Life / Buying a laptop in Poland - where/whats a good deal? [32]

he meant pounds I guess not PLN - or it is a REAL BARGAIN

Language / Tego/Jego [15]

The use of 'go' is prevalent firstly beacause it is shorter, secondly to avoid ambiguity because 'jego' also means his (and even its) - a possesive pronoun

( 'go' is never used instead of 'jego' possesive pronoun)

In reality 'jego' is used only when an emphasis (one can say a focus) is called for on the word him/jego (in speech the word is actually phisycally stressed be it in English or in Polish) - so you get: 'Wash him' (meaning him and not me or someone else) -where the stress can only be shown in written English with different font (in this case bold) and you get 'Umyj jego' or 'Jego umyj' in Polish (meaning the same as the sentence in English). 'Jego' is used because it fits much better into 'the flow' or 'rythm' of Polish language when under stress indicating emphasis(focus) than the shortened 'go' version .

Language / correct word for 'leave' or 'leaving' [5]


there is also this construction - like say - został pochowany - he was burried (interred) but also został przysypany skałami - he got/was burried by/under rocks (say some caver/speleologist)

Language / Polish keyboard 214 is best [34]

now that I have learned touch-typing (well a couple of years ago) I can't actually imagine getting around a new keyboard setup like Dvorak - perhaps only in case I learn a new setup and part for good with the old qwerty one - but it seems to me like learning touch-typing for the first time (again)

Polish programmers keyboard is the one that I use and learning 'national' Polish setup (that 214 thing) would be quite a task - perhap not as tremendous as learning Dvorak but still

however this is true that some international qwerty keyboards are better suited for fast typing in Polish (ie using Alt+letter combination) than others depending on the size of the space key

Language / Are the languages of Russian and Polish similar at all? [94]

pozór is mainly appearance in Polish £yzko - like in 'don't judge by appearances' - ' nie sądź po pozorach'

there is a verb pozorować from the noun which means to feign and similar though its use is limited to certain fields and situations and words like udawać are used much more frequently

Life / Winter 2010/2011 in Poland, is it going to be bad? [114]

Christmas will be with snow on the ground but amidst a thaw at least during daytime - some rain is possible in Pomorze - there's so much snow now all around Poland it won't possibly thaw in two or three days - i am not sure about night conditions yet - there can be frost or no frost - if thaw conditions persist at nights it's not gonna be a pleasant time - if there is frost at nights road conditions can be pretty dangerous - add possible fog to the equation in thaw condition and slight winds and it sounds even worse

Life / Winter 2010/2011 in Poland, is it going to be bad? [114]

don't you all worry - the Christmas eve's gonna bring thaw - some 4 Celsius in plus - but next couple of days will bring frost again and some snow

Life / Why Poland is "surprised" by winter and snow every year? [192]

there was a regulation in place in Poland that the ploughs should not be applied unless it stops snowing massively I don't know if it is still valid - the regulation is pretty absurd but when first introduced it was based on petrol economizing

News / Mass immigration to Poland - article and response [479]

I think getting some Chinese won't be that bad - but not enough of them that they could form some Triad here :P

Language / The Future of Polish Language [179]

because I never make much effort learning German and can't appreciate the language as it is because of that, I always find myself taken aback by those complex words - English uses so many latin derived words and German seems to replace most of them with their German translations from Latin (hopefully) or their own pure inventions - Ziemowit has used a brilliant Gegenteil example - contrary is a such a perfect universal latin-derived word one can see in a number of languages - even Polish przeciwieństwo seems a lot more regularly created word for me - but I guess German would not be so much German if it used just as many latin words as English does ;)

I still don't mind using my basic German - seems quite fun - and actually I do like the sound of the language minus some regional versions (but I'm quite fond of the Swiss German - I mean the sound of it)

Life / Winter 2010/2011 in Poland, is it going to be bad? [114]

