History / For what the Germans owe Poland one trillion U.S. dollars? [299]

In fact, it WAS the Germans who invaded the Sudetenland in '38, continuing on into Gleiwitz aka Gliwice in '39, France in '40, and you know, the list goes on!

:-)

The Saar was returned to France when Germany lost, as I've already stated, and as practically every school boy knows all too well!

Work / Diary of a Teacher in Poland [181]

"Jean Brodie" is one of my all-time favorite movies! Never read Muriel Sparks' novel, but ol' Maggie never gave a better performance if she tried. Seeing it again, from the very opening scenes until the final ones, I began with a lump in my throat and found it so sobering as well as beautifully played, all hands thumbs up for a great cast:-)

News / Polish man burns his head after mistaking iron for phone [11]

Ought to belong in the Guinness Book of World Records.

News / Polish man burns his head after mistaking iron for phone [11]

Any more "retarded" than the former East German salesman around the time of the reunification in 1989-90 who kept going to see whom he thought was ringing the door bell to his house when it fact it was his own house phone?:-) This stuff is too stupid to make up!

lol

Travel / Travel Within Poland - from Warsaw airport to Mragowo [49]

A "jiffy" German-Polish-English, Polish-German phrasebook on your I-Phone surely couldn't hurt:-)

Anyhow, language knowledge or not, HAVE A BLAST, dude!! Wish my wife and I could travel again.

Travel / Travel Within Poland - from Warsaw airport to Mragowo [49]

Indeed, I know Berlin, haven't been back in an age, though. You're surely correct, being as you live there.
Might be an idea however to learn some basic Polish for the trip. Once again, can't rely on the average local to know German. English too might be a challenge, except for the younger urban set. In that case, they'll be multilingual in English, possibly German, perhaps Russian or even Spanish and French:-)

Roads have gotten a lot better too, I'm told! Hope to hear from you.

Love / So I am told Polish men are a chivalrous bunch? [49]

"Titular" head, sorry:-)

Travel / Travel Within Poland - from Warsaw airport to Mragowo [49]

Poland's still loads cheaper than Germany, particularly the Frankfurt area, I'll wager.

Language / Where did you start or the best techniques for learning Polish. [85]

@Roz, I know exactly what I'm speaking about, indeed I henceforth edited my post immediately yesterday from "PR" to "RP" in order to avoid any such misunderstandings. You'll admit though that certain stage actors such as the late Sir Ralph Richardson, Larry Olivier, and Sir John Gielgud were an undisguised delight to hear recite:-) How about Dylan Thomas? In Polish, I prefer Hanna Stankowna and Andrzej Lapicki.

Thanks there, Atch! I didn't realize that Gordon Jackson aka Mr. Hudson etc. was a Highland Scot. Should have knownLOL

Love / So I am told Polish men are a chivalrous bunch? [49]

It's a relic from an older era! In official ceremonies however, you will recall that mid-40's President Duda planted a rather auspicious hand kiss on Premier Szydlo when she assumed her role as Head of State:-)

When attending any number of receptions at the Polish Consulate in New York, I frequently observed this gallant gesture among men considerable younger than your Mr. Duda!

Language / Where did you start or the best techniques for learning Polish. [85]

RP is basically confined to an upper-crust horsey set who attend Glydenbourne, essentially only spoken by the Queen or a few hangers on, and so Crowe's English is good enough for today's vernacular, yet soooo different from the once "average" public school accents of those who may not even have been top of their class at Eton and Harrow.

Aussies can sound "upper class" as well, only Crowe clearly ain't one of 'em, that's all I meant:-)

Love / So I am told Polish men are a chivalrous bunch? [49]

My wife and I not too long ago met a gentleman of around seventy or so, formerly a turner by profession who worked his entire life in a factory near Wroclaw, undoubtedly of limited schooling, yet typically Polish "education":-)

No sooner did we finish our leisurely Polish lunch and said our goodbyes (with me furiously translating for my wife as we got ourselves ready) then Wiktor turned to Gloria, straightened up proudly and proceeded to kiss her hand with a "Caluje pani raczki!".

My wife was so delighted she scarcely knew what to say. This, her first taste of Polish chivalry.

