Work / Diary of a Teacher in Poland [181]

Absolutely. The only place where very specific testing is needed in my experience is in the case of children with learning difficulties in the areas of literacy and maths who are in a remedial programme and where clear goals need to be set and progress measured against those goals.

Love / Are Polish people very family oriented? [17]

Hi Candyloop. Womans' perspective here. Firstly a Polish man who's reached his late thirties and never been married is the exception. Although people in Poland are marrying later than they used to, they still tend to tie the knot before the age of thirty. So if he's telling you the truth and he has really never been married then it suggests that he may well never do so.

As to meeting his family, definitely once a Polish guy is serious about you, you will meet his family. However two months of a relationship that's been conducted mostly by text doesn't sound that serious to me. He met you very soon after arriving in the country and it probably felt nice and comforting to have a 'girlfriend' in the background. But he's trying to establish a life for himself in a new country and his priority is work and money.

As to Poles and family, yes most of them are very close to their families. It's quite common for married couples to go and visit their parents every weekend for example and I know men in their thirties who regularly visit their grandparents too.

However when all is said and done the cultural differences are not so great that a Polish man who is 'in love' or interested in pursuing a relationship will sideline a new girlfriend to that extent in order to spend time with family.

Classifieds / Polish Home Carers Needed in Colchester, Essex, UK [60]

What I find saddest about that ad is the fact that there is no language requirement. So the agency thinks it's ok to send somebody with perhaps very basic English to communicate with an elderly person who is quite possibly socially isolated and housebound. One of the most important aspects of home caring is the human contact where the elderly person looks forward to the social interaction and a bit of a chat.

Work / Diary of a Teacher in Poland [181]



So that old business of grading children for the week and recording the results still goes on?? Why on earth is that considered necessary. There are plenty of countries with very good education systems who don't use such a system. Any teacher worth their salt can tell you off the top of their head the level of any child in their class without needing to grade them on a test. I also think that it does nothing to build relationships between parents and the school or get parents involved in their childrens' education in a meaningful way.

Work / Diary of a Teacher in Poland [181]


Get up the yard as they'd say in Dublin :)) It's a bit of an earner for the drag queens bless them and the kids will enjoy it but honestly what a load of cobblers. Drag is a time honoured tradition in the British music hall with both male and female impersonators and British kids don't need to have stories presented to them in this self consciously 'gender fluid' manner. Drag is part of the British cultural tradition and all you need to do is take the kids to a pantomime where they can see Widow Twanky, the Ugly Sisters and isn't there a male role in Dick Whittington that's often played by a girl??

Say what you like, I know what you're up to. If Polonius were dead he'd be turning in his grave :) Actually we haven't seen much of him since his suspension so if he's still alive this will finish him off entirely.

Work / Diary of a Teacher in Poland [181]

Jon, Jon, Jon, tut tut. I feel compelled to respond in music hall parlance with the immortal lines of Florrie Forde 'Hold your hand out you naughty boy'.

Work / Diary of a Teacher in Poland [181]


Not suitable for children aged 12-13. Although a great film,the theme is far too adult to be of much interest to kids of that age. Also there is some mild nudity in it.

Life / What has Poland accomplished in the science and technology field? [22]

If you really want the answers to those questions, for example for a project or research of some kind, you won't find them on a forum like this. However, in a nutshell my own view is that whilst Poland has produced many gifted individuals who have contributed in these areas, as a nation they don't have a signficant history of scientific and technological innovation because of their history. Remember they were partitioned during the era of the industrial revolution and then went through the war and Soviet domination during the age of technology. Also, there are many contributions made which are never heard of by the average person because they are in very specialist areas which don't make an obvious impact on our everyday lives and sometimes, rather than being a single invention or innovation they are part of a chain of events that ultimately leads to such an invention. The names that spring to mind for me as a foreigner would be Copernicus and Marie Curie but here's a very long list of Polish scientists and their achievements:

paccpnw.org/polish-contribution-to-world-science

In the present day Poland doesn't invest much in R&D and has very weak links between universities and business. Also the present government is introducing changes into the curriculum to reduce the amount of time spent on science, technology and maths and increase the number of hours devoted to history so that doesn't bode too well for the future. Also although the Polish authorities pays lip service to the idea of being 'green' they're not really interested in green technologies which is very much an up and coming area in the developed world. The present government looks backwards rather than forwards and that doesn't tend to do much for scientific and technological development.

