Language / "Idę do kolegi." - Polish prepositions/and translation [17]


And that is a statement I cannot disagree with :-)

Language / "Idę do kolegi." - Polish prepositions/and translation [17]


I have no quarrel with that ;-)
I just reacted to the statement, I quote, "There is no such expression in the English language as "I go"."

Language / "Idę do kolegi." - Polish prepositions/and translation [17]


I go to school every day. I go shopping every week. I go skiing in the winter.

Just three examples out of billions.

UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail - coverage of the Polish people [161]


If the DM didn't, then surely the good people of Peterborough still have eyes to see for themselves? And you know, I hope, that gossip travels fast and grows in leaps and bounds ;-)

Frankly, I am deeply ashamed that my fellow countrymen have decided to make such asses of themselves so publicly. I know I cannot be responsible for their actions, but I resent the fact that they are effectively dragging me down to their level.

UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail - coverage of the Polish people [161]


Very well then, they are the living and breathing basis for the creation of said stereotypes. Does it make a difference to what I said?

UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail - coverage of the Polish people [161]

Well, I for one would love to see those particular immigrants deported, as they are clearly not able to fend for themselves and are becoming a nuisance, while creating very negative stereotypes for the Daily Mail to use against the rest of the Polish community in the UK.

UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail - coverage of the Polish people [161]


AFAIK, the infamous Peterborough tent-dwellers flatly refused to go back to Poland when the Polish Embassy provided passports and transportation for them. They said they were better off living in tents on the river bank than in Poland. I guess they are either too embarrassed to go back and admit they had been roughing it all along (and their trip to the promised land was a total failure) - or they think that if they are persistent enough they will force the local authorities to take care of them - give them council housing, benefits, the works.

One way or another, they should be shipped back to Poland unless they find jobs and start taking care of themselves. The problem is that everyone seems to be treading on eggshells around them and trying to be understanding and sensitive to their "cultural background" - as if Poles in Poland usually camped out and hunted for a living.

UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail - coverage of the Polish people [161]


OK. I'm totally convinced now. ;->

Srsly though, I just can't help but love the way in which the British lump all Eastern and Central Europeans together, and yet get all huffy when someone makes an honest mistake and calls a Scotsman English or an Englishman Irish etc. Some of us just don't know any better, you see. You all speak English and you all look the same ;-p

Someone is probably catching swans for food. It could be the Roma gypsies from Romania, it could be the Polish homeless-and-jobless desperadoes, it could be the local (British born and bred) junkies and / or gangstas looking for a quick bite / cheap thrills. Unless and until someone actually catches them red-handed, it's all conjecture.

Until then, kindly refrain from jumping to conclusions.

UK, Ireland / English teenager refused service at Polish shop [87]


I agree, "discrimination" is a much better choice. I do not pretend to understand the rest of your post.

UK, Ireland / English teenager refused service at Polish shop [87]


You will have to put up with it until you are able to prove that "British" is a race ;-p

Language / Czego, Czemu, Co, Kto, Jak, Dlaczego? [64]


OłówkA for crying out loud! ;-p

Life / What is it with the Polish love of antibiotics? And Why do Poles get ill more? [40]


But you would first have to prove that country B did not have those or similar strains as well. I remember reading horror stories in the Polish tabloid press about MRSA infections in British hospitals waaay back in the mid-nineties.

Life / Doctors taking bribes in Poland [76]


I'd say YES. In this instance supply creates demand IMHO.
I've never bribed a doctor in my life, and have never been asked (directly or indirectly) for a bribe. And I am still here to tell the tale ;-)

Life / What is it with the Polish love of antibiotics? And Why do Poles get ill more? [40]


Now that statement is really a bit OTT. Could you back it up with any hard facts?

Life / What is it with the Polish love of antibiotics? And Why do Poles get ill more? [40]


Polish doctors (the corrupt evil big pharma puppets aside) usually want to treat patients and make them feel better. Therefore, they tend to prescribe medicine which they think will be fast and effective. If you have a nasty bacterial infection, antibiotics are usually relevant, though sometimes not absolutely necessary. BTW, have you ever had tonsilitis, with (excuse my French) pus running down your throat? I resent how the medical bigwigs in the British medical study you quoted call it a "minor upper respiratory tract infection." :-/

British GPs, on the other hand, seem to be happy to shunt the hapless patient back and forth between their (the patient's) bed and the surgery - for ages.

I still prefer the "Polish way."

