News / Has the mainstream media in Poland made too much of what 17 year old school girl said to premier Tusk [41]

You insult yourself by posting such things.

Use the internet. YouTube has plenty of examples of the clip. To make it easy for you, since you're either pretending you've never heard about the incident or you genuinely don't follow Polish current affairs, try googling 'spieprzaj dziadu'.

News / Has the mainstream media in Poland made too much of what 17 year old school girl said to premier Tusk [41]

No accusation; a simple statement of fact.

And one that everyone in Poland knows about and also one that's been mentioned plenty of times on here. If you're too lazy to keep up with current affairs and our politics in Poland, why are you posting in such a thread?

News / Has the mainstream media in Poland made too much of what 17 year old school girl said to premier Tusk [41]

Try the internet.

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

Probably a bit more progressive than the average inhabitant of the region. I remember when I was a student - some of my peers had quite radical views like abolishing the age of consent, freeing Nelson Mandela and getting thatcher out of office. Two of those things came true a few years later. Half of the most "right on" people are probably Tory voting bourgeoisie now.

Not everyone in small towns lives in the past, but there are very good reasons why some people head for the big city as soon as they can. And there are still villages in Poland where every family is expected to attend church and has a hard time if they don't want to.

News / Has the mainstream media in Poland made too much of what 17 year old school girl said to premier Tusk [41]

She sounds a real brat. At least the premier didn't swear at her and abuse her like his predecessor's twin brother did when criticised by a member of the public.

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


Are these students?

Love / What does my Polish work colleague's behaviour mean? [12]


I see what you mean. I was thinking of quite a stern and assertive tone of voice to set boundaries in their working relationship.

Law / How do I get onto the Polish electoral roll to vote in the European Parliament elections? [15]


Hehe - that should include your registered address.


Is there no end to that guy's idiocy.

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


A month ago.


There's still the dead hand of the church exerting huge influence in smaller towns and life for many in villages is still quite inward looking.


I wouldn't go that far, however it's a decent place to live - much like any other town of 300,000 outside a conurbation.

Genealogy / My name is Whitney does anyone know the Polish equivalent/spelling? [7]


It should, since there's no suggestion from the OP whatever that her given name is an Anglicisation of someone's Polish surname. Most young people called Whitney are named after a particular pop singer, recently deceased.


I don't doubt for a minute that you would know about the way Canadians and other North Americans speak, though I would challenge your point that they have trouble with words of over two syllables. As someone who has never heard Polish spoken in Poland, and with English as your first language you may well have difficulty with pronouncing Polish surnames, however here, in the old world people don't generally find it much of a challenge - I certainly never did


Rather few in fact (about number 900 on the UK ranking list, well below Kowalski and Nowak) and again no suggestion the OP is named after someone's surname. And of course the surname derives ultimately from a couple of rather nice villages which when you're old enough to travel as a tourist to Europe unaccompanied, you may enjoy visiting. Though if you go to Witney (the h vanished from one of them) avoid horseriding since you never know who you might meet.

And to the OP, Genowefa sounds lovely but is too archaic, Blanka is rare but probably your best choice as an equivalent.

Love / What does my Polish work colleague's behaviour mean? [12]


Yes - I'm sure he does and probably doesn't realise it's annoying you.


Phrases like "not right now, OK" and a serious look might be a good way to do this.

Real Estate / Poland's apartment prices continue to fall [1844]


A lot of it is just fur coat and no knickers. There are plenty of people in PL with top of the range smartphones who can't afford to make a call on them.

Work / Any Speed School of English in Poland? [54]




The warning bell starts to toll.


And what a coincidence that after so long she just happened upon this thread, only a few days after a guest poster purporting to be the school owner posted on it. And two and a half hours before another guest poster just chanced upon the thread and posted suspiciously glowing praise. Will these coincidences never cease?



Unpaid lessons? Why??

"Have to" do unpaid work? Poland isn't a poor country and real teachers who are competent enough to get work anywhere normal do not "have to" do unpaid lessons. Attending weekly or fortnightly staff development workshops taught by MA or Delta level teacher trainers perhaps. But not 'unpaid lessons'. Ever.

