News / Failures of Poland and Tusk`s government [191]


Oh God no! I love the Korean transport system. It's so efficient, and I loved that I could travel anywhere in Seoul for just a few thousand won, and the trains would run like clockwork and take me to my destination without delay. Plus, underground mobile phone reception and air conditioning during the Korean summer can't be beat! They've done things so right that I can't believe they too are looking into importing yet another failed Western way of doing things.

News / Today's release of UK govt papers under the 30 year rule - JPII and the US look bad [18]


The RC church has never been able to grant a divorce and still can't. The best it can do is officially recognise that no valid marriage has taken place, which is known as an annulment. To grant an official annulment where a valid marriage has taken place would amount to sanctioning adultery. Further, the cleric responsible would be considered to have commited a grave error and the annulment would itself be invalid.

News / WOSP Poland charity - is it value for money? [60]


I can't say. I've heard nothing of the sort, so I doubt it, but then again, medical staff are in a better position to know. I am pretty sure that WOŚP does plenty of good, genuinely charitable work. Owsiak, the guy whose initiative it is, is quite a controversial ageing hippy type figure, and some people take issue with his views and activities, and so prefer to support another charity.

News / WOSP Poland charity - is it value for money? [60]

s2.wosp.org.pl/uploaded/files/files/Bilans%20Fundacji%20za%202011.pdf

This is for 2011

It seems they had 59.5 million zł coming in in 2011. And they spent 38 million on medical equipment, 2 million on neo-natal hearing tests, 3 million on other charitable initiatives, for a total of 43 million zł spent on charity. They spent about 6 million on publicity (and "public benefit", which is vague) and 10 million on administrative costs.

So for every złoty donated, 72 groszy is spent on charity. Maybe an extra 10 groszy, depending on what "działalność propagatorską, informacyjną i pożytku publicznego" actually means, but I'm assuming most of it is probably bullsh*t, so I wouldn't count it unless we know that whatever public benefit/information campaigns they run is actually charity.

News / Failures of Poland and Tusk`s government [191]


I'm not surprised. I used to travel regularly between London and Norwich (about 100 miles) on the weekends about 8 years ago. I would start the journey off on train, then I'd have to get off and wait in the freezing cold for a bus because of urgent ongoing railway works (that were urgent and ongoing for several years), and then I'd have to get off the bus and take the train again. It should have been a direct train journey that takes about 2 hours. What it actually took was 6 hours, and I had to pay £40 for the privilege.

A few years back, I quite often used to take a train from Krakow to Warsaw (about 160 miles), and not only were the old, Soviet trains (with bilingual Polish/Russian signs) more spacious and comfortable, but the journey was quicker and much, much cheaper to boot. Now, I'm sure there are horror stories about the Polish rail network too, since it's hardly modern and seriously underdeveloped, but the effects of privatisation in the UK have been such a disaster, that my experiences on the Polish railways have actually been better.

Only in the last few years have things begun to improve in the UK thanks to none other than increased regulation and accountability to the government. It seems Poland is going in the opposite direction.

I often get into heated debates in Poland about privatisation. Some people become so devoted to their pet economic theory that they can't see they're a carbon copy of the Marxists they so oppose. And apparently, because I'm quite moderate and pragmatic, and thus don't share their radically anarcho-capitalist outlook, that makes me a communist. [Sigh]

News / What should Poland do to solve the population crisis? [101]


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Russia_birth_rates_January-October_2012.PNG


Hah. Vladimir Putin reinstated the old Soviet national anthem, but with different lyrics. Probably because, even though it's originally Communist, it sounds really good.

I think the same can be said for the Polish Communist song, "Ukochany kraj" ("Beloved country"). At one point, the lyrics go along the lines of "And our warmest words go out to you, all our hearts and all the strength of our hands, it is all for you, O beautiful country of the People." But it's still a beautiful song.

