the viewer.
e) the outfit (although very nice and interesting) is distracting
f) It's clearly been corrected slightly by Photoshop. You an tell because if you look at the left pupil, it has been given extra definition to make the piece more centred. using a pencil tool. Take a close look forum users.

Infact,.. I'm given the quality of the photo and the clear professionalism with which it has been treated pre and post production, and the fact that you are an unregistered user, and given the harsh reaction in which you accuse women of behaving in a certain way, I'm starting to highly doubt that it's actually you, and this thread is intended as a troll.

I'll say it again anyway though, troll or no:

If you post a picture of yourself, without loads of make-up on, and without half of your face being covered by tons of hair... you might get a more realistic and meaningful answer. You can take offence to that if you want, but you shouldn't.

It shouldn't be too difficult to find a different photo. I'm sure you have plenty of pictures of yourself which are more adequate for the purpose of your question on Facebook.

I wait with baited breath as I'm sure it won't materialise. However, I'm willing to eat my hat and apologise if it does.

Genealogy / My dad's last name was Polak - Do I look in any way Polish? [57]

TiffP

If you post a picture of yourself, without loads of make-up on, and without half of your face being covered by tons of hair... you might get an answer.

Language / Useful tips on learning Polish? [25]

Sorry... something went wrong with my maths. I meant 1200 zl for 45 hours teaching time.

It works out as about £5 per hour per student.

When you consider that in the school I was teaching in, in the most expensive part of London, was charging £2.60 per hour in the afternoon for 50 hours a week (and £1 per hour if you booked yourself in for a whole year) it does work out as expensive.

Especially since all the teachers at the school were at least CELTA grade B qualified, some with DELTAs, and some with MAs.

How can it be at least twice as expensive to learn Polish in not even the 2nd largest city in Poland, than it is to learn English in the most expensive city in the world?

Love / Polish girls want to be dominated. Fact? [63]

I second this wonderful piece of advice.

Language / Useful tips on learning Polish? [25]


Really? That is good value. In Krakow class rates run at approx 700zl for 60 hours. So I stopped going. Far too expensive.

Love / Polish girls want to be dominated. Fact? [63]




Dude. It's not his fault that she chucked you. Why all the anger at him?

From the way you talk about him I guess you made her love herself, all her friends loved you, you made her laugh (cos you're so funny!) and all the while you were giving her LOADS of orgasms and kissed her like you were some kind of love God.

To be honest she sounds like a d1ck. And you sound up your own a55.

A little humility in this situation wouldn't go amiss, along with a bit of self reflection and wisening up.

Sounds like a really fun relationship.

Love / Polish girls want to be dominated. Fact? [63]

Women are strange beasts.

As a woman I can say that I completely DO NOT understand the reasoning of most women. Sounds to me like you got yourself a little drama queen. Personally I never behave like that - but some women just love to fish and see if they can keep the man coming back for the same tasty worm.

She's playing you. Essentially you called it off by walking away and now she's dangling the hook to see if she's "still got it" - that's exactly what the whole kitten pictures/bulls*it is - "oh aren't I cute and feminine and lovely". F*ck her off. You don't need a woman to mess with your mind. There are plenty of better girls out there.

Life / Why are Polish so conservative and religious? [240]


What ARE you talking about? Not you. The OP. He's a lying troll, as evidenced by his complete inability to come up with accurate facts. His posts aren't examples of "extreme secularism" as you put. His posts are examples of trolling and the bending of facts.


Not really. He's not my friend. And he said he hates religion. Like I said before, find me an example of someone saying


and I'll withdraw it.

I hate tomatoes but I don't think they're a bad thing. AFAIC everyone has the right to practice religion as they see fit, if it aids personal spiritual growth how can it be bad?

Organised religious institutions on the other hand.... now that's a different kettle of fish all together.


Not at all, not even close. Having said that I don't think that forcing a woman to go through an unwanted pregnancy by law (it's akin to mental torture - and I can find you reams and reams of research into that), or calling an entire section of society "perverted and disgusting" and not giving them equal rights as consenting (and that's the important part) adults adds to quality of life.

There is religion. And then there is religion in law, and organised religious institutions.

Life / Why are Polish so conservative and religious? [240]


One good aspect of a liberal society is that they do not enforce their religious beliefs on those who do not necessarily hold the same belief by enshrining it in law (that's the important part). The most intolerant, damaged societies in the world are currently places where religion is law. Take a good look at the wahabbists in Saudi Ariabia, or a look at Somalia, and you can easily see how law based on religion quickly leads to intolerance. Look at figures on standard of living, freedom of thought, and happiness indexes of the world and it's clear that the most secularised societies win hands down.