Language / Where did you start or the best techniques for learning Polish. [85]

American English, with her wide-spread flat "a's" and frontal "r-sounds", such as typically heard in the Midwest, can still be heard in Devon, Cornwall and among the inhabitants of Bristol. Glaswegians too usually dispense with the broad "a-sound" of Public School RP, much as in the character of Hudson in the '70's TV series "Upstairs, Downstairs"!

@Kaprys,
Doubtless nobody today speaks much as in Hollywood drawing room comedies from the '30's and yet it IS possible in English to sound articulate and "natural" aka idiomatic, without coming across vulgar:-) In British English there surely is a middle ground between Alan Cordunner from "Topsy-Turvy" and Russell CroweLOL

I could understand the Polish of a film such as "Zakazane Piosenki" much more easily than "Zmruz oczy", even "Noz we wodzie".

Travel / Travel Within Poland - from Warsaw airport to Mragowo [49]

Although I've never been, I've been told the lake regions around Mazur etc. are highly recommended and the photos of Zakopane in the Tatras are simply breathtaking!

Just sent you a private e-mail.

Language / Where did you start or the best techniques for learning Polish. [85]

"Zmruz oczy" is a perfectly acceptable film, kaprys, where ever did you get the idea from reading my post that I thought it wasn't? I actually enjoyed it, and without subtitles as well.

@Maf, if English has no standard, then it's open season on language now, isn't there? For a language that prides herself on being THE "universal" language, the "passport" to freedom etc. ad nauseum, as I've asked before (though have yet to get an answer), should one keep their passport in better condition rather than all dog eared and unpresentably dirty??!

:-)

Language / Where did you start or the best techniques for learning Polish. [85]

Quit trolling. I know Poles who've lived in Queens, NY for decades and still can hardly speak English, so there:-) Length of stay abroad isn't always the key to speaking another language accurately, not to mention fluently!

Americans particularly are often loathe to correct foreigners's English. The Brits are more proscriptive in my experience. The Poles not as much, the French and Germans to the highest degree.

I read "Rzeczpospolita" nearly every day:-)

Language / Where did you start or the best techniques for learning Polish. [85]

Wrong. I merely said that as your English needs improvement, my Polish surely needs a way to go too:-)

You probably have a noticable Polish accent in English. My spoken Polish you'll no doubt never hear and so cannot judge!

Travel / Planning a trip to Poland - Krakow, Auschwitz, Zakopane and other places - winter, Christmas [56]

Not really. He knows which side his royal bread is buttered on!

Language / Where did you start or the best techniques for learning Polish. [85]

German's my second first language, not Polish! When above all an American learns Polish as a THIRD second language, like two hippos having sex, it's not whether it works perfectly which is the issue, but that it works at all:-)

Language / Where did you start or the best techniques for learning Polish. [85]

My written Polish is that of an educated foreign-born student! Surely it requires improvement, as does your English, so don't bother denying it. Judging from your "English", although not precisely "Poglish" admittedly, you undoubtedly avail yourself of GoogleTranslate a fair part of the time:-)

Travel / Planning a trip to Poland - Krakow, Auschwitz, Zakopane and other places - winter, Christmas [56]

A splendid idea, dolno. Any virtual tours in Polish, as money's a little tight for my family and me at the moment, what with a new house and all:-)

Language / Where did you start or the best techniques for learning Polish. [85]

Oh, you're joking again:-) Seriously now, kaprys, your English is really not bad at all for someone who learned/studied it as a second language!

Just don't make the all too common mistake of confusing blatant, low-level vulgarity aka our "f-curse", "s----ks" etc., for strength of expression as some of your other Polish-forum colleagues seem to do constantly.

In order to master a language, including one's own, it is usually necessary to know both the literature as well as the vernacular of that language. As an educated native Polish speaker, you obviously have been schooled in Mickiewicz's "Pan Tadeusz" etc. doubtless in much the same way we multilingual Anglophones had to learn Shakespeare, Lovelace ("Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage....."), Dickens, Emily Dickinson, Millay, Gilbert & Sullivan in order to be able to express ourselves accordingly.

Not sure how it works now in Poland (twenty years since must be an eternity to youLOL), but it must have occurred to you how the level of language universally has deteriorated, suffering from a poverty and not merely a difference in expression. Watching "Zmroz oczy" from 2004 or so is a totally different experience from "Popiol i Diament" or the great pre-War films.

Quality not merely quantity of spoken as well as written material must be one's watchword in learning a foreign language especially.

