Polonia / Libanese born to a Polish mother - applied for Poland's Citizenship. How To Live There? [5]

You better apply for Polish passport when your citizenship is confirmed. Then you can stay as long as you want to.

Work / Cost of living in Gdańsk, average salary for experienced software engineer in Poland [64]


On the other hand, days are long and nights short for the other 5 months, what is nice :-)

Cinek

Work / Is it possible for me to work as an EMT while studying in Poland? [3]

Hi,

You could try in Pogotowie Ratunkowe. They may need someone with fluent English in bigger cities. You could start as a volunteer then maybe became professional.

Cinek

Language / Why Genitive instead of Accusative in Polish language? [8]


Oh please, stop confusing people.

Ogórek is definitely masculine.
The proper sentence should be:

"Ona ma jeden zielony ogórek" and this is how people would say that 20 years ago.

However, in today's Polish there is tendency to make some inanimate male nouns animate, and this is just one example of that.

So in the sentence: "Ona ma jednego zielonego ogórka" there's still Accusative, but ogórek is used as it was masc animate (not inanimate, as dictionaries still say).

Cinek

News / Is Poland a safe place to live? CBOS survey. [7]

Hi,

I always thought Poland was dangerous because I remember Poland in much worse times. It was until the day I talked to a French expat family (NATO soldiers in Bydgoszcz) who were living here for a few years. They made me realize that we don't have many of the problems that cities in France and other western countries are facing today, especially caused by migration. We don't have riots (almost ;-), gun shootings, rasist incidents etc. So yes, after living here for almost 40 years I can say that Poland is a safe place today, what used to be not always true.

Cinek

Po polsku / "Co sądzita" - zwrot w języku polskim (Oscar dla "Idy") [15]




Tak na prawdę to jest pozostałość po liczbie podwójnej i w języku staropolskim oznaczało "wy (dwaj) róbcie" i "wy (dwaj) sądzicie" i było jak najbardziej "literackie". Z biegiem czasu liczba podwójna zanikła a końcówki '-ta' (i inne) "skolowializowały sie" i są postrzegane dzis jako nie poprawne, bądź gwarowe.

To takie moje 3 grosze ;-)

Cinek

Work / Suggestions for starting a business in Poland ( I have 50/60,000 USD ) [59]


I'm sorry to say this, but the above plus your lack of any experience in what life in Poland looks like in winter makes your idea completely not doable. Some time ago we (I and my wife) were looking for a place to start a kindergarten and also started on internet offers. And I can say you from my experience, that what you see on the web page photos very often differs very much from what you'll see when you're on place. If you want to make a place where people can sleep, wash, eat you must obey very strict rules that are required by Polish law that concern things like number of emergency exits, number and quality of bathrooms, width of doors, fire-proof materials, ventilations etc. Additionally, you must make sure that the place will be warm enough in winter, so you must be able to asses the quality of heating system, windows (yes, the quality of windows is very important when the temp outside is -20C) yourself.

You have no idea (and so had I) about how detailed Polish law is, when it comes to building anything that will be a public place, so you will have to hire a Polish construction law experts (probably at least 3 - one for general construction one fire-man and one sanitary system expert - of course they usually speak only Polish) for help, what makes your costs much higher. If you never heard about Sanepid and Nadzór Budowlany then forget about doing it yourself. You'll need a Polish partner who has at least some experience in building anything in Poland to start thinking about that.

Cinek

Work / Life of Foreigners in Warsaw - salary (supply chain specialist; logistics), monthly expenses [24]

It's a standard practice in Poland when employing new people. After the 3 months if they won't like your work they can just say you goodbye with no consequence. But if you'll be working well they will sign the "infinite time contract" that will give you (and them too) more protection, i.e. 'okres wypowiedzenia' and 'odprawa'.

Cinek

Real Estate / Wroclaw....good parts? Any "affluent, quaint European, suburb" areas here? [14]


Like this?:
google.fr/maps/@51.0541054,17.0146819,3a,75y,289.77h,77.23t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sbiQ4XYXsEh27inp632tWiQ!2e0?hl=pl
I don't know if it's comparable. If you're looking for wooden houses and open lawns then not in Poland. Most single family houses have small fenced gardens. We have also a lot districts full of blocks of flats that used to be surrounded by open grass, but it's usually being replaced with parking lots today.