News / WOSP Poland charity - is it value for money? [60]

Lol, even one of Rydzyk's biggest critics, Gazeta Wyborcza, admits the Maybach story is a fake.

Nobody has to agree with Rydzyk's opinions, but spreading misinformation only serves to undermine your credibility.

News / Failures of Poland and Tusk`s government [191]

Another example of economic liberalism gone wrong.

I'm all for privatisation, but on condition that

a) the industry is actually privatised and doesn't go into the hands of another government, and

b) the industry would actually operate better under the private sector (which is seldom the case when it comes to national infrastructure or certain strategic enterprises).

Food / Biały ser ... white cheese [6]

Ricotta is similar to twaróg.

Cottage cheese is similar too, except it usually comes with added salt.

Quark is also similar, although it's usually very low in fat, but doesn't have to be.

News / WOSP Poland charity - is it value for money? [60]

You can always give money to Caritas Polska or to your preferred charity. I don't trust Polish charities in general, so it's best to give to the ones that you trust.

Language / Quick question on Polish language fundamental [40]


Exactly. That's exactly what it means. You understood fine.


No need to overthink it. It's actually much simpler than that, because the same rules as in English apply. "będę kupowała" is almost exactly equivalent to "I will be buying" and "kupię" is almost exactly equivalent to "I will buy."

To reiterate, whenever in English you would say you "will be buying" something, you say "będę kupowała" and if you need to say you "will buy" something, you say "kupię." That's all there is to it. Don't worry about the specific rules of when you would use "I will be buying" and "I will buy" because they're the same as in English, so you already know them.

"Jutro pójdę do sklepu i kupię mleko"
"Tomorrow, I will go to the shop and buy some milk"

"Idą święta, więc będę kupowała dużo jedzenia"
"The (Christmas) holidays are coming, so I will be buying lots of food"

The usage is pretty much identical to English.

As for the definiteness of your intention, English expresses this with the "going to" form, as in "I am going to buy a hammer tomorrow." This is exactly the same as saying "I will buy a hammer tomorrow," except it gives a subtle indication of a more definite intention in your mind. Polish doesn't make the distinction. Both examples would translate into "jutro kupię młotek." This is another difficult part of English that Polish speakers have to tackle in order to sound natural, and, lucky you, Polish treats both forms exactly the same.

Polish tenses are actually very nice and easy, so there really is no need at all to worry about them.

To make things really, really simple, here's how English tenses map (neatly and nicely) onto Polish ones:

Kupić
To buy

Kupować
To be buying

Kupuję
I buy
I am buying
I have been buying

Kupiłam
I bought
I have bought
I had bought

Kupowałam
I was buying
I used to buy
I had been buying

Kupię
I will buy
I am going to buy

Będę kupowała
I will be buying
I am going to be buying

Kupiłabym
I would buy

Kupowałabym
I would be buying

Now, I bet you didn't think it was that simple, eh?

Language / Quick question on Polish language fundamental [40]


Perhaps some of the difficulty may be because dictionaries lie!

Every dictionary I've seen says that "robić" means "to do," with maybe some superscript saying that it's imperfective. Now, that probably isn't very helpful to you, since English doesn't have aspect, and arbitrarily memorising the aspect of a verb must be tedious. How are you supposed to understand that word, then?

Well, what it actually means is "to be doing." That's what the word "feels like" to a Polish speaker, and "to be doing" is a very literal translation that carries the "feel" of the word over into English.

The word for "to do" is "zrobić."

That's the gist of the difference between perfective and imperfective aspects and the correspondence with English tenses is, in most situations, quite close. Every grammatical description of the Slavic aspect system I've seen has been waaaay overtechnical, and what it really boils down to is just this rather bland distinction, with the imperfective aspect denoting a continuing action.

That's why "robili" means "they were doing" and "zrobili" means "they have done." Similarly, "będą robili" means "they will be doing" and "zrobią" means "they will do."

