News / GERMANS WANT TO GERMANIZE KOPERNIK (COPERNICUS)! OUTRAGE! [1016]


Undoubtedly, not all Germans were Nazis, but the majority of the Nazis were Germans. It is amazing how this nation let themselves be fooled by a group of criminal ideologists. Unlike the Bolsheviks who seized power through a revolution, Hitler and his clique were freely elected by the Germans, receiving a mandate to build a One-Thousand Year Reich. Yet, they survived only through a fraction of that time and all they achieved was the destruction of Europe, the holocaust of the Jews of Europe and the loss of Pomerania and Silesia (which Prussia conquered on Austria in 1741) to Poland.

Kopernik's ancestry as coming from Silesia may have been Polish-speaking Silesians or germanized Silesians, also they may have been ethinc Germans, ethnic Dutch or ethnic Flemish people. But he himself was a loyal subject of the Polish king defending the country against the Teutonic Order.

Work / Career as an English teacher in Warsaw Poland [28]


How do you know he wants to teach English? Maybe he wants to teach people Irish? He says nothing about what he wants to do in Poland.

Personally, I think that this little "old horsje" may want to teach people Dutch. But since neither Irish nor Dutch are popular among Polish people, it's better to ask him why he wants to move to Poland. Why do you want to move to Poland, Oud Paard?

UK, Ireland / Have the British become the worst enemy of the Polish? [45]

Thanks for this interesting link (it is a real pity that it doesn't contain reports of the sittings of the period before the 2nd of July 1802 as I'd be much interested in reading the texts of the sittings in the second half of the 18th century). Nevertheless, I am in doubt about Ozi Dan's allegations that "some MP's actually resigned in protest over the way Poland was treated", so it is for him to prove his point rather than for me to do this research.

UK, Ireland / Have the British become the worst enemy of the Polish? [45]


Could you develop on this a little more? If there were MP's who resigned at the time in protest over the way Poland was treated, those MP's would have surely stated in Parliament their reasons for doing it. It would be quite interesting to read through their argument today even if "all this happened a long time ago".

Language / Usage of Polish 'to' [8]

Or "Z zawodu jestem lekarzem". If we wanted to apply "lekarz" to the construction "Moim zawodem jest ...", it would have been difficult to sound sensible. "Moim zawodem jest lekarz" would sound as akward as "Moim zawodem jest medycyna" (see "Moim zawodem jest technologia informacyjna" in the OP post). Thus it is best to avoid the construction "Moim zawodem jest ...", though you can safely say "Moim ulubionym daniem jest ryba z frytkami" or "Moim hobby jest leczenie ludzi poprzez nakładanie rąk".

Language / Usage of Polish 'to' [8]

I'd say the first sentence is not very good. We tend to use "piłka" to name the object in question (or we would say "piłka do nogi"), whereas the term "piłka nożna" commonly denotes the actual game in which this object is used.

The second sentence is perfectly OK. In this sentence the word "są" is indeed omitted, thus the full sentence would be "Anna i Maria to są przyjaciółki moich sióstr". This is a sort of shortening of the utterance comparable to using "they're" in place of "they are".

Life / Need an English speaking dentist in Warsaw? Avoid this place! [6]


But if you phone your dentist to make an ap, you should "do-it-yourself"!

News / Capturing the centre-ground of Polish politics [4]


If he does, I would wonder if PiS continues to exist. It is unlikely to, in my view, without JK.

The British political scene is different than Polish. Our parties except the SLD and the PSL are still ephemeral. If Poland did not loose independence in the 18th century, we would have most propably a similar dual-party system just as basically the UK has at present. Our parties would have been deeply rooted in the past and firmly established for a long time. One of them would have certainly arisen from the the "Society of Friends of the Constitution" formed in May 1791, shortly after the adoption of the Constitution of May 3, the other would have been formed by their opponents and would most certainly adopt the word "republican" in its name.

We would have also had a constitutional monarchy which, similarly to the British one, would be taking its origin from a German House, here the House of Wettins (member of this House was named by the Constitution of May 3 as hereditary King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania). But, as history took a different course, we have neither of these and all our parties are subject to change, defragmentation or split as it happened in the near past with AWS (Akcja Wyborcza Solidarność) or KDL (Kongres Liberalno-Demokratyczny).

UK, Ireland / Polish plane almost kills off UKIP leader Nigel Farage in 2010. [24]

Are the British so indefferent to Nigel Farage (or they are simply indifferent to Polish planes)?