Cinek

Work / Storage Admin 3 years experience in field IT - salary in Poland [36]


I think yes. And it's relatively cheap.

Cinek


Be prepared for at least 2 weeks temp below -20 each winter. But on the other hand, -20 C with snow in February is much better than +5C in darkness, fog and rain in November.

Cinek

History / Ethnic, lingual and cultural relations between Poles and Lithuanians before WW1? [4]



If she spoke Polish then probably yes. Still today there are many Poles in Lithuania and they speak Polish.
On the other hand, if your grand spoke Lithuanian she may even have hated Polish.

Cinek

Language / Imperfective verb question [9]


What do you mean? 'Być' is one of the few verbs that have no perfective form.
Give us some examples of the sentences you have a problem with, or at least English sentences you're trying to translate.

Cinek

Life / City, County etc. structure of Poland? [3]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_divisions_of_Poland

Language / Order of words when adding one word? [9]


As is anniversary - anno = year in Latin.

We sometimes use 'miesięcznica' instead (miesiąc = month).
It is used in colloquial speech only and usually as a kind of joke, but it may suit in your case.
So one could say 'Wszystkiego najlepszego z okazji dziewiątej miesięcznicy (blink;-)'

Cinek

Po polsku / Czy Wietnamczycy mają mniejszą szansę na pracę w Polsce niż Polacy ? [8]


Nie wiem jakie dokładnie firmy masz na myśli, ale domyślam się że małe lokalne firemki lub urzędy.
W poważnych firmach, jak Intel, Google, ALU, Atos, Motorola, Microsoft, Mobica i inne, które zatrudniają setki informatyków (głownie programistów) w Polsce tego typu układy raczej nie działają.

Te firmy praktycznie rekrutują cały czas i zawsze przyjmą dobrego informatyka.

Cinek

Po polsku / Czy Wietnamczycy mają mniejszą szansę na pracę w Polsce niż Polacy ? [8]


Myślę, że to przesada. Może gdzieś, gdzie jest naprawdę dużo absolwentów, a do tego ci obcokrajowcy nie mówią po polsku, to mogą mieć problem.

Ale jeśli znasz się na swojej robocie, i do tego mówisz po polsku (a widzę że tak) to nie powinno być problemu w tym zawodzie.

Np. w Bydgoszczy jest jedna firma informatyczna (na A.. jeśli ktoś szuka) która sprowadza nawet pracowników z Indii czy Afryki, bez znajomości polskiego.

Cinek

Language / Correct spelling of surname pronounced Can-your-chef-ski? [8]

The main problem is with the 'a' sound in 'can'. The closest equivalent in polish should be 'e' but Keniurszewski would sound weird in Polish.

Koniurszewski or Kaniurszewski could work, thought still artificial and pronounced slightly different.

Cinek

Language / Variations of the verb Chodzić [11]


- to go (regularly, e.g. to school) - chodzę do szkoły - I go to school
- to work (about a mechanical device) - e.g. ten zegarek nie chodzi - this watch is not working


- to do something well - e.g. ten rysunek mi wyszedł (also udał się) = the picture I made is good
- in fixerd phrase "wychodzić za mąż" = to marry (about a woman only, for man you'll say 'ożenić się')


- to enter, also in some fixed phrases like; wchodzić w biznes, wchodzić w konszachty, wchodzić w towarzystwo, wchodzić w relacje, wchodzić w układy, wchodzić w skład etc..


- to cease/stop/end - kaszel mi przeszedł = I have no cough any more
- to go past something - przeszedłem obok sklepu - I walked past a shop


- to be accepted/liked by someone (about a thing, food etc.) - ta zupa mi nie podchodzi = I don't like this soup


- to disappear, to come out of sth. - gdy wyprałem sweter to wszystkie plamy zeszły = when I washed the sweeter all stains came out of it.

- to die - where is Zeb? Zeb's dead = gdzie jest Zeb? Zeb zszedł..

Cinek

Language / A little Polish grammar. Masculine, animate objects. [64]


Never say this to anyone!
In this sentence you expresses great disapproval to the person who's your mother. Actually, you're saying that she's not even a woman but a 'to' ('it')...

