Food / PIZZA & KETCHUP served only in Poland? [159]


Definitely not as much as the "pizza" you can buy at London takeaways ;-p

Language / Usage of Polish Verbs [14]


Przekraczać - to cross (e.g. the border) (to be in the act (właśnie przekraczam granicę w Cieszynie) or to cross many times (często przekraczam wschodnią granicę Polski)

Przekroczyć - to cross once (Józek przekroczył niemiecką granicę dwa dni temu)

Wykraczać (poza) - to go beyond / exceed (e.g. the limit) "wykraczać poza sferę dobrych obyczajów" - "to go beyond the limits of good manners" = to be ill-mannered

Wykroczyć is theoretically possible, but sounds weird and I cannot think of any actual usage.

Food / PIZZA & KETCHUP served only in Poland? [159]


I must confess I do not quite understand ;-)

[Quick google search later]: OK, now I somewhat understand... ;-)

Food / PIZZA & KETCHUP served only in Poland? [159]


I think you are barking up the wrong tree here. Most pizzas served in Poland DO have the tomato sauce baked into the dough (at least I personally have yet to come across anything different). I should know, because I hate adding extra tomato sauce or ketchup to my pizza, so I eat it the way it was served and I can assure you, there is ALWAYS tomato sauce in it. BTW, some of the best pizzas I've eaten were baked in Poland - including a tiny pizza place in £omża, near the PKS station.

Travel / Is it safe to travel to Poland? [194]

It's not quite THAT easy. To be absolved, the sinner needs to repent sincerely first - and, if at all possible, endeavour to make up for their sins. ;-)

History / The Untold Battle of Britain [205]


I regret to inform you that I am unable to participate in all the discussions and threads you are involved in. I therefore remain unable to identify the person in question.

History / The Untold Battle of Britain [205]


Nobody wanted another war. But it would have been kinda nice if the Western Allies had required a little more convincing about the whole Iron Curtain idea. It backfired anyway (the Cold War) and ultimately brought a lot of misery to much of the world. Poland was only one of many victims, though unsurprisingly on Polish Forums we tend to concentrate on our own country. But the list goes on - East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, China, Korea, Vietnam... and ultimately even the US with Cold War witch hunts and school kids being prepared for a Soviet nuclear attack.

Life / WHY DO POLES USE ENGLISH WORDS IN CONVERSATION? [396]


OK - your Polish equivalent of "catering" please :-)
I won't try because I know any Polish version would be a mile long and twice as clumsy.


I fully agree with you on that one. I really feel like slapping some people who do that! But this is IMO a separate phenomenon. Some people seem genetically predisposed to "shedding their language" as soon as they find themselves immersed in a different culture. I do believe that some of them honestly forget their mother tongue and it's horrible to see them struggling for the right phrase or mangling the pronunciation.

What is most shocking is the fact that some of them are very young, straight out of school, and after 6 months in London they are unable to string a coherent sentence together in Polish. But neither in English. And they stay that way for good. I think a good linguist could take this on as a research project, it's fascinating and repulsive at the same time.

Life / WHY DO POLES USE ENGLISH WORDS IN CONVERSATION? [396]


I agree, "jestem happy" is just plain stupid. Ponglish at its most brain dead.

But - a "sendwicz" is not a "kanapka" - and the difference is understood in Poland.
"Catering" is also an imported idea, there is NO domestic equivalent, so the word stays, even the original spelling has been retained.

And so it goes on.

UK, Ireland / Wanting Polish lessons in or around Huddersfield UK [12]


Polish Philology graduates have teaching qualifications by default. So frankly, I don't understand your distinction.

History / The Untold Battle of Britain [205]


You mean the Polish should have started a new war with the Soviet Union immediately after WW2?

Life / WHY DO POLES USE ENGLISH WORDS IN CONVERSATION? [396]

'Bekon" is not "boczek".
A "happening" is a specific form of artistic expression.
A "kierownik" is not a "menedżer". Different position, different responsibilities.
You can say hit, you can say przebój. It's up to you. Usually, words of one syllable tend to be more popular than polysyllabic words - I wonder why?

Don't worry about the Polish language. It's doing just fine.

Or, if you prefer, please feel free to chastise Poles for using words such as "rower", "radio", "komputer", "geometria", "ratusz", "fartuch", "pomidor", "kościół", "cmentarz", "rezultat"... the list is endless. Good luck.