Travel / Planning a trip to Poland - Krakow, Auschwitz, Zakopane and other places - winter, Christmas [56]

Under the right circumstances, you may be right. The again, as a Polish gentile living abroad, rather than as a Jew living in Poland, what are you expected to say?

LOL

Language / Where did you start or the best techniques for learning Polish. [85]

@kaprys,

Any astute learner can judge the efficacy as well as the effectiveness of a given instructor's pedagogical technique, whether they're (in my case) sixteen or sixty!

Off of which high horse should I dismount, pray? Nice turn of phrase though, kaprys, you are getting darn good, although I hate to be condescending. If I could come up with the perfect bon mot in the Polish original, I trust you'd say the same about yours truly:-))

The fact remains that, as Maf posted the other day, a school is a BUSINESS!! Yet, to what extent is it practicing "monkey business"? Yes, I certainly can "judge" how well I'm learning or not, and the reason why so many Poles whom I've encountered such as yourself have such huge attitude problems is that far too many believe themselves G_d's gift to the English language. Not all of you can write English like Joseph Conrad.

If a native speaker of French, for instance, upbraids me for misusing their language slightly (although I believe it to be right), I'd immediately thank that person for pointing out the error, which I would then endeavor to correct. When in Poland, I could hold my own, no problem! When in Paris last in my thirties, I THOUGHT I could, but found out that my French by Parisian standards was barely up to snuff. "So why did folks in Montreal not say a word and give me the impression my French was excellent?", I thought.

Rather reminds me of what you replied to me, that if I couldn't always understand your English, I must have a mental problem, after all, you claim to have been in London and there nobody had any issue with your English. Perhaps they were just being polite, as with my French-Canadian encounter.

History / For what the Germans owe Poland one trillion U.S. dollars? [299]

You gays or you guys??
LOL

Language / Where did you start or the best techniques for learning Polish. [85]

@jon,

My experience with high school French and Spanish, was that our native-American born teacher (who'd studied at the Sorbonne) taught with a rather obvious American accent, yet as far as grammar, knew it like a book. When Mr. Larson proceeded to teach Spanish, his Midwestern diction notwithstanding, he always would consult with our Senor Chocron from Valladollid on matters of idiom and more advanced locutions for his Honors Spanish course:-)

@kaprys,

Pity they don't do the same in Poland!

Travel / Planning a trip to Poland - Krakow, Auschwitz, Zakopane and other places - winter, Christmas [56]

I learned several years ago from some Israeli colleagues that it is quite common for Israeli teenagers to visit Krakow at least once a year, furthermore, that she has one of the most vibrant Jewish communities anywhere in Poland, for that matter, Eastern Europe, including Warsaw.

Is this still true?

Travel / Planning a trip to Poland - Krakow, Auschwitz, Zakopane and other places - winter, Christmas [56]

You didn't "disturb" me in the least, Slim!

I only caution you as to how your visit to said places can eventually be more meaningful by doing equal justice to both experiences separately, that's all. Whether or not you choose to, is between you and your conscience:-)

Language / Where did you start or the best techniques for learning Polish. [85]

Granted, Maf!

Yet, why should quality control suffer? Oh, how I pity the ambitious young Polish English pupil with their eyes on something more rewarding than simply

"Good Morning, Mrs. Brown! Are you going into town? Why such a frown? etc."... and even the word "frown" might well be too topic specific for those young fraudster teachers from whichever Polish backwater to understandLOL

Look, I've nothing against a well-meaning, university educated Pole who desires to pursue their love of language teaching teach English at any level they wish.

As an educator myself who's taught a language not technically his "native" language for years, I couldn't be happier for such a person.

However, what serious institutions in Poland should do is to have perhaps ONE retired native English speaker whom the school doesn't have to pay, on hand when there are questions as to certain subtleties of the language.

Our foreign language teachers here in the States weren't always from the country, yet they ALWAYS were the first to check with a native-speaker from that country who'd be either a paid or non-paid educational consultant for the school usually from the local consulate:-) This surely satisfied both teacher and learner alike by assuring some degree of standard.

Is this too much to ask?

History / For what the Germans owe Poland one trillion U.S. dollars? [299]

The bigger issue though, once again, is when do reparations STOP being paid! As I asked the other day, is breaking Germany's coffers the answer to "redressing" the wrongs of recent history?