UK, Ireland / Polish plane almost kills off UKIP leader Nigel Farage in 2010. [24]

I still don't understand: would it have been good if Nigel Farange had been killed by a Polish plane or should all the UK rejoice that he was saved?

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


This one is definitely worth reading (unfortunately, the article is in Polish only).

Professor Jerzy Eisler is a renown historian known for his very balanced views on the most recent history of Poland. The three points he discusses in the article are:

- Jaruzelski's alleged antisemitic actions in 1967-68;
- his taking part in the massacre of workers in 1970;
- introducing martial law in 1981.

On the latter point:
- Could the Russians have moved in?
- We are in the area of speculation here. Every one believes what they want to believe in. A more important question for me is: To whose advantage had the martial law been declared? We may look at it in this way: this was to the advantage of the Kremlin as communist order was restored in Warsaw without loosing a single drop of Russian blood and spending a single rouble on it. General Jaruzelski was much celebrated thereafter in Moscow ...

Law / If I gain Citizenship of Poland, does this mean I lose my French Citizenship? [18]


Frankly speaking, I also think that you don't need a Polish passport at all. You have already registered yourself as a member of the Polish Forum and this in itself makes you a much happier person than if you would have been through gaining Polish citizenship. True, the French passport is a way better, but I doubt if even that can offset you the disadvantages of not having the PF membership.

Voting is not that important as you think. The French have voted enthusiastically for Francois Holland as a new saviour of their country, yet after only a few months they simply want to sod him off.

Food / Which Polish milk brand is closest to UK supermarket style milk? [31]



Indeed, pasteurisation does change the taste of the milk very much. I used to drink non-pasteurised milk tout au long de my childhood and adolescence, so I know what you are talking about.

Food / Which Polish milk brand is closest to UK supermarket style milk? [31]


You won't get it in small shops, but usually it is available in big stores of which their website lists 64 in Warsaw including Alma Market, Auchan, Carrefour Hipermarket, Carrefour Market (20 stores - the bigest distributor of this milk in the capital), E.Leclerc, Elea, Kaufland, Piotr i Paweł, Real, Selgros.


Obviously, such a milk is definitely so. From what you write, I guess this milk is not even pasteurized which is a very good thing, je crois.

Food / Which Polish milk brand is closest to UK supermarket style milk? [31]

The best Polish milk is probably "Zimne mleko" which is microfiltrated and comes in glass bottles. You can get more information from their website in English:

zimnemleko.com/?lang=en

Feedback / Editing time too short (5 minutes currently) [60]


What he means is that time between posts has become greater since mods are throwing too many posts to the dustbin.

Feedback / Editing time too short (5 minutes currently) [60]


I don't think so. Mods should have been that "excessive" at a much earlier time. But they were not and all this forum has slowly become a tiny shadow (or in fact a real mockery) of what it once was.

I did warn regularly that such thing would happen sooner or later, but in vain. Now when it is far too late for that, Admin and the mods have taken into action. I doubt if it can ever produce any fruitful results (or it will take years to arrive at it). Having had no clear policy for what the PF forum should be like, and accordingly excluding certain members from posting, they have brought this forum to its present shameless state. The best action now would probably be to close it down for good.


I think you have touched the very essence of this forum here as for now. There is no better word to describe its contents at the moment than "nonsense".

Po polsku / Czy Wietnamczycy mają mniejszą szansę na pracę w Polsce niż Polacy ? [8]


Tak właśnie raczej jest. Informatycy są poszukiwani, a rodzina i znajomi zwykle "podsyają" kandydatów, którzy chcieliby dobrze zarabiać, ale niekoniecznie muszą mieć kwalifikacje równie dobre jak chęci.

Work / Irish guy moving to Warsaw looking for work ( currently in Marketing sector ) [18]

Voilà! No ELT job offer to you yet, but ...
... a prospective new GF is already waiting to meet you, Mr. Murr. Good luck with her!

News / The US sends troops to Poland for drills [83]

The US sends its troops under the NATO umbrella. Since the pact was signed with Poland and others, the NATO promised Russia not to deploy troops in the new member countries, but now Putin taking over the Crimean peninsula has made them change their minds.

History / Ukrainian-occupied Eastern Poland [135]

Sources for the opinion that Taras Shevchenko


!?

History / Ukrainian-occupied Eastern Poland [135]


Sources?

History / Ukrainian-occupied Eastern Poland [135]


I doubt it very much they did. The northern part of East Prussia now being part of the Russian Federation is an important military "base" for the Russians.


It was Vladimir Zhirinovsky who made this offer, he is the deputy chairman of the Duma, so technically speaking he is not part of the Putin administration. This offer it was quickly dismissed as ridiculous by the Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman.