Life / Polish teen hotties, nastolatki article what they like [30]

I see he's been suspended again thank God, hopefully it's permanent. His posts are getting dangerously close to having this site closed down and the Admin prosecuted. Authorities may not be too bothered about people slagging off Muslims, Jews, gays etc but stuff about sex with underage girls, how to pull them, following them, filming them, setting up a 'Lolita' video service etc really takes the biscuit.



So here we basically have a thread where a member of this forum is openly justifying his right to have sex with children. This really has to stop. This thread should be removed.

UK, Ireland / Muslim man abuses and threatens Polish woman in the UK [49]


Definitely. But who knows what Harry and Friends really think about anything? They may well simply be entertaining themselves in their wicked British way by winding up all you earnest types :))


Well I live in Warsaw and I already take a detour when going to one of my local supermarkets in order to avoid being leered at by a group of dusky faced men who loll around all day outside the kebab shop. But then when I lived in London it was West Indians doing the leering and a few weeks ago a Polish guy made a very obscene gesture to me involving his tongue, from a car window.

But you know, I don't think Poland will ever be like the UK where there are areas with a disproportionately high number of culturally and ethnically different people. I fully understand how 'locals' feel under siege and that older people especially have see their neighbourhoods change to a point where they just don't feel English anymore. I agree that immigration does need to be strictly controlled as otherwise countries really do lose their identity and we'll just have a big melting pot that will be very hard to govern where ideals and values are diametrically opposed to each other.

Polonia / Reckless Polish Man starts wildfire in Montenegro [48]


Not in the least. I just thought 'Oh God here we go again with the old Muslim thing'. Any sensible person knows that there is a serious issue with illegal immigrants in Europe and that we ignore it at our peril but it's already discussed ad nausea on this forum. But there's no chance of having any really intelligent, meaningful debate about it here. It's just not that kind of forum.


Oh yes they do of course but it's quite obvious that most of the time they do it to annoy some of the 'Polish Patriot' brigade here and occasionally the posts are about newsworthy items.


Well go on then, start a thread about acts of kindness, philanthropy and charity by random Polish people.

UK, Ireland / Muslim man abuses and threatens Polish woman in the UK [49]


In fairness to Spiritus I don't think he's really a bigot. I think he's just a bit panicky about the prospect of being overrun by Muslim hordes. There are three separate issues in Europe at the moment which are all very real and a cause for concern in different ways, those being Islamic fundamentalist terror attacks, legitimate refugees and illegal economic immigrants. The problem is that people tend to lump them all together and get hysterical about it.


Yes, based on what I see around me, there are far more people from the Indian sub-continent most definitely than I can remember years ago and I've seen a few mixed race couples, some with children. When I was in the Polish embassy passport office in Dublin about two years ago I kid you not, it was full of dark skinned guys with Polish wives and kids in tow. Loads of them.

Polonia / Reckless Polish Man starts wildfire in Montenegro [48]

Spiritus I had the impression that you were of at least average intelligence but you take everything so literally. Do you REALLY not understand the point? Anything related to Poland or Polish people can be legitimately posted on this forum. The fact that the forum contains sub-forums dedicated to those parts of the world where there are large Polish communities demonstrates that. That's all.

Polonia / Reckless Polish Man starts wildfire in Montenegro [48]


Well then why does the forum have a UK/Ireland section? It's not a travel guide. It's a source of news and information on Polish related matters in Poland and parts of the world where there is a Polish community.