Now, lest you be confused by a Polish person saying, "nie chcę jeść," which would literally mean "I don't want to be eating," that's simply because that's generally the way people say they don't want to do something; they say that they don't want "to be doing" it.

Now, of course there are some situations when it's not entirely clear why you should use one aspect over the other, especially when deciding which infinitive form to use, but hopefully it won't bet as bad as Polish people struggling to use definite/indefinite articles (sometimes I'm really stumped when asked to explain why you should use "the" instead of "a" here, but no article at all there).

Law / Buying and registering a car from Germany in Poland [6]

Drive across the border?

You should register and insure it in Poland once your German insurance runs out. I don't know how expensive insurance is in Germany, but it will probably be cheaper in Poland.

Actually, you should check if your insurance is valid outside of Germany or if you have to pay extra or tell your insurer that you're taking your car abroad. You don't want to have an accident in Poland and find out that your insure won't cover you. Tell your German insurer, and register and insure the car in Poland if you need to.

News / Failures of Poland and Tusk`s government [191]


It's you who brought up the juicy topic of Satanism, lol! How could I not respond to that?

For the record, I oppose the privatisation of national infrastructure and I'm horrified by the Polish government taking steps in that direction.

It's not worked out well in the UK, and worse, we've had Deutsche Bahn buy up a British rail operator. Before you accuse me of being xenophobic, here's the kicker - Deutsche Bahn is not really a private company. It's mostly owned by the German government! It's madness!

So instead of being privatised, a part of the public transport network operations in the UK has just gone from being owned by the British government to being owned by the German government.

You couldn't make it up, lol.

Thanks to privatisation, though, Électricité de France now supplies my electricity. It's mostly owned by the French government. (Ssssh, don't tell anyone). And they go by the name EDF. How very clever (!).

Language / Quick question on Polish language fundamental [40]


Very perceptive.

But in "interesuję się", the direct object is the reflexive pronoun, "się" or "oneself". If you are super-literal in translating "interesuję się," you'd say "I interest myself".

So "interesuję się filmem" is literally like saying "I interest myself with film." That's why film is in the instrumental and not accusative case.

In English you can say, "I occupy myself with reading books," which in Polish could be translated as "Zajmuję się czytaniem książek."

Whereas English uses two different constructions, Polish uses the exact same construction for both being interested in something and occupying oneself with something.

So "I occupy myself with reading books," would be "Zajmuję się czytaniem książek"
and "I am interested in reading books," would be "Interesuję się czytaniem książek"

Polish is actually easier if you think about it that way :)


Ask away!

Oh, and one more thing, so you're not confused:

"czytaniem" is in the instrumental case and "książek" is in the genitive case.

"czytaniem książek" super-literally means "with the reading of books."

Now, if you translate the previous examples super-literally into English, you'll see that they still make sense, even though that's not how an English speaker might phrase things.

If you look at it this way and notice that there's actually method in the madness and that Polish really isn't so otherworldly, hopefully that will help make it seem a little less scary :)

And I'll happily help demystify verbs for you (they're not as scary as in the grammar books) and answer any other questions you may have, so feel free to ask.

Love / polish gf doesnt wanna kiss and hug me at her home,normal or not? [7]

dobry2123

Lol, if she's your girlfriend, you should already know about the values she espouses.

I don't think this is a cultural issue.

It's more a personal issue between you two, and the only way you can sort it out is if you go ahead and talk to her about it instead of getting advice from random strangers on an internet forum.

News / Failures of Poland and Tusk`s government [191]

To sum up, I do not believe that schools should withhold knowledge about relevant and important subjects on the basis of a misguided political ideology. A school's job is to nurture the development of a young person's knowledge and culture. It's job is to teach and not to perpetuate ignorance.

News / Failures of Poland and Tusk`s government [191]


Why not? What's wrong with learning about Satanism?

It's not particularly relevant to Polish culture, but there's no harm in knowing what it's about. Most people, for example, don't know that many Satanists don't actually believe in or worship the Devil, but that their philosophy is based on the elevation of the human will as the highest good, frequently summed up in the maxim, "Do what thou wilt."