I tell you what you find me a quote of that vein from this thread and then I'll withdraw it.


No, what you can see is extreme trolling, and extreme lying at its worst.


Clearly. The OP did a good job at not researching and out-rightly lying.

Life / Why are Polish so conservative and religious? [240]

Troll or no troll it's good that the standard of debate in these forums are actually being looked at in factual terms, and is a standard I think which is on the increase in Poland itself.

One could always say "since when is religion a GOOD thing?". Both examples of extreme secularism and extreme religiousness have man MANY bad points that one could quite easily reference. Your question is a little silly.

No one's said religion is a bad thing. An unquestioning, unchangeable, dogmatic mind is, however, a bad thing - in the case of both religion and politics . Especially when it goes against the actual teaching of the founder of the religion/party in the first place. If people wish to boast about how pro-whatever it is they are, then why not, as long as they have a good thought process and solid facts to back up their claims.

And just in case people were wondering, claims like - "Cos the priest said so" or "cos gays are perverted" or "cos a foetus is a child" or "cos the Pope is Polish" no longer cuts the mustard any more in debate especially with those Poles who are under 30. All statements like this do is show intolerance, a lack of scientific, biblical AND humanitarian understanding, and an unwillingness to move beyond a childish "cos I said so" followed by throwing toys out of prams style of debate.

Damn these Polish youth, with their critical thought processes!

Life / Why are Polish so conservative and religious? [240]

I'm not so sure that the younger generation are so religious.

Most of my boyfriend's Polish cousins do not attend church, dislike the catholic church, and some are agnostic.

The reason Poland is so staunchly religious is compounded by two things:

1) The Catholic church was the only uncensored voice against communism for nearly 50 years.

2) The Pope during this time was Polish.

Without these factors Poland would not be as "religious" as it is now, and as these two factors are no longer at play I think we will see an increasing secularisation of Poland.

Many Polish youngsters,in my experience, seem to think that this overt show of religion is nothing more than pretence. I tend to agree, some of the most Catholic people I know are also the worst kind people when it comes to racism, homophobia, and tolerance. The actual teaching of Jesus seems to have bypassed a lot of Catholics, but I think the youth in Poland are waking up to this and are a lot more moderate, certainly when it comes to things like contraception and gay rights. Not a bad thing IMO.

Times are changing. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

Life / Is Poland a poor country? [578]

It depends if they are looking at the money cost, or the cost as a percentage of household income (which I think they might be). I'd like to know the figures that uswitch used so I could see myself how they calculated it. Personally I think that the international living table gives a more accurate representation. Really it depends on what is important in your life.

Life / Is Poland a poor country? [578]

Poverty is subjective because people put too much emphasis on the numbers in money, and how much one earns.

There is no difference in earning $700 a month or $1400 a month if it buys you the same quality of life, the same house and the same food the same healthcare, and gives you the same holidays.

The question perhaps should be "Does living in Poland afford you a good "quality of life".

Well according to USwitch
uswitch.com/news/money/uk-worst-place-to-live-in-europe-uswitch-quality-of-life-index-890419
out of 10 countries surveyed including Poland, the UK offers nearly the worst quality of life while they are the top earners of the countries polled (£32,766 per year), and Poland comes in 5th out of 10 even they own the least (£7,986 per year - a quarter of what the UK average household income is).

This chart
www1.internationalliving.com/qofl2010/?field=final
uses a different method and puts Poland below the UK. (although not that far below) 21st I think out of approximately 50 countries in Europe. Which I wouldn't class as poor - but then it depends on what your definition of "poor" is and if it includes health, happiness and holidays- which to me it does.

Life / Question about hot water in Poland and the use of water heaters? [52]

I'm in Krakow and we get our hot water directly from the power plant. It's a new building.

News / Poland now soft-pedalling ACTA signing [107]


This is Oxfam's view on what would happen with this agreement in place. An impact on developing countries with developing healthcare systems, denied cheap, generic drugs.


It would be devastating to everyone. It would mean that drugs new will be put on hold even before the mega-pharmaceuticals battle it out in the courts to deicide who's "idea" the drug was. In the mean time, it denies drugs to the (usually poorest) people who need it the most. Like I said, lives will be lost.


Not with ACTA in place you can't.

This is from infojustice.org/archives/5719


Great... let's lock up the doctors too!

There isn't a facepalm big enough in the world for this "treaty".

USA, Canada / Can you BE Polish without SPEAKING Polish in the US? [256]


No, but id did provide us with an entire fleet of Pilots to the UK war effort in WW2. Many of them stayed in the UK but still have relatives in Poland. I think we at least owe these people a little something, don't you?