On another occasion, Mr. Zhirinowski called Poland a *******".

Life / International newspaper availability in Gdansk? [21]

If I were you, I would check the Central Railway Station in Gdańsk as well. In Warsaw you will always get the Financial Times and the International Herald Tribune (or whatever it has changed its name to these days) in some, but not all, kiosks at the Warsaw Central Station. And in the afternoon you will even get the papers (which are printed and fetched from Frankfurt am Main) of the current date.

In an EMPiK store you should ask at their information desk which, if any, international daily papers they stock in Gdańsk. Every store has an access to their all-company data base, so they will tell you if and where a given book, magazine or paper is available at the moment.

The French language press is now much less available in Poland than it once was. I used to buy Le Figaro from time to time, but these days I do not see it very often in kiosks or stores in Warsaw. You have a fairly big "Librairie Française" bookshop in Luxembourg, for example, but there is no such in Warsaw since the only one which existed was shut down some two years ago.

Language / Grammar of traditional birthday song "Sto Lat" [13]


It indeed is.


And the Anglo-Saxon singers do the same thing when thay sing:
For he's a jolly good fellow ... and so say all of us!,
in a song which is the equivalent to the Polish "Sto Lat!"

Language / Speaking with wrong Polish case endings? [94]

Talking about "speaking with wrong Polish case endings", there comes to my mind a very recent case of the former Polish finance minister and deputy PM Jacek Rostowski, a native speaker of Polish, born and educated in London (London School of Economics and Political Science), however, who happened to use the town name "Bydgoszcz" as if it was a masculine noun, whereas in reality it has always been a feminine one. Thus, he said he had never been to Bydgoszcz ("w Bydgoszczu") or he was "zainteresowany Bydgoszczem". This mistake of his attracted enormous attention in every information programme on TV broacast on that particular evening which shows how important and how vital the case system in Polish still is.

I have no idea why he should have made such a mistake since nothing in his Polish could ever reveal any foreign educational linguistic background, neither did he ever show a slightest trace of English influence while speaking in Polish. He himself explained the mistake by his fatigue at the time of talking which seems plausible to me. I myself remember occasionally confusing the gender or a case when I happened to be mentally exhausted, but still, I have never been consistent in repeating such a mistake as Mr. Rostowski was!

A common mistake among native speakers of Polish is to assign the masculine gender to the town of Ostrów of Mazovia whose proper gender is feminine though. This is in contrast to the name of Ostrów in Greater Poland whose gender is masculine. This way, we have Ostrów Wielkopolski (masculine), but then it is Ostrów Mazowiecka (feminine).

Life / Is it common for Polish people to speak English in Poland? [122]


I don't. If you travel across Europe and are able to speak to locals in their local language, you will quickly discover how artificial communicating in English in continental Europe is. Even in the Netherlands, with their high percentage of population who are able to communicate in English, I have occasionally met people who could not speak English. And if you start to speak to them in Dutch, uttering a few simple phrases, you instantly discover that it is not at all a true English-speaking country, and they seem to be different people than when you speak English to them.

Such an impression is even stronger, for example, in France or the French-speaking part of Belgium. Believe me, France or Belgium through English are simply different countries than France or Belgium through French.

Travel / Best places to view Warsaw from above? [5]

The best would be to take them to the balloon and fly over Warsaw. A flight for two would cost you 1999 zl; a flight for three would be 2199 zl.

The first manned balloon flight in Poland flight took place on 10 of May 1789 in Warsaw. The ballon, piloted by Jean Pierre Blanchard, started from the Foksal Gardens, rose up to a 2-km height and after 45 minutes landed in Białołęka (now the district of Warsaw). In 1790, Monsieur Blanchard took abord the first Pole, Jan Potocki, to fly the balloon.

Travel / Best way to get from Metro Mlociny to Chopin Airport? [22]


So do I!

Travel / Best way to get from Metro Mlociny to Chopin Airport? [22]


The entrance to Warszawa Śródmieście station is just in between the metro exit and the 175 bus stop.


The SKM train is just as another mode of transport as is bus 175. Stairs to the platform are quite easy to walk down (well, at least if you're not an 80-year old).

I did an almost identical overstappen in Amsterdam (almost the same distance and same amount of stairs) last summer because of the modernisation work on the Dutch railway while travelling to Schiphol airport from a distant village of Frisland by train, and it wasn't any problem whatsoever (except for no information at all in Amsterdam Sloterdijk station).

But a taxi would certainly be the most comfortable "mode of transport".