Modern Satanism has different schools of thought, based on the writings of Anton LaVey and Aleister Crowley, for example, and there are theistic Satanists too, who do actually believe in worshiping the fallen Angel as a deity. As far as I'm aware, most Satanists, both theistic and atheistic, attempt to realise their wills through strange rituals they call magick.

Heck, I've studied Satanism a little, and I'm still a Catholic. It wouldn't bother me one bit if I had been taught about it in school. So, if Satanism were an important part of Polish culture, then certainly, I would want kids to be taught about Satanism instead of being ignorant of the culture that they live in.

If kids were taught about Satanism in school, then those raised in non-Satanic families would be much better equipped to understand, dialogue and do business with devoted Satanists in their adult lives, and if Satanism were a significant religion in Poland and a part of its culture, then I think it would be ridiculous not to teach it.

Teaching people about an important and influential religion does not take away their choice whether or not to believe in it.

USA, Canada / Canadian-raised moved to Poland? Just got an idea while working on North Sea. [5]

I love Southern Poland, not least because my family's from the Kraków, Tarnów and Nowy Sącz areas.

Krakow is a pretty cool city, but the real reason I love the area is because of its cultural richness and the awesome, beautiful mountains especially. :)

Plus, the area has a pretty balanced, moderate Central European climate. You usually get fairly decent, warm summers there, as opposed to the Baltic coast, which tends to have shorter, cooler summers and fairly chilly autumns and springs. Plus, if it gets too hot, you can escape to the mountains.

Winters are pretty unpredictable in Poland anyway, but, if you like winter, this area generally gets better winter weather than the coast or places further west. And if you really like winter, well, mountains.

Did I mention the mountains? :)

Life / Is Poland a poor country? [578]

Thanks for the info ;)

That's brilliant. They explain it away by saying that they wanted to save money by implementing a more targeted, means-tested benefit that wouldn't be given away to rich and poor alike.

In this instance, I agree with LPR and PO. We all know how Polish means-testing works. It doesn't. And a universal benefit is the most reasonable solution.

News / Failures of Poland and Tusk`s government [191]


How is teaching Catholic religion any more anti-freedom than teaching mathematics, history or the Polish language? What's the sore point about religion? It's entirely up to the individual what he or she believes, but I believe it is beneficial for him or her to understand what his compatriots believe or have believed in the past.

Why keep people in the dark?

If Greece were still a pagan nation, I think it would be absolutely ridiculous for it not to teach Greek Mythology as religion in its schools. It's an integral part of what made Greece Greece in the pre-Christian era, just as much as the Greek Orthodox Church is an important part of what makes Greece Greece today.

In fact, I think it would be great if Greek Mythology were taught in schools today, not only in Greece but throughout Europe. It's a fascinating and still important part of our common European culture, and I don't think teaching Ancient Greek Religion would be at all contrary to freedom.

Even Communist Poland celebrated the 1000 year Anniversary of Poland's Christianisation with grand military displays, not because the Communists were particularly fond of Christianity, but because it is such an important part of Polish culture and statehood.

All Polish people have a right to their own religious beliefs, and there are millions of Poles who are Orthodox, atheist or agnostic, and many of these same Poles sing Polish Christmas carols, abstain from meat and alcohol on Christmas Eve, bless their święconki over Easter and take part in many Catholic customs not because they're Catholic, but because they're Polish. What's the harm in understanding the religion that has been such a profound influence on Polish culture?


Why? Catholic and Anglican schools make up a third of state-funded education in the UK. I myself am grateful for having gone to an excellent Catholic state school in the UK. The school had a Christian ethos and sought to instill positive values among students, who were Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, atheist and agnostic. I think it did an excellent job. Nobody was forced to stop being Protestant or Muslim. Nobody's freedom was sacrificed. Scotland too has Catholic, Protestant and non-denominational state-funded schools, and religious education is compulsory in all three, without detriment to anybody. I truly admire this relaxed, British approach to government funding of religious education, as opposed to the more radical, ideological approaches common on the Continent. I think it's a fantastic demonstration of religious freedom as opposed to religious neutrality.

