News / Poland Parliament elections in October 2011 [944]


if you read through the article serious doubts arise as to truthfulness of some witnesses (the passage with Barbara T.) during the trial - "nie wiem dlaczego opowiadałam takie głupoty" - "I don't know why I have said such rubbish" - while her testimony given in the investigation was pretty detailed one

other witnesses (Andrzej Z. "Słowik") refused to testify before court - why?

I am not convinced at all prof. Podgórski is clean as a teardrop

next passage 'za zaświadczenie do sądu Jarosław R. wręczył mi 400 złotych w kopercie". Ze słowami "Nie wiem co pan doktor pije. Proszę sobie samemu coś kupić". Nie wiem, dlaczego wziąłęm te pieniądze". heh nie wiem dlaczego wziąłem te pieniądze - quite telling about Polish medical circles - another point is Jarosław R. is missing - maybe already dead -

now I tell you what an ordinator told my mom who offered him 200 or 300 złotych (in 1996 - we couldn't afford anything more at that moment) in a neurosurgical ward in a hospital in Bytom to 'encourage' him to make skull and brain surgery on my late uncle - he said more or less something like: Z 200 złotymi to wie co sobie pani może zrobić? - You know what you can do with 200 złoty (I can't remember if it was 200 or 300 złoty (it definitely was not more)) - I heard it with my own ears


EDIT: I'm sorry - I have attributed the 400 złoty situation to prof Podgórski while it was doctor Ryszard J. who admitted to taking it - yes I am prejudiced against medical circles

Food / Is chocolate popular in Poland? [52]

ok - I didn't know what foreign branding was - and yes both Haagen-Dazs and Prince Polo are examples of foreign branding (after wikipedia)

Food / Is chocolate popular in Poland? [52]


I don't get it - is Prince Polo a foreign product re-branded for Poland - somehow I doubt it

Food / Is chocolate popular in Poland? [52]

true but only also - the main thing was it was not made of cream but based on ... vegetable oil (and a cheap one judging by my taste buds - I actually read what they had to say on the package)

Food / Is chocolate popular in Poland? [52]

I am not sure Polish ice creams are filled with chemicals but I once had some cheap stuff in England (would never buy it myself actually - just happened to be able to put my hands on it - not that I stole it though :) - that stuff had pretty strange taste and it was virtually packed with chemicals - and you just could positively taste it as well

Food / Is chocolate popular in Poland? [52]


who love things filled with chemicals - just read the package

Food / Is chocolate popular in Poland? [52]


yes, this is definitely the best Polish sweet - they are actually quite mildly sweet but mmm delicious

Language / Help me understand Polish imperfective vs perfective verbs? [64]


it's not that we are not able to use them correctly - it's about being conscious when and where we use them which is the firts thing if you want to explain it to learners of Polish

History / Polish bombers over Berlin in 1939? [19]

what difference did it make - I doubt they could have send more than 30 planes in a single run - and that all without a fighter escort (no such long range Soviet fighter at that time) and I guess it was only possible at nights - and it still must have taken a heavy toll - I am not 100 per cent sure now but from what I can gather the Soviet bombing wing remained a tactical force for the remainder of the war (and not strategical)

Language / Help me understand Polish imperfective vs perfective verbs? [64]


I just mentioned them not even given an example - I know it's just too much to swallow for one time - perfective vs imperfective is enough to ponder for good couple of months if you are not born into it I presume

oh and well DAĆ (and zdać as its developement though with a completely different semantic field) is a very good example of a one time action verb = perfective (of which Leopejo has actually given the imperfective/iterative form - you should be more careful Leopejo ;)

Language / Help me understand Polish imperfective vs perfective verbs? [64]

Language / Help me understand Polish imperfective vs perfective verbs? [64]


perfective is almost solely restricted to actions/processes that have been completed (past tense) napisałem- I have written or are thought (or speculated) to be completed or thought will be completed - napiszę - I will have written - napisałbym - I would have written

habitual or regular actions can be expressed either by imperfective forms or frequentative forms (which I will not expand into here because it's gonna mud the picture for you now)

there is a class of verbs that are one time actions - these are perfective by default - such verbs are for example: kupić (to buy) - puknąć (to knock (but not to keep knocking) - kopnąć (to kick (but not to keep kicking) - krzyknąć (to cry (shout)(but not to keep crying) - there are forms thought to be iterative (less so imperfective) forms of such verbs though

News / Poland Parliament elections in October 2011 [944]


which innocent people do you mean? is there a point of tracking down innocent people? don't you think it costs an extra effort?