News / Poland now soft-pedalling ACTA signing [107]


And therein lies the problem. If you can't be bothered to learn about it, how can you form an opinion? A quick Google will show you how well media making profits are at the moment:

Walt Disney made a 40% profit on the year before in 2010. The Q4 profit of 2011 for NBC was 38% higher than the last year. Time Warner profits jumped 22% in 2010.

So please, do a little research before you start talking about how media companies "aren't making a good profit". I'll be very VERY interested to see the 2011 end of year figures.


I hope this is a rhetorical question. Obviously I am mighty peeved about the whole thing. It may well be the death knell for the European countries' national healthcare programmes.

News / Poland now soft-pedalling ACTA signing [107]


Lots of people say that torrenting "kills jobs"

I don't really think this is true. It's like when people said that taping songs off the radio, or coping something on to VHS would kill the industry1 MP3s were going to kill the music industry not long ago! I mean libraries were meant to kill authors FFS! It's a tired argument hashed out by companies that refuse to update their outdated business model. They are lies, and it's about time that people stopped listening to them.

Most artists tied in to big record companies don't really see a lot of profit from releasing albums any-more, most of their money comes from gigs, and merchandise. And the music companies make quite a lot of their money pedalling music videos to TV companies, and places like Youtube actively promote album sales. Either way, they are still making billions in profit.

It's the same with TV and films. DVD sales count for far less than they do for selling a series to the TV networks, and often torrentlng actually encourages the purchase of films and TV series, as does music.

How many people in the UK would have had access to something like "The Wire" without torrents? Not many, I can assure you. And how copies of The Wire were bought on DVD without it ever airing in the UK? Tens of thousands.

How many people are opened up to smaller independent films on sites like Youtube? With ACTA, I think the quality of films would drop, as we would only hear about the films with the biggest budgets (ie crap), and be done for copyright infringement for even uploading a small clip of a new, exciting indie film we just found.

Are TV companies really losing money if I watch re-runs of (for example) Masterchef Australia, considering you can't buy it anywhere, and the TV companies in Europe are not showing it?

I think torrentlng and file sharing is a very complex issue, which HAS NOT been looked into adequately by DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED BODIES.

So why an undemocratically elected lobby is pushing this through, when the real issues haven't been discussed yet, I don't know.

What's more worrying is that ACTA will affect the real world. It will limit our access to generic medicines. It also treads into the dark waters of political suppression of information.

This thing could very realistically KILL people.

News / Poland now soft-pedalling ACTA signing [107]


It will be an absolute disgrace if Poland and/or Europe sells their citizens to the US by ratifying this agreement.

The reason why I decided to leave the UK in the first place was because of the governments obsessive pushing of the US agenda onto their citizens , and the continual decimation of privacy laws and big-brother type polices.

I would truly be proud of Poland and Europe if they reject this agreement, and would be proud to call myself Polish and European if I could. As politics stand, I am utterly ashamed to be associated with the UK government, and am ashamed to be a "representative" of them.

I truly hope that common sense wins trough, and the US "intent police" are given the boot. I do not wish to be "policed" by a nation which holds the world record for jailing its citizens.

News / Poland now soft-pedalling ACTA signing [107]

If you don't like ACTA, don't forget to sign the avaaz petition.

avaaz.org/en/eu_save_the_internet_spread/?fWbmLbb&pv=284

News / Poland now soft-pedalling ACTA signing [107]


Could you explain the gist of this video? My Polish is rather poor.

News / Poland now soft-pedalling ACTA signing [107]

It's a hammer to crack an egg (You can use that one too!)

USA, Canada / Can you BE Polish without SPEAKING Polish in the US? [256]

I think it's pretty difficult to get into the "mindset" of a culture without speaking the language from which it was derived. The languages we speak alter our perception of the world to quite a heavy degree. The grammar structure can alter our perception of time, alter out logical thought patterns, and genders can alter how we see the objects around us.

There are two things that make a culture, the obvious "learned" culture of traditions, which are handed down from your mother, father or both. This however can become diluted, when new cultures and traditions are absorbed, especially when living in a foreign country.

There is also less obvious subconscious nuances of language, which allow greater insight into how a "nation" thinks, and changes your perception of the world without you ever know it has done so. This kind of thing can't be learnt or handed down in the same way that traditions are.

In my opinion it's pretty hard to be "Proper Polish" without speaking the language, in the same way you can't be "Proper English" without speaking the language. You could imitate the traditions, but it would never really give you a truthful insight into how a nation thinks.

Here's an article which may be of interest.

buber.net/Basque/?p=68