Life / What is it with the Polish love of antibiotics? And Why do Poles get ill more? [40]


About the commies forcing people to swallow antibiotics and come to work? Even - even! - if Poles during communist times used antibiotics a lot, they would still stay home for the duration of the illness. Ever heard of the infamous L4 certificate? ;-)


If there's anything of the sort going on now, it would be a relatively new phenomenon (as I said before). I would say big pharma are pushing antibiotics and other fancy meds for GPs to prescribe. I am sure you know how it goes - the GP is wined and dined by a "medical representative" and eventually signs a contract, being first promised participation in "medical seminars" abroad with like-minded colleagues etc. I have two friends in the medical representative profession, so I guess I would know. But even so, I am not aware of Polish GPs practically forcing antibiotics down their patients' throats. If this does happen, it's a totally new development which must have taken place in the last 5 years, after I left Poland. And even if it's totally true, I bet quite a lot of the patients never actually use the medicine they'd been prescribed. People tend to know when a doctor develops a pattern in prescribing antibiotics - esp. of a specific type or make. ;-)


Is that a lot? Children tend to catch quite nasty bacterial infections like tonsilitis and bronchitis. (Which, from my experience, often go untreated in the UK).


Exactly what a good British GP might say :-)


Well, that's what they're for. They're called lekarz pierwszego kontaktu - first point of contact physicians. They're supposed to treat what they can and refer you to a specialist for the rest. Their British counterparts seem to think they can treat gynaecological conditions, cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and pretty much every other illness in the book (and they do look up a sort of medical google facility on the computer to make their diagnosis - right in front of the patient). Which, as you can imagine, is not a good way to make that patient trust you.


For some reason, it's good to rest and sleep a lot when you're really sick. Also, there are many illnesses in which it is beneficial to sweat as much as possible (and ofc change your pyjamas and the bedclothes during the process) ;-) The elevated body temperature helps fight off the infection.


Hey, they are usually warm and DRY. Warm and humid would be what you are thinking of :-)
Personally, I prefer warm and dry to cold and draughty, esp. in the winter when I am feverish and ill.

Life / What is it with the Polish love of antibiotics? And Why do Poles get ill more? [40]


Sounds really "science-fiction" to me - like something out of a dystopian novel ;-) Whatever unpleasant, nasty, or downright terrifying aspects living under the commies might have had, this would not be one of them. Employment was usually for life unless you really tried hard to make things difficult for yourself. Nobody was in a hurry to get anything done, and there were always ways and means to "sort out issues" (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) if necessary.


I dunno. I was not prescribed antibiotics unnecessarily when in PL, and my opinion of British GPs is that they couldn't properly diagnose their way out of a paper bag. It's "go home and rest, and take a painkiller if necessary" for the widest variety of ailments from PMS to arthritis. I am rather healthy myself, but as community interpreter I have visited doctors literally hundreds of times in the last few years, so I think I have almost seen it all.

Polish docs might be big on antibiotics, but British ones hand out strong, codeine-based painkillers (Co-codamol anyone?) to almost anybody who complains of any sort of pain - without trying to find out what actually causes it.

Life / What is it with the Polish love of antibiotics? And Why do Poles get ill more? [40]


How about the standard set by educational authorities (at least in London) which states that normal school attendance should be 95% or over? Parents are outright asked by teachers and attendance officers to send their ill children to school no matter what, "if Johnny looks really poorly we'll send him back home". This is all done to make school attendance records look better. In PL, a sick child stays at home, no questions asked.


You couldn't be more wrong. In the "good old days" job security was 100% and you wouldn't need to fret about taking sick leave. If you can blame any mentality here, it would be the "go-getter" capitalist attitude of the early post-communist era, when everyone wanted to prove themselves valuable to the employers and for the first time in living memory (almost) unemployment loomed large on the horizon.


For almost ten years, I suffered from recurrent strep throat or whatever it was. A high fever, loss of voice for days at a time, horrible pain while swallowing etc. I never took antibiotics for it because I figured it would go away on its own. Finally, a doctor friend of mine bullied me into taking a course of antibiotics. I did, and have never had the problem again. The thing is, I had been carrying a thriving colony of bacteria with me all this time, and whenever my immunity was down, they would attack me. Once I killed them off with the antibiotics, I regained my freedom ;-)

Taking antibiotics now and then - when needed - is all good IMHO. Problems arise when people start a course and don't finish it, or take antibiotics when they hadn't been prescribed any (eg "leftovers" from a previous treatment).