if you mean Barbara Blida then read this: polskatimes.pl/fakty/kraj/435637,pograzyly-go-zeznania-slaskiej-alexis-henryk-dyrda-skazany,id,t.html and this: (Henryk Dyrda apperas in both cases).

btw Barbara Blida did not intend to commit suicide as Ryszard Kalisz revealed - she just wanted to non-fataly hurt herself and probably play an innocent persecuted person: - she used so called non-penetrating ammunition - but must have been not thoroughly informed because it appears even that kind of ammo can kill when the muzzle of a gun touches the body as in this case


I may be wrong but as far as I can gather an MP in Poland just receives money for the maintenance of his/her office including hiring of the stuff - so instead of hiring staff he can well spend it on some plasma for his office - Gilowska never was questioned about it by the Sejm regulatory bodies so what she did was not against the law - I presume from that it is the responsibility of an MP to hire and pay the wages of his staff (from the money drawn from Sejm/the state - I never meant she paid her staff including her son and his wife (who actually got to know each other at work in the office and only married thereafter) from her own money (it's pretty impossible for the majority of Polish MP's save for the figures like Palikot - btw ask Palikot if his parliamentary staff were paid by him or by the Sejm)

Love / Foreigners: would you have moved to Poland if it was full of fat/ugly women? [42]

it just grows on you in Poland rozumiemnic - don't blame them on that too much - after all 'człowiek' is masculine in Poland - and there is also this thing said to be proven in practice - Try shouting 'Człowieku' to someone on an empty street or a street with just a couple of people - presumably no woman will turn around ;P

ok I just realised the English language is actually equally sexist - after all 'człowiek' is 'a man' in English - looks like a woman is not man ;) neither belongs to the mankind ;) - thanks God for the humankind

Food / What's your favorite Polish beer? [870]

I really liked Heweliusz - one of the better beers back then

EDiT: just read some reviews of present day Kaper - it stinks of rectified spirit - it didn't when it was still made in the Gdańsk browar (no longer the case AFAIK the production was moved to Elbląg and Braniewo in the early 2000's after Heineken's acquistion of the Gdańsk brewery)

Food / What's your favorite Polish beer? [870]

I'm no expert on Polish beers (I don't drink beer that match already some 8 years) but back in the times I used to drink beer more often there just wasn't a good stronger Polish beer except perhaps for Kaper Królewski from Gdańsk Brewery - a discontinued brand AFAIK - the other brand from the same brewery was Heweliusz

Food / What's your favorite Polish beer? [870]

It may be different now but years ago when Warka Strong was still a fresh brand it stank and tasted of the rectified spirit
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectified_spirit


very very true - give me bottled beer over canned one any day (not everyday though :P)

there were times that I actually couldn't stand the taste of the canned beer

Language / Help me understand Polish imperfective vs perfective verbs? [64]


it was exactly to show that two similar forms are not only two different aspects but also two different tenses - read the post through

News / Poland Parliament elections in October 2011 [944]


hiring a son and his spouse in one's MP office is not nepotism in my view simple as that - the people hired by an MP are not on a state wage but are paid by the MP - go figure (it was just blunt fight for power in Lublin PO as far as I know)

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zyta_Gilowska (there is passage about the alleged nepotism)

here's another article on Gilowska and her departure from PO and the so called 'nepotism'

Language / Help me understand Polish imperfective vs perfective verbs? [64]


the aspects are best understood for the past and the present

perfective aspect in the past indicates that an action has been finished - Napisałem list - I have written a letter (Or 'W piątek napisałam list do Basi' - I wrote a letter to Basia on Friday)

imperfective in the past just mentions the action and never states if it was finished or not - it just states that an action or process was taking place - W piątek wieczorem pisałem list. I was writing a letter on the Friday evening.

Pisałem list, gdy zadzwonił Heniek. - I was writing a letter when Henry phoned.

if an action was habitual in the past you also often use imperfective - Często pisałaś do Basi? - Did you write Basia often?