UK, Ireland / Muslim man abuses and threatens Polish woman in the UK [49]

Spiritus will you stop being so literal. When I say 'shielded' I don't mean that he's actually standing in front of her. I mean the woman is under the protection of a fine strapping lad. There's no way that little titch of a Muslim is any real threat to her. Of course it's a very unpleasant situation but not a genuinely threatening one, endangering her physical safety.

However, the odd thing when watching the video again is that after the Polish driver gets back in his car, the woman is still standing some distance away exchanging remarks with the Muslim. Either she's a very feisty lady indeed or she's not actually the girlfriend/wife of the driver. Perhaps she's just a neighbour/bystander?? Most Polish men whom I know, including my own husband would never leave a woman of their acquaintance, let alone their wife, standing alone in the street during such an incident and just get back in the car.


And that's exactly what I said. Of course some Muslims are racist but that's not really news now is it?

As for the threads here regarding crimes by Poles you can hardly compare the drunken obliteration of eight human lives or smuggling millions of cigarettes with 'Muslim shouts at white man'.

UK, Ireland / Muslim man abuses and threatens Polish woman in the UK [49]


May God in Heaven above give me patience. There was no incident at Asda, I invented it - it's a joke.


He does indeed. But he's not necessarily saying that because the guy is Polish but because he's white and therefore most likely a Christian (though he could be Jewish and then he wouldn't be likely to eat pork either). Of course the Muslim is using racist slurs in the same way that a white person might against a foreigner or dark skinned person. The Muslim would call any white person a pork eater. And yes, he's wrong to do so but all nationalites and religions have their share of racists, big deal.

As for the poor little Polish woman being 'abused' she doesn't sound in the least bit intimidated. She's well able to stand her ground being shielded as she is by her male partner who's 'a fine figure of a man' as we'd say in Ireland. He'd knock seven bells out of the little Muslim guy before you could say boo to a goose.


As indeed has your post. This is a road rage incident between a Muslim and a white person who could be any nationality. It's not Poles that the Muslim hates, it's Christians and that would of course include Poles but it's not an incident about somebody being targeted by a Muslim because they're Polish. It's about an angry Muslim shouting racist abuse at a white person with whom he's been involved in a traffic related incident. It's not headline news.

UK, Ireland / Muslim man abuses and threatens Polish woman in the UK [49]

It appears to be a road rage incident. Their nationalities/religions are not the issue. There are plenty of these kinds of inicidents every day both in Britain and Poland involving Brits spewing abuse at fellow Brits or Poles at Poles. I mean if it were a Londoner and the other guy was a Geordie, the Londoner might well say 'you thick Northern c*nt, f*ck off back to Newcastle'. Would that cause outrage in the national press? I doubt it.

Language / Where did you start or the best techniques for learning Polish. [85]


Oh well done!

@Lyzko, Roz is right, the whole equestrian thing is one of those areas where the social classes in the countryside of the UK and Ireland have always mixed on an equal level. The gentry and aristocracy (what's left of them) have enormous respect for anyone who is 'good with horses' either as a breeder, trainer, horseman or even a humble groom. The main social barrier was with the Hunt where the expense involved of acquiring and maintaining hunters would have precluded most ordinary people from joining and indeed there were a number of minor and more impoverished gentry who could only get the chance of the odd day's hunting by hiring or borrowing a decent mount and wangling an invitation from the Master. I knew one old lady who was reminiscing about her youth and commented that somebody gave her a day's hunting once but she had to hack fifteen miles across country to get there :)


Key point is 'once'. Things have changed. I think many people aren't aware that in the nineteenth century RP was actually taught at Eton and Harrow, not simply picked up out of the ether. That's no longer the case. There is quite a mixture of accents there now and indeed as Roz says even Old Etonian Prince William doesn't speak in a classic upper class accent. I read a book by the Duke of Bedford, the grandfather of the present Duke where he commented that if you want to sound like a gentleman not to model your speech on his, as he didn't attend the right schools so he didn't have the 'right' accent :)

You might enjoy this:

.bbc.co.uk/radio4/routesofenglish/storysofar/posh.shtml


Hudson is not a Glaswegian but a Highland Scotsman, Edinburgh I would think. The Highlanders consider the speech of the Lowland Scots to be quite inferior to their own :)

And yes Mods, I know we're going off topic but surely a bit of intelligent debate on anything is better than all that 'take a look at these young sluts, go on my son, get in there' stuff that we've been subjected to lately by PolishUltras et al.

