Love / Why the Polish girls are not laughing? [22]

Why aren't they laughing right now, or why don't they laugh in general, not quite clear as to your question, Fabio:-)

Many more Northern Europeans give a spontaneous smile less frequently in public than do Southerners aka Italians, (particularly southern) or Spaniards, this is true!

Cultural differences, matey, that's all.

Language / Polish - Absolute Beginner Questions. Study plan. [75]

Addendum to yesterday's message.

If you're an aboslute beginner, you can also try labeling certain basic objects in your house/apartment in Polish, for instance ściana" (wall), "drzwi" (door), "stół" (table),"krzesło" (chair) etc. and this way everyday things will become anchored in your brain:-)

Just a thought!

Classifieds / Ready...Steady...Learn Polish in London or via skype [6]

Your e-mail address isn't complete.

Language / Polish - Absolute Beginner Questions. Study plan. [75]

Learning a language such as Polish, unlike French, Spanish, even basic German, requires nearly monastic concentration and almost laser focus, especially at the beginning!

Whereas with certain of the above three other languages I mentioned, it's remotely possible to pick up the occasional vocabulary, phrases etc. while, say, listening on a CD while in the shower, over morning coffee, driving to work or some such deal, Polish ain't gonna afford most such luxury of learning leisure:-)

For a rank novice such as what most beginners are, I'd stress simple yet consistent dictation practice, right from day one!!! Like calisthenics for dine tuning one's body, dictations will strengthen your comprehension as well as oral skills at the very start, Slavic sounds often being so, so different from Western ones.

Mind-numbingly repetitive as this advice sounds, it worked for me, as no other language actually prepared me for the Haunted House ride that was Polish until at least a year of serious study.

Hope this helps a trifle.
tarsape@gmail

News / Berlin terrorist attack -- Poland's ethnic homogeneity a true blessing [436]

Wulkie's being sarcastic:-)

Of course it's an insult to native-born majority (HIGH-) skilled labor to be essentially replaced by cheaper-wage foreigners, especially from Muslim countries with strong, proven ties to ISIS!

Law / Residence permit in Poland. Starting an own business is enough to get this? [14]

Hear, hear, DominicB! Smells fishy to me as well.

Law / Residence permit in Poland. Starting an own business is enough to get this? [14]

With the little I've seen of your English, I'd be quite surprised if any self-respecting school would even want to hire you!

To teach Spanish, perhaps, but not English:-)

News / Berlin terrorist attack -- Poland's ethnic homogeneity a true blessing [436]

@Ironside, if by "false ideology", you mean that it is predicated on false premises, I agree:-)

News / Berlin terrorist attack -- Poland's ethnic homogeneity a true blessing [436]

But the point is that not ALL Catholics are IRA terrorists aka "freedom fighters" any more than ALL Muslims are "soldiers of ISIS" aka hypocrites who justify terror through the Qu'ran!

News / Berlin terrorist attack -- Poland's ethnic homogeneity a true blessing [436]

The point though, Maf, is that your statement regarding the value of human life now makes YOU the very enemy you hate, namely that Westminster bloke!

Don't you see that when we allow our human value system, imbued within our Judeo-Christian ethic for millenia, to be abandoned in favor of the expedient, we cheapen both ourselves and our society! Of course we're enraged that someone would attack innocent civilians in a public place, but that attacker was born to the same G_d as you and I! If we start to give up on that notion and start to imagine that we are somehow not all equal as human beings (as people, that's another story all together!), picking and choosing whose life is more worthy, our entire belief system which nourishes and sustains us will begin to unravel even faster than it already has. Hitler too frequently justified his euthenasia program etc. based upon the singularly cynical notion of "lebensunwertes Leben" aka "a life unworthy of life".

We're already frayin' at the edges here, friend! You want things to get even more out of hand?? Liberalism and tolerance aren't "fashionable", they're ESSENTIAL. Otherwise, just call us two-legged animals walking upright and dispense with the human being label, as we've traded it in for quick-fix convenience:-)

As Churchill himself once said: "Democracy is the most ineffectual, ineffective form of government we have. But have we any better?"

Genealogy / Why did(do) Poles sometimes have German first names? [28]

Interesting aside, thanks Ironside!
:-)

Genealogy / Why did(do) Poles sometimes have German first names? [28]

Just an addendum, but I remember reading somewhere that traditional, older Polish male first names aka "Bogumil", may in fact be loan translations of equally antique-sounding German names like "Gotthold" etc.

News / Berlin terrorist attack -- Poland's ethnic homogeneity a true blessing [436]

Ooooh, I feel and excuse comin' on, bud!

How much "context" do you need, for pity's sake, Maf? It's as wrong to stigmatize as it is to terrorize, can't you get that straight finally??!

Genealogy / Why did(do) Poles sometimes have German first names? [28]

The age of the person in question will surely be a factor, being as first names in particular are such a generational thing:-)

Although perhaps there are indeed some Poles out there named "Wilhelm" or "Gustav" for instance, if they're anywhere under seventy or so, I'll eat my hat!

And in Germany especially, such names would be those of someone's great grand dad (not even grandfather), since "multiculti" given names have become all the range, in particular "Angela", small wonderLOL

News / Berlin terrorist attack -- Poland's ethnic homogeneity a true blessing [436]

@Maf,

Do you consider the value of a single human life a "fantasy which I need to lose"???! What in the end separate us from them, human animals from our four-legged friends. eh?! The answer is our "humanity", most sorely needed, the true test of who we are vs. what we aren't, EVEN WHEN IT HURTS!!!!

News / Berlin terrorist attack -- Poland's ethnic homogeneity a true blessing [436]

You can run, but you can't hide, Johnny! The world's changing, and has been for quite a spell now:-) You can't "beat" multiculturalism, even you try to fight it because globalism, sadly perhaps, is bigger than you or I all put together into one Mulligan's Stew!