(but when habitual or iterative actions are involved you often use yet another aspect in Polish which is called iterative or frequentative)

Now, in the present you can't have completed actions - all the actions and processes in the present are ongoing - that's why there are no imperfective forms of the present

Now a note about creation of 'perfective' forms and often misleading similarity of present tense imperfective forms and future tense perfective forms:

Perfective forms are in the vast majority formed by adding a preposition before an imperfective form - however most prepositions change the semantics of the word (like adding a prepostion after an English verb mostly does too) - but some prepositions added to an imperfective form are semantically neutral

robię - I am doing (or I do - depending on context) - - - > z + robię (z as a preposition means 'with' here*) = zrobię - I will do (you notice the visual similarity of the two forms)

*actually the 'z' preposition has two different meanings and they come from two different words (have different etymologies)
one is '(together) with' - while the other is 'from', 'out of' (generally speaking)

the difficult stuff is often to know what preposition is traditionally semantically neutral for a given verb - mostly you just have to memorize it

zrobię, napiszę, posłucham, uwierzę, (the infinitives are zrobić, napisać, posłuchać, uwierzyć)

Language / I would really like to learn Polish, but I'm struggling.. [13]


try learning the alphabet and the ways of pronunciation - you don't have to be able to pronounce all sounds as a native - but if you don't know how the letters are pronounced you won't figure out what people are talking in Polish and believe me you'll learn a lot more of the language (when confronted) when you finally are able to tell what words are spoken (=meaning you can more or less repeat them and tell them apart from other words)(it also means you will be able to tell of what letters and sounds they consist - also in Polish you can mostly figure out how the word is pronounced from the way it is written (there are some minor exceptions) - it works the opposite way a bit worse but it can work well with a bit experience)

it is also very important to note that many letters (especially vowels) are pronounced differently in Polish and in English

News / Poles are able to forgive their enemies - how noble. [68]

There is a Polish saying "Mom, they praise us" - if you are looking for praise from the outside world you are equalle vulnerable to being criticized

Travel / Poland in photo riddles [3134]


I have seen a couple years ago - I believe paź królowej ( papilio machaon)- is a protected species in Poland now - wikipedia says it was once pretty commong - intesification of agricalture led to it's decline presumably - as I said I haven't seen one in years

Travel / Poland in photo riddles [3134]


they could have been alders (the photo is not clear enough to allow to judge me 100 per cent - but the bark can well be of the lower part of a grown alder tree) - alders are not a desired species in mountain locations as the wood is not very sought after - there is young tree plantation down there and a couple of beeches have been left when this section of forest was felled so that a couple of beech seedlings can grow from their seed - Grey Alder sows plenty of seeds and is pretty invasive will also mostly stop other trees from growing in their vicinity - the other reason could have been the branches overhanging the road - maybe also someone wanted to create a vista

Travel / Poland in photo riddles [3134]


actually it's not exactly true - it's the stumps that turn red after the tree has been cut - when freshly felled alder tree is very intensly orange with a bit of red hue - I guess the red coloring in the tree must come from the roots


if I knew what type of these were I could perhaps give you one reason why they were felled - why the stumps have been left so high is probably to allow off-road cars to be able to pull themselves out if they somehow manage to slide down the slope (most employees and contractors of Lasy Państwowe drive off-roads these days)

scratch that - I now think it pretty imposible even with the use of these stumps

maybe it's just to stop trailers from sliding off the road in muddier road condition

News / Has there been an influx of Polish people into Germany? [21]

Wroclaw


you propably haven't taken into account that a population of mice can quadruple in a matter of a month or so :P

Travel / Poland in photo riddles [3134]


\

these are two different kinds of wood - the pale is beech (pol. buk), the orangy one is most probably alder ('olsza') - you can judge it also by the bark on the logs


actually alder wood is almost red when freshly cut -but it turns orange-yellow when dries (it pales even further when not stored in dry conditions)

Language / What to say when answering phone in Polish? [10]


no such word AFAIK

Food / Orange Roughy in Krakow? [9]


Baltic is very poluted - vast areas of the Baltic bottom are a so called 'sea bottom desert' (anoxic conditions) - it became so mostly in the 70's - think detergents - so many poluted rivers flow into Baltic - Odra, Wisła, Neman, Dvina, Neva (the Petersburg agglomeration) - also herbicides and pesticides and artificial fertilizer run-offs from the fields contribute very much to the contamination of rivers and consequently the Baltic

News / Poland Parliament elections in October 2011 [944]


hehehe hihihi nepotism - there was a serious competition for PO leadership in Lublin area - and thanks to exaggerated nepotism accusations Palikot won - Mrs Gilowska hired her son and her son's spouse mainly because they were bright and educated people and really prepared to work in a MP office - then Gilowska became one of the best finance ministers in the last 20 years (in PiS+coalition government) - this is what Kaczyński was about a couple of years ago - he gathered many honest poeple who wanted to work for Poland