Nevertheless, this is a thread about Polish language

UK, Ireland / 31 year old Polish man causes accident under influence of alcohol and kills 8 [198]

Oh come on Roger, really now. Civil liberties, my Aunt Fanny. What is the problem with restricting the purchase of alcohol to a period between 10.00 am and 10.00pm for example. Why does it need to be available around the clock? The alcoholics can stock up during the appropriate hours and survive overnight like the Irishman a couple of years back, who bought 400 cans of lager on Holy Thursday 'just to be safe' because of the pubs etc being closed on Good Friday :D

UK, Ireland / 31 year old Polish man causes accident under influence of alcohol and kills 8 [198]


The maps date from 2004. They have more recent data than that.


In 2013 the WHO published an exhaustive report on alcohol and health in the European region, looking back over the period 1990-2010 and examining trends in consumption amongst other things. Whilst alcohol consumption has been dropping all over Europe it's been on the increase in Eastern Europe (Poland is classifed as Eastern Europe by the WHO) and in Poland is now on a par with the UK. The chances of dying from an alcohol related illness are far higher in Poland than the UK.

I would suggest that a step in the right direction might be to get rid of the 24 hour alcohol shops. I mean, come on, what sort of message does it give to have alcohol available 24 hours a day? What kind of culture does that create?

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


That's completely untrue. Firstly he's American, living in America, so what possible reason would he have for wanting to keep foreigners out of Poland? Secondly although he is heavily biased towards maths based education and is obsessed with saving money, those are not purely personal peculiarites, he has entirely sound, logical reasons for both. As advice goes, he's one of the better people on this forum because although he can be somewhat filled with gloom and doom, there is plenty of sound common sense underlying it. Also he can tick the boxes of being a highly educated, mature professional person and spent many years living in Poland, only returning to America quite recently so he is far better placed to advise people than any of the mixture of weirdos/trolls/racists/Polish nationalists/sentimental PolAms etc who inhabit this place.


Not in comparison to salaries it isn't. Most people who leave their homeland in seek of better paid work are hoping to save money or send money back home to their families or even a combination of both. That's difficult to do in a country like Poland where salaries are only two thirds of the EU average and where the cost of living is rapidly reaching average EU levels. Food may be relatively cheap (though that varies depending on what, where and when you buy something) but footwear, clothing, electronics etc are often more expensive than elsewhere in Europe and when they ARE cheap, they're really poor quality.

Study / Polish dictionaries and works by Polish authors [17]


That's absolutely a key point. With a single noun having up to fourteen possible forms including plurals and those forms sometimes not looking remotely like each other..............I wonder if that's why dictionaries are not that popular in Poland, because they have limited usefulness and also perhaps because with the language being mainly phonetic there is less need to check spellings. Also the first Polish dictionary appeared relatively recently in the early nineteenth century, a time when Poland as a nation was about to 'disappear', so the political and social situation was not conducive to establishing the use of a Polish language dictionary.

Genealogy / Zieminski - Help getting started with family research [15]

Hi Peter, yes that would seem to be your only option. I took a look at some of their info and apparently the records which they've collected are still in the process of being digitized so they're not all currently available online. You would probably therefore need somebody to physically go to the Family History Library and search on your behalf :( However I saw a post on a forum from a few years ago where somebody said you can order a copy of the film for a nominal fee and view it at your local family history centre, don't know if that would apply outside the USA though.

You could try here, but I think the database is probably the same as the one you've already searched.

familysearch.org/search/collection/igi

I wonder if this might be of any use to you:

polishroots.org/Research/Galician_records/galicia_records_rc/tabid/361/Default.aspx

Woops! I just saw that you've managed to order it, that's great! Really pleased for you.