And honestly, if I went to school in a majority-Muslim country that respected religious freedom, in which, as part of the school curriculum, we had to learn about the Qur'an and the life of the prophet Muhammad, I wouldn't have a problem with it. It probably wouldn't make me Muslim, but it would give me a better understanding of the culture of the country I lived in. It would certainly make me a better-adapted and integrated citizen of that country, regardless of whether my own personal beliefs were Christian, Jewish, atheist, agnostic or whatever.

News / What should Poland do to solve the population crisis? [101]


Poland is relatively poor compared to the West.

That logic amounts to, "Poles shouldn't breed because they're generally quite poor."

The majority of Poles cannot afford children. It doesn't mean that the majority of Poles would beget criminals if they had children. This sort of attitude is unhelpful, and it betrays a disdain for the Polish populace at large.

And, I'm sorry, but Poland can't afford to wait 50 years to catch up with Western Europe before it starts procreating again. If it waits any longer, it will never catch up because it will be crushed by the burden of an ageing population before it ever gets there.

The fact that people misuse resources provided to them by the State is a fact of life. Let's say the government gave a monthly payment of 1000 zł to every family with 3 or more children. That's 1.7 million families, and would amount to the transfer of about 20 billion złoty a year, or around 30 billion złoty, if you include the likely administrative costs. The current budget deficit is 35 billion złoty, so this hypothetical scenario isn't out of this world.

Now, some people would feel more secure and could afford to have more children and could spend the money on children's clothes, schooling, food, vaccinations, daycare and what-have-you. Great! Some would now be able to afford to spend the money on Playstations, OLED HDTVs and holidays. Great! And yes, it's inevitable that some pathological families might spend it on drugs and alcohol too.

That's the problem with government assistance in general, as 20th century experience has shown. Government assistance is expensive to administer, and it's definitely a blunt instrument with many unforeseen incentives and consequences. But it's an effective instrument nonetheless.

Where such money is spent on luxuries instead of childcare costs, it would still have a positive effect in that having children wouldn't necessarily mean sacrificing one's quality of life. That's all the more reason to have more children if you want them. Even if the money isn't spent on children, it would still be an incentive to have them, which is what the Polish state should be attempting to achieve, since it needs future taxpayers.

As for Russian racism, it's inevitable. Russia is a huge, multicultural country with people of various religions, languages and ethnicities. The Russian government does what it can in russifying them through the promotion of Russian language and culture, but that's a process that takes many generations. And wherever you have multiple races living in one country, you will have racism, be it in Russia, the US, or the UK. It's unfortunate, but the problem can be ameliorated with time.

History / Ukrainian-occupied Eastern Poland [135]

I agree, and I sympathise with the Ukrainians facing renewed russification of their eastern territories. I believe Ukraine should be Ukrainian, and I say this as someone who generally has a positive attitude towards Russia.

News / What should Poland do to solve the population crisis? [101]

The average fertility rate has gone up from 1.2 to 1.6. That's nothing to laugh at. It's a massive improvement any way you slice it, regardless of where the growth is taking place because it's growth that wasn't there before.

And the more sparsely populated territories of Russia are precisely where it is most pressing for the Federal government to increase the number of Russian citizens.

Most of the progress the Polish government has made is in adopting some Western standards, such as increasing parental leave and making provisions for its transfer between parents.

That's all well and good, but people also need resources when they are off work to be able to raise children.

And tax relief for large families is good, but it doesn't help those who don't earn enough to pay much tax anyway. A lot of the time, the government's stance seens to be "if you can't afford to have children, you shouldn't be having any," when the majority of the fertile population doesn't feel economically secure enough to consider having more than one or two children.