Life / What is it with the Polish love of antibiotics? And Why do Poles get ill more? [40]


Don't you think that the minor difference in winter temperatures between PL and UK might be a reason for this? Also, I have noticed that (at least in London) people have no clue how to dress appropriately to the weather. In the hottest summer some women could be walking around in knee-high furry boots (and not much else), while slipping and sliding through a snowy winter's day in sandals and bare feet! And no coat on! If it's cold, you should dress warm and button up, as it helps keep your energy levels up. Otherwise, you spend most of your energy on just trying to keep warm enough to survive. Also, I have never seen so many ill, coughing, wheezing, snot-nosed (and very flimsily dressed) children around as in wintry London. These children should all be recuperating in bed, while teachers claim there is nothing wrong with them and they should be attending school.

Life / Fashion and Style in Poland [174]


People on the street if I'm just walking enjoying myself, or people on the bus / tube, people in the pub...

Overall, dressing is a social activity, a sort of one-person theatre, and if you have no audience than why bother to live (and dress) at all? ;-))))

Life / Fashion and Style in Poland [174]


I don't tend to dress in discarded banana skins and old rags, so hopefully "ewww" is not a reaction I often encounter ;-)

But yes, I prefer someone to give me an outraged / surprised look than to to totally ignore me (if I know I look "different" of course).

In other words, I prefer living, breathing people, with the capacity to be shocked or amused, to indifferent and disinterested ladies and gentlemen who are afraid of even casual eye contact.

Ofc just rushing past each other in the street is another kettle of fish.

Life / Fashion and Style in Poland [174]


It's not rude as such. I sometimes enjoy being stared at ;-p


I don't think it's OK if people are so confined within their own little world that they don't realise there are other people out there. I prefer people who react to me, even negatively, to people who just look straight through me (this is rude in my opinion).

Life / Fashion and Style in Poland [174]


And that's wrong? I think people who wear PJs outside their homes are seriously messed up. What next - going out in your underwear? And of course people would gasp in disbelief if they saw someone in short sleeves in winter, it's cold in winter and a normal person has enough self-preservation instinct to realise that and dress accordingly. I don't understand why people who dress foolishly and / or inappropriately shouldn't draw stares and attract attention. I always dressed quite flamboyantly in Poland and if people stared I took it as a compliment ;-)

In the UK people don't stare because they don't acknowledge your existence, and because they couldn't care less about your style or lack thereof, not because they are polite or tolerant.

Work / Polish translation Masters in Europe [27]


It seems standards have slipped a lot since then. The school I am writing about is a typical primary school in the London borough of Redbridge. I quit working there after several months because I it was, frankly speaking, a traumatic experience for me. (No, not because of violence or anything like that. Because of the cringeworthy "educational practices" I witnessed on a daily basis).

Work / Polish translation Masters in Europe [27]


I have no idea frankly, but they were definitely fluent English speakers. I am not talking about immigrant kids fresh off the plane here.
Actually, there was a Polish boy there who had only joined the school several months earlier, and the teacher could not stop talking about his excellent writing skills. She was fascinated by the fact that he was "linking letters" and had "a steady hand" at his age. The boy was about 9.

Work / Polish translation Masters in Europe [27]


How many British kids actually *read* by age 5? Lots of Polish kids know the alphabet by 5 - 6, and ALL of them read and write normally (on an age-appropriate level) before they finish grade 1.

On the other hand, I worked as a teaching assistant at a London primary school, and I'm sorry to say that even 8 - 9 year olds struggled with reading and writing. Foundation Requirements and Key Levels look great on paper, but it seems implementation isn't quite catching up.


If someone is exceptionally gifted, I bet they can complete a 5-year magister course in 2 years. A friend of mine simultaneously completed TWO faculties and graduated with distinction from both. While heavily pregnant. That does not mean it is normal and typical for students to do so.

Work / Polish translation Masters in Europe [27]


I was really looking forward to your reply, as I completely agree with your opponent. Unfortunately it seems you've gotten cold feet...

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

I never said my Russian wasn't good enough. I merely stated that in my opinion, Russian is no more similar to Czech than to Polish or other Western Slavonic languages. If there are such striking similarities, why don't you quote some for my instruction and enjoyment?

Work / Polish translation Masters in Europe [27]


I would say most study full time.


Most people who study extramural only work part-time. I should know, I taught extramural students for many years. Also, the formal requirements (the examinations you need to pass, the magister thesis etc). are no different for extramural students, so yes, they do need to work extra hard to gain their qualification. I hope we're not discussing private "you pay us, we give you a diploma" - type "educational facilities" here. That's a whole different story, and a sad one at that.


Six or seven years at university? At minimum? Isn't that just a tad too long? In PL it's 5 (or 3+2) for most areas of study, and 6-7 for medical students.

So, how old is the average European graduate? 27 - 28? Bizarre!

Work / Polish translation Masters in Europe [27]


Not all magister-level studies are extramural; actually extramural studies are just another option, with full-time study being the default offer. So what's your problem?