Study / Polish dictionaries and works by Polish authors [17]

Dominic the problem is that you're approaching language learning from a very personal perspective that won't work for everybody.


So you spent up to ten hours per day reading in addition to your full time job? How realistic do you think that is for the average person? Don't be silly.


There is a medium ground between the two.

Here, have you ever seen this? I think you'll recognize some former colleagues, and indeed perhaps yourself!

youtube.com/watch?v=45LloHyviSo

Genealogy / Zieminski - Help getting started with family research [15]


Yes, familysearch.org is the famous datatbase held by the Mormon church who basically go around the world collecting birth, death and marriage records in order to baptize the entire world into the Mormon church (I'm not joking!) and save their souls. It has ended up becoming a primary resource for people researching their family history. I'm not clear Peter, are you saying that you know the location of the record but can't view it online?? You can use the search function below to turn up detailed records for free. You could then copy down the information. Let us know if you find what you needed.

familysearch.org/hr/search

Study / Polish dictionaries and works by Polish authors [17]

Dominic I think you're making the task of learning Polish somewhat intimidating. We are both well placed to advise a beginner as both of us are native English speakers who had to learn Polish, though obviously you are far more fluent than I am. However, I think the standard of fluency to which you aspire on the OP's behalf is quite frankly greater than many people achieve in their own native tongue! To address your points in turn:

1) You certainly need a basic vocabulary but I would disagree about 'thousands' of words just to get started. That should consist of the most commonly used verbs, nouns, adverbs and adjectives together with comparatives and superlatives. There are ways of acquiring the everyday language needed to function in the real world. One of the most basic things you should be able to do in a language is to to talk about yourself, tell people who you are, where you come from, where you live, your family, your profession and be able to obtain the same information from them. That alone gives you a lot of words which for which you will find constant uses in other contexts.

2) Grammar is definitely challenging in Polish and I agree with you, there is no getting around the fact that it has to be 'studied'.

3) Reading. Now come on Dominic, really, Lord of the Rings??? With the greatest respect there are plenty of people who couldn't tackle that in English let alone a foreign language, and the length of it! Short texts are the starting point for reading. Magazines are ideal for that as they contain articles of various lengths and ads which are very short. Committing to reading a long and complex text such as Harry Potter is far too much to expect of a learner.


Totally agree. Can't understand the thinking behind the OP's wish to use one.

@jacobmartin. You'll have an advantage if you've already learned a foreign language as it gives you an idea of how to approach acquiring another language. If not, then focus on the four strands of reading, writing, listening and speaking though speaking is definitely the most important no matter how imperfectly you may do it :) Language is about being able to communicate. I manage to communicate adequately in Polish most of the time even though my grammar is not good and I don't have a huge vocabulary but I can give and obtain information from people. For example, just yesterday a lady on the tram asked me for directions to a local school and I understood her and was able to give her the directions. Another time I helped a partially sighted lady with her shopping in the local supermarket. She couldn't read the labels but I could and could relay the information back to her and ask her what she needed. So you see that's what language is about. It's no use at all reading about Bilbo Baggin's 'eleventy- first birthday' but not knowing how to read the ingredients on a food label :))

By the way if you haven't already done so, learn the Polish alphabet asap. As it's a purely phonetic language you will then be able to read and pronounce correctly or even write pretty much any word as spelling is generally totally phonetic with a few exceptions.

I'll tell you a touching little tale. Last year, I saw an old lady who was struggling with a stick and a bag of shopping so I offered to help her and as we were walking along I apologised for my poor Polish and she said to me 'you may not have good Polish but you have a good heart' isn't that lovely! So you see that's what it's about, language is about being able to connect with other human beings. Good luck with it and enjoy your journey.