This sort of mindset is not going to go very far. Between 2003 and 2008, the Polish fertility rate increased from 1.2 to 1.4. Since 2009, it has fallen back to 1.3.

That certainly means that the Polish government is NOT doing enough, since not only has it failed to arrest the fall in fertility, but has overseen its decrease back to catastrophically low levels.

History / Ukrainian-occupied Eastern Poland [135]

I think that Lvov has historically been a multicultural city and that for most of its history, Polish has been the main language spoken there.

But my position as a fairly patriotic Pole is that I am quite happy for Lvov to remain Ukrainian, I hope the Ukrainians take care of it and that Ukrainian culture and language continues to flourish within it.

Language / Past continuous vs. Past perfect continuous [5]

I think the simplest way is this:

I've waited for you for so long, but now I know it was worth it.

Unless you want to emphasise something in particular, or there's a story and a context in which another tense would fit in snugly, present perfect sounds just fine :)

There's no need to overcomplicate things.

News / What should Poland do to solve the population crisis? [101]


I agree with you 100%.


No, the Roman Catholic philosophy is that God cares for you even if the world looks down on you because you're poor.

If the Catholic Church believed that poverty was salvific, it wouldn't have undertaken any charitable works in its 2000 year history and there would have been no Catholic schools, hospitals, soup kitchens and homeless shelters.

Being paid a just and living wage for your work is an integral part of Catholic social teaching, and paying as low a wage as the market lets you get away with has more in common with modern economic liberalism than with Catholicism.

Language / Past continuous vs. Past perfect continuous [5]

If you have been waiting until NOW, then you would use the present perfect continuous:

Present perfect continuous: I have been waiting for you for such a long time and I know that it's been worth it.

That's because you started waiting in the past and you continued to wait until the present.

You would use the past perfect continuous if you had also finished waiting at some point in the past:

Past perfect continuous: I had been waiting for you until it got dark, but you never showed up.

And you would generally use the past continuous if something happened at the same time as you were waiting.

Past continuous: I was waiting for you when my phone rang.

News / What should Poland do to solve the population crisis? [101]

There's always the third approach. Just let the demographic catastrophe happen and commit slow motion national suicide.

Here's to hoping Russia reaches replacement rate (2.1) in the next 20 years and Poland follows suit.

News / Failures of Poland and Tusk`s government [191]


Why? The greatest empire the world has ever seen was Anglican, not confessionally neutral :P

I'm just teasing.

But how is teaching religion a violation of religious neutrality (if such a thing is possible)? It's just facts. Catholics believe so-and-so. Eastern Orthodox believe so-and-so. Slavic pagans believe so-and-so.

If that's somehow religiously intolerant or politically incorrect, then I think that that's wrong. If Slavic pagans come along and say, "Teaching chemistry contradicts Slavic alchemy and therefore violates the religious neutrality of the State," does that mean Poland has to stop teaching chemistry? Now, that's a joke, but I think it's wrong for a nation to sacrifice teaching facts, and especially ones about its culture, at the altar of any ideology.

The State should be active in educating the next generation of Polish citizens and not a generation of Stateless neutrals. If the ideology means the State has to reject an important part of its history and culture, then, at least from my perspective, the ideology is harmful, and it's got to go. If religious neutrality does this, then sorry, I know it's become a sort of dogma of modern politics, but I cannot support it.

And 1.3 billion PLN is not that much.

Since religious neutrality as an ideology gives the absurd result of preventing the State from transmitting the culture of the nation it represents in the very schools that it funds, I propose religious freedom as a better idea than the vain pursuit of neutrality.

Instead of the State sacrificing its national culture for the sake of trying to be religiously neutral, I propose that its job should instead be to ensure freedom of religion by refraining from using its coercive power to suppress religion.

I think this way we still ensure a State that is friendly to people of all religions and none, without the absurdity of censoring the school curriculum of one of the most important aspects of national culture.