Despite all these (frankly fishy sounding) messages from guest posters praising the place in such strong terms it looks like an advert (not the first time that's happened here), the idea of having to teach unpaid for a profit-making business (never mind working unpaid on the 'clubs and events' that are part of the company's business model) is something bizarre.

Some of the messages running the place down might be an exaggeration (not unknown in EFL), and the truth about the 'school' might well be somewhere between the two extremes however the whole thing sounds a bit dodgy to me.

Real Estate / Poland's apartment prices continue to fall [1844]


That bit doesn't really make much (or any) sense.

Genealogy / My name is Whitney does anyone know the Polish equivalent/spelling? [7]


That doesn't make sense.


Place name, not surname.

A very nice name really. The nicest Polish equivalents are above - Blanka is perhaps the classiest.

News / Krakow, Poland considers co-hosting the Winter Olympic in 2022 with Slovakia (UPDATE) [30]

Referendum in Krakow, on Olympics is on may 25th...

And they overwhelmingly voted against. Krakow has now withdrawn its bid.

So, by the way, have several other cities. Lviv, Bejing and Almaty haven't withdrawn - the last two of those are serious contenders.

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

It depends where you are. What you get in Warsaw or Katowice isn't what you get in the boondocks of Podlasie or Lubelskie. Other places are on a continuum between either one place or the other.

Genealogy / My name is Whitney does anyone know the Polish equivalent/spelling? [7]


Whitney (it's a place) means (depending on your interpretation) either 'white water' or 'white island'. So it would be Białawoda or Białawyspa, neither of which are names. For the 'white' part, there are three names that Polish citizens are allowed to choose: Genowefa (very rare) but that's a bit of an old lady name (perhaps due for a revival), Blanka (also rare) and Wira (even rarer), which most people in PL would associate more with Russian. Blanka is maybe the best bet.

Travel / Driving in Poland, are there any rules at all? [149]

That's a dreadful statistic. Other EU states derecognising driving licenses issued in Poland and other countries high on the list until the situation improves might be drastic, however they've had plenty of time to improve things, yet the number of serious accidents is still tragically bad.

Life / Making friends in Poland - is it easy? [21]

It might be a great experience, going from a city of 15 million to a town of 50 thousand. I expect that would make the student community (a surprise to me that there's higher education in the town) a very close one and it will certainly be something new for ferdi.

If he becomes homesick, he can pop on a bus to Warsaw where there are some very good Turkish restaurants and even a Turkish bar (in the basement of La Cantina on Nowy Swiat).

News / Jaruzelski dead / his legacy in Poland [116]


That happened in Poland during the Second Republic and still happens now. Not that it absolves the PRL of blame for such things.

News / Jaruzelski dead / his legacy in Poland [116]


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law


Yes. He's too complicated to dismiss just as the times he lives in are too complicated for the very young to generalise about.

News / Jaruzelski dead / his legacy in Poland [116]

Now Newsweek can publish the final interview. The one he only let them publish after his death. The first part is on their website already, though it's very slow loading probably due to the number of people reading it.

News / Jaruzelski dead / his legacy in Poland [116]

Whatever you think of him, he had an interesting life.

Travel / Driving in Poland, are there any rules at all? [149]

I remember when I first came to pl and a guy said to me "it takes an hour by car but a 'good' driver can do it in 40 minutes". He couldn't get his head round the fact that in the UK we'd be more likely to say it the other way round.

Travel / Travelling to Wroclaw from Bratislava ( safety advice needed ) [12]


It's OK now and even before, there were always safe places to wait.

Travel / Driving in Poland, are there any rules at all? [149]


+1


Same in Warsaw. The pavements are for walking not riding. Masa Krytyczna is annoying too when they try to stop you crossing the road at the pedestrian crossing.


In Poland they've never been popular.

Travel / Driving in Poland, are there any rules at all? [149]


A friend recently complained that he'd brought his from France to Poland but nobody used them. Perhaps the frequency is different.


Someone did that to us a while ago, really aggressively overtaking on a difficult road. About half an hour later we saw his corpse lying next to the wreck of his car.

Work / Is it possible to pay tax yearly on a few one off payments to my account? [3]

You should do it monthly. You might get away with pretending they're all in the last month of the tax year and declare them then, but that would be illegal and potentially risky, especially if your tax office is a smaller one where they pay more attention to things like that.