History / How to know the value of Polish coins from 1960-70's [4]

The value of any antique or vintage item varies depending on which market you're selling it in. Basically you have two markets for Polish coin collectors, Poland and the Polish community wherever they're located in the world. I imagine that a lot of people of Polish origin, like Polish Americans who are serious collectors would buy not only from American coin dealers, but directly from Poland. This Polish site might be useful to you in showing how much your coins might fetch on the Polish market:

numizmaty.com.pl/monety/monety_polskie_xx_wieku_przed_denominacja/monety_prl

Also there's a big coin fair coming up in Warsaw a couple of weeks from now so keep an eye on this site (it's in English).

monetyexpowarsaw.pl/?services=coins-and-banknotes&lang=en

As far as the American market goes check out a few American coin dealers.

Also bear in mind that the values you see obviously include the dealer's mark up so he would expect to buy them for less than that from you. If there are any rare ones in the collection and you did ever decide to sell them your best bet is probably to put them in a specialist auction.

News / 2ND MIRACLE OF THE VISTULA: youth mysteriously appear out of nowhere! [231]

Steady on there now, just a minute Polly. The National Prostitutes Association of Poland is a highly respected organisation. I thought that role was reserved for senior Party members. I'm sure some of them have been awarded The Order of the Whorehouse with merit, haven't they??

News / EU confirms it will take action against Poland over court reforms [554]


There seems to be a great deal of confusion about this, thanks to sloppy journalism so I read the text of Article 7, it's very short. Basically, you can divide it into three steps:

1) The first step is that a proposal needs to be placed before the European Council (ie the heads of state of each EU member). There's no problem with that. That can go ahead with no difficulty.

2) An 80% majority of the member states needs to agree that there has been a serious breach of EU law. That's probably also not a problem. Tick the box for that one.

3) Applying the sanctions is then put the vote - according to the text of Article 7 the terms on which that vote is taken will be in accordance with those laid out in Article 354 of the Lisbon Treaty and here it is:

"when the Council does not act on a proposal from the Commission or from the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the qualified majority shall be defined as at least 72% of the members of the Council representing Member States comprising at least 65% of the population of these States".

So it just goes to show, if you're a member of the public, never, never believe anything without checking it out for yourself first, as close as you can get to the source, and if you're a Head of State of an EU country, read the small print before you make an eejit of yourself in public.

The other thing this demonstrates actually, is the importance of transparency and how fortunate we are in the EU that we have the freedom of information that allows us to access, the terms of a treaty that directly affects our lives. Without that access, we would be obliged to rely solely on what is reported to us second-hand and kept in state of ignorance and confusion. Fast forward down the road 25 years and if PIS had its way, information would be coming to us soley from a state-controlled media. Not a pretty picture.

Work / Salary for a senior software engineer in Poland [195]


You should be careful about giving people that kind of information. Also remember that Ireland is a country, not a city! The comparison is between Dublin, London and Paris. In fact in one survey from 2016 carried out by The Economist, Dublin comes in just one place behind Paris in the rankings and another from this year, just one place behind London. Other parts of Ireland are somewhat cheaper to live in but then salaries will be a bit lower too and you will definitely have to run a car if you live anywhere outside the very centre of provincial towns. Dublin pretty much always comes in the top ten most expensive cities in Europe.

Here's a couple of examples of comparisons between Dublin and London, as you can see they are very close:

Grocerie prices are actually 8.66% lower in London!
Restaurant prices only 2.82% higher in London.
Rent - very important - just over 30% higher in London. However much as I love Ireland, you simply can't compare Dublin with London in terms of the amenities and the opportunities available professionally. I would be happy to pay the higher rent to access those.

Now compare Dublin and Paris:

Groceries are almost the only thing more expensive in Paris, 21.56% higher.
Restaurants 3.94% lower than Dublin.
And rent, a fairly significant 15.5% lower than Dublin.

Now to finish, let's compare Dublin and Warsaw:

Groceries 48% lower than Dublin.
Restaurants 57% lower than Dublin.
Rent in Warsaw is more than 60% cheaper than Dublin.

Even allowing for the difference in salaries there would appear to be more of a margin for the OP to save something in Poland.