You should say:
- "To jest moja matka" when pointing or introducing
or
- "Ta pani/kobieta jest moją matką" when describing the person.

Beware! Omitting 2 small ogonki (a-ą) makes a HUGE difference in the meaning of this sentence.
Cinek

Language / How to say 'more' in various contexts [9]

The distnction between wiecej and bardziej lies along the line between być (to be) and mieć (to have). One can mieć więcej and być bardziej. So you must always ask yourself if you are talking about attributes (something is ..., something is like...) or possesions (something has ..., someone wants to have more...). You use bardziej for attributes and wiecej for possesions.

Cinek

Language / Polish online slang phrases? [12]


Don't confuse with CHWDP

Love / English girl. Do Polish men afraid to show their feelings or they are just not comfortable in UK? [84]


Sick, overworked, feared, bored? There may be many explanations. Ask him if he likes this situation. If he doesn't then go (both) to a doctor. If he does, then ask yourself if you'll like it too

Cinek

Life / What do you think about buying clothes from Poland by e-shop? [5]


I think Polish cloths are not cheap, at least compared to what you can buy in other countries (mostly made in China).
So unless you focus on good Polish brands that are (or can be) known worldwide (are there any???) you may easily fall in the very competitive market.

Cinek

Language / What is the difference between BYĆ W STANIE, UMIEĆ, and MÓC? [18]


Sorry, I'm afraid you missed again... This sentence means more or less: 'I'm not a fool, I know how to use the train to get there

Cinek

Language / A little Polish grammar. Masculine, animate objects. [64]

It also means 'in some/someone's way' e.g.:
po staremu = in the ways it was before (earlier, in older times - stary = old)
po polsku = in "polish language ways"
others:
po mojemu = in my ways, in the ways I see/do it
po bożemu = in the right (God's) way
po prawdzie (arch.) = saying the truth

It can be also used in more creative ways e.g.:

po szkolnemu = in the way one learned it in the school, using standard school rules
po cinkowemu = in the ways Cinek always does it ;-)

Cinek

Genealogy / Is Poland Germanic or Slavic? [58]



I'd say quite the opposite. I think that eastern Germans can call themselves Slavs because the east Germany territories were settled by Slavic people in early Middle Ages and were gradually germanised by

tribes from north and west. Some Slavonic dialects could be heard in there as late as in XIX century, and currently only Sorbs retain their slavonic language (upper and lower sorbian).

See this map:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:West_slavs_9th-10th_c..png

or the entire articles in Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polabians
wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavs

Cinek

Law / A general legal question about inheritance in Poland - debts [31]


The child is always asked whether he/she accepts the legacy in full. So if the debts are greater then the total value of the properties and money then they can always reject it.

Cinek

Language / rules for genetive declension of female nouns ending in 'a' [8]


I'm a programmer too and wish you luck with that task. And I want to warn you that collecting all the available forms (declensions, conjugations, plurals, genders etc.) of Polish words to make you program work is a HUGE task. So I think you should try using an external dictionary. This one: sjp.pl has a very useful feature that allows for finding the 'base' word given any form of it (which is not so obvious in other dicts). Once you have the base you can find the full table of declinations/conjugations in any other online dict (e.g. wictionary.org).

Cinek

Language / Please help me understand Polish adverbs [30]



No! In this sentence 'dużo' is a numeral which denotes the number (amount) of "praca" (work - noun) to be done vaguely.

But if you make a sentence like:

Dużo pracuję - I work much

then 'dużo' becomes an adverb that describes a verb 'pracuję', so it now suits your definition.
This part of Polish grammar works much the same way as in English, you only need to be careful when discriminating the actual function of a word in a sentence based on the context (actually English is much more vague in this respect :-) )

So you have a (quite rare) example where one form of a word in Polish may serve different functions depending on a context (dużo - numeral with nouns, or adverb with verbs).

Cinek

Language / 'BUKOWINSKA' - Address terminology [5]


I dont think so. Can't imagine 10 numbers reserved for one parcel. And even it was so it'd be probably 30-40 (which usually means from 30 to 40).

30/40 means building (or parcell) 30/ flat (or internal building) 30.

Cinek