History / Battle of Warsaw movie in production [24]


I would stand this statement on its head and say that the context (from 1979 onwards) created - or rather forced - Gorbachev's "liberal" approach. Of course most Iron Curtain countries contributed something to the eventual fall of communism (Hungary in the fifties, Czechoslovakia in the sixties), but funnily enough when push came to shove in the eighties, Poland was the FIRST to take actual action, with the remaining Eastern Bloc regimes collapsing like a set of dominoes soon after. Domino theory in reverse?

Language / Quick Tips for Choosing a Polish Translator [8]

But because they are "sworn", you can file a complaint against them with the Ministry of Justice if you think they did a bad job, thus eliminating them from the market, or at least restricting their impact.

Language / będzie potrafił? [34]


Having completed the course of study, the student is able to...

Travel / Hometown / Vacation pictures Poland [201]


I will for sure :-) Thank you!

Travel / Hometown / Vacation pictures Poland [201]

You've gone and made me homesick! I hate you! ;-p

Seriously though, I've visited Ustka and it's really beautiful. I only passed through Słupsk, but now I wish I'd stayed...

Life / WHY DO POLES USE ENGLISH WORDS IN CONVERSATION? [396]


Exactly what stupidity am I defending?

Life / WHY DO POLES USE ENGLISH WORDS IN CONVERSATION? [396]

No it's not: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poglish

Life / WHY DO POLES USE ENGLISH WORDS IN CONVERSATION? [396]

Oh but it never works that way alas! ;-)
Language is not a monolith, it's more of a series of intermeshed (is that even a word?) structures or webs or whatnot, sometimes a borrowing sits well, another time it sticks out like a sore thumb, there is so much going on behind the scenes that only a fluent or native speaker will understand without a lot of explaining...

And that goes for every language, of course.
Plus ofc some people are just very lazy and have almost non-existent linguistic skills, even in their mother tongue, so once they go abroad they just start substituting one word for another, and create Ponglish and similar monstrosities. But this process has nothing to do with legitimate borrowing of words because there is need for a new name (e.g. komputer) or because it's fun and "in" and cool (e.g. sorki).

Life / WHY DO POLES USE ENGLISH WORDS IN CONVERSATION? [396]


"jogging" is not "biegać"
"jogging" has a very restricted meaning, as in the type of running promoted by health freaks in the eighties.

You would never use this word in any other context - and the same goes for lots of other English borrowings in Polish. They are imported as designations of very narrow, specific phenomena or objects, and retain this role.

And "dzięks" instead of dziękuję has been around for ages and is restricted to very informal use.

On a related note - many of you miss the "tongue in cheek" character of a number of these borrowings, and pontificate about them as if the world was about to end because somebody said "sorki" or "luknij no tutaj".

Life / Sci-fi / Fantasy books in Polish? [12]


I second that. My son read literally all of Lem one summer when he was bored. He borrowed the books from the local library and lived, slept, and ate amongst them ;-) He was about 12-13 at the time, and thoroughly enjoyed the read :-)

UK, Ireland / Matura - Does it meet the entrance requirement for English University? [9]


I thought British unis had entry exams? At least some of them?

UK, Ireland / Matura - Does it meet the entrance requirement for English University? [9]


You're barking up the wrong tree here. The old matura did not give anyone access to university as such - only to university entry exams.

History / Slavic vs Germanic thinking.... and the philosophical differences [251]


If this were actually true, it would mean that Poles should NEVER mix with Poles, Russians with Russians etc., as then the similarities in the genetic code would be even greater and lead to even greater numbers of genetic disorders in offspring. It would also mean that Germans shouldn't mix with the Dutch or English, the Spanish should avoid the Portuguese, etc. etc. ad nauseam.

No offence, dear Slavianka, but this is a load of rubbish.

History / Leon Feldhendler: A hero murdered? [37]


I read the English, and it seems the authors of the entry should have asked themselves a few questions, not me.
Sorry to say I do not know enough German to read a Wiki entry, and have no Hebrew at all. Nevertheless, from what has been said in this thread and from what I have found on the net, the Polish version of events presented on Wiki seems to be the most objective.

History / Leon Feldhendler: A hero murdered? [37]

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Feldhendler

Answers most of MY questions.

News / Majority of Poland's kids physically unfit, claims PPA. [41]

Yeah. They successfully killed off all the dwarves and genetic freaks in the last 8 years. :->

Off-Topic / What language is this? [5]


I wouldn't be so sure about that. It's really hard to say what the language is based on the transcription provided.

Language / Etymology of samochod and other related automotive words [12]


just to pick a nit or two:

vozidlo = pojazd
auto, automobil = samochód

;-p