No, the answer isn't the Nazi solution; herd the buggers all together and kill 'em! Genocide didn't work then, it doesn't work now, it won't work in the future.

Terrorists are much like rodents and cockroaches; you can spray 'em, poison 'em, but they still keep coming back, sort of as in that old expression my grandad used to say "Unkraut vergeht nicht!" aka "Ya keep turnin' up like a bad penny!"

The terror "cells",or, the Jihaddist education of radicalized fundamentalist Islam, must be eradicated rather than necessarily the terrorists themselves.

Hate the sin, but not the sinner. For this reason, I'm against quick fixes such as what you propose. I'm also against capital punishment, as only G_d is permitted to take a life, having been the only being able to create one:-)

Genealogy / Why did(do) Poles sometimes have German first names? [28]

It was doutbtless common in centuries past for Poles to adopt the language of more powerful neighboring countries, whose culture was usually imposed upon that country:-)

For status reasons, it would not be uncommon for a Pole seeking greater mobility to assume the first name "Andreas" from "Andrzej", "Niklaus" from "Mikołaj" etc..

Family names are a different story! Many Jewish Poles aka Polish citizens/inhabitants of Jewish heritage, typically with Yiddish (not Polish) as their mother tongue to have adapted the place or village name of the location in which they settled.Many such names are instantly identifiable to other Poles, i.e. ordinary gentiles, that is, "ethnic" Polish Christians, such as "Markowicz", "Mankiewicz" etc..

Travel / Bialystok - what to expect? [4]

It's also home to the "bialy", a kissing cousin of the bagel!

Language / After / Po (conjunction in Polish) [13]

Dzięki, NativePole:-) Błędy typografycznie mojej stroni!

Language / After / Po (conjunction in Polish) [13]

Codziennie jemy o godz. 7:30 śniadanie. PO śniadaniU chodzimy do szkoły.

Po kilkACH tygodniACH wreszczie dostałem widówkę z Paryżu!

Language / After / Po (conjunction in Polish) [13]

Exactly.

Language / After / Po (conjunction in Polish) [13]

Or:

A POTEM zjedliśmy..... both would be correct, depending on your precise meaning:-)

As I recall, it is always governed by the Locative case.

News / Tusk or Hollande -- a Salomonic dilemma? What will be better for Poland? [180]

Right wingers in Germany are saying much the same, England's already taken the (DANGEROUS!!!!) first step into unchartered trading waters, France is thinking about following, Italy etc..

Europa, quo vadis???

Life / Immigration Free Poland is Not Being Racist [194]

At least here in the US, can't speak for the UK, immigration since the mid-1880's, has always been associated with the onslaught of inexpensive labor from cheaper-wage societies whose presence has tended to overshadow (no pun intended, I can assure you) the more "expensive", homegrown native workforce:-)

As America was a colony established essentially by Northern Europeans, small wonder that the majority has been jealously safeguarding her own fading gene pool from becoming a cesspool, no offense intended her either!

African slaves eventually learned to integrate into the fabric of our nation, as did the Jews. Asians never really have and those from Third-World Muslim countries seem not to at all, public relations aside.

Life / Immigration Free Poland is Not Being Racist [194]

@Ironside,

The broader question here isn't whether or not Christianity aka the Judeo-Christian tradition which remains the backbone of the Occident, is as valid as any other religion or belief:-) Clearly it is. The issue is whether or not ISLAM can continue to erode the tradition of said Western faith any further and should we allow ourselves to morph into something for which we were never intended!

I say no.

Work / Finance Work in Poland - is it hard for a non-Polish speaking person? [35]

I'd quite agree with you. There rarely if ever any substitute for knowing the language of the country in which you intend to work, whether it's Poland, France, Latvia, Finland, Russia, Spain etc. Relying on natives to all speak uniformly comprehensible English is iffy and usually a mistake.

Life / Immigration Free Poland is Not Being Racist [194]

@jon.

You're right, of course:-) I simply meant though, that even Nebraska experienced a cross-pollination of Native American, Scandinavian, German, Anglo-Saxon, Scots-Irish, Polish, Dutch, French etc... European countries began as population initially and primarily by a homogenous majority of native inhabitants aka France by the Gauls, Franks and Langobards, Italy by Italo-Romans and Etruscans, Great Britain, by and large by wholly CAUCASIAN Indo-European Angles, Saxons, Celts and Picts, Germany by Teutons who were exclusively white Germanics tribespeople, Poland by a Slavic majority and the list continues.

The US has never defined herself by a so-called "Leitkultur", if only to borrow the German term, as English has no precise equivalent! America has been diverse long before the term even became fashionable.

Classifieds / Work in Australia for a Polish girl wanted (tourism/recreation) [34]

With limited English fluency, imagining any job other than possibly lower level office clerk, assistant in a store, cashier or sales help, is delusional.
Sorry to be blunt, but Aussies too are known for their xenophobia, I hate to say!

Life / Immigration Free Poland is Not Being Racist [194]

Exactly! "Melting pot" in the American sense is clearly unique to the continental United States (excluding Canada)!

Study / Ethics of teachers dating students in Poland [14]

Poland surely has no monopoly on smug profs who think they're G_d and that their word's Gospel aka "My way or the highway!"

In Germany, at least when I was a student, little to any leniency would typically be shown deviant opinions, especially for foreign students:-)
Once the lecture began (preceded as was the custom then, by thunderous rapping on the desks from the whole class - quite a racketLOL), Herr Professor became demi-G_d pedagoge, and woe betide the wayward student who ran afoul of his Excellency.

Female students certainly acted on crushes, much as here, much as in Poland......much as everywhere.