Monday will be pretty snowy in southern Poland - so is gonna be thursday - so the snow conditions forecast for the mountains is quite optimistic for ski lovers

it is gonna be pretty cold in the Northern Poland especially for the time of the year

all in all it looks like a pretty early start of the winter in most of Europe - snow in N England and N France - snow in Spanish mountains and even as far as Calabrian mountains in Italy

Language / jesc/zjesc and possible english translations for the imperfective/perfective [30]


chaza objectivly speaking this sentence could be pretty hard to decipher for a Polish person out of context - used in this specific restaurant setting it would be understood what you mean - the main thing is rachunek here and mogę also helps - so you would end up with that bill you requested

the implication here are it is good/helpful to have lot's of vocabulary (like rachunek)
the grammatical forms of nouns are not so important, nouns in basic forms are nearly as informative as the declined forms
it is helpful to know most important forms of the most important verbs like the verb móc(móc is an infintive of course) - in the most important forms I would include the present tense personal forms (like the first person form you used) but also the infinitive

you can stick to the infinitive (basic dicitonary) form for other verbs - cause it is pretty difficult to keep track of all those conjugation patterns for a start

learning to deal with the aspect of Polish verbs (the perfective and imperfective in short) seems to be pretty difficult and it is not absolutely necassary for a rugged communication

it is very useful to know the most important prepositions and pronouns and their forms - like ja,ty, tobie , ciebie, im, wy, was, pod, nad, do, od, przy, z, o, za

there is not so many of basic pronouns and their forms an they are a nice introduction to the world of cases
as for prepositions - it is a wild and quite vast area - they oftentimes don't work the same as in English and it helps to know what preposition should be used in a given situation - there is also this thing that some phrases English that make use of prepositions have Polish counterparts without any (by car - samochodem) (this is an importan Instrumental case of nouns which generally translates into English as 'with the use of 'a noun')

History / Polish president Mościcki and Hermann Göring hunting together in 1938 [76]


I'm not sure what you are talking about - your knowlegde of history seems to be somewhat compromised :P

well you claim Poland bullied it's neiboughrs - and I say from the best of my knowlegde Poles claimed only Polish majority territories from Czechoslovakia in 1938 - prove me wrong - and lo and behold these people were pretty indigenous there and not migrated there in less than the perspective of hundreds of years

btw Polish inhabitants of Wilno area were not settlers for the most part - they were indigenous people who became polonized in the course of 18th and 19th centuries with no Polish state present

well Bratwurst one can argue if the Germans had such right to resettle because it is quite probable that those Germanic tribes who used to live on the southern Baltic coast simply moved out and went for search of warmer lands - like those Vandals who used to live in southern Poland but ended up in Algeria and Tunisia (with no Slavic tribes involvement) - many scholars believe Slavs encroached west on what were mostly emptied lands

Life / Winter 2010/2011 in Poland, is it going to be bad? [114]

you should definitely expect snow and perhaps ice on roads

History / Polish president Mościcki and Hermann Göring hunting together in 1938 [76]

How many Lithuanians lived there? Why do you insist on calling Lithuania what was inhabited by huge Polish majority? Again if Poland wanted to conquer the whole of Lithuania it could have easily done it. You must have misunderstood or not understood the whole of the article that I had given a link to. It implies that the ultimatum was arranged in a secret cooperation between the authorities of both countries. And it's aim was to normalize the relationships including establishing embassies etc.

Life / How popular is Radio Maryja in Poland? [163]

have never heard about that

instead heard of those who made career using their contacts with SB etc

Life / How popular is Radio Maryja in Poland? [163]

jonni - not everyone who had been bothered became a secret informer/collaborator - though I understand there was an array of motives behind such cooperation - many were blackmailed - some were ambitious

Life / How popular is Radio Maryja in Poland? [163]


well jonni - many people including myself believe that Życiński probably was a secret informer of communist security services (like many proven secret informers in Polish clergy - one was even denied the Archbishopry of Warsaw (Stanisław Wielgus - he confirmed his involvement eventually ) - he is known for defending secret informers among clergy and similar exploits - he is a friend of Adam Michnik I guess - which for many Poles is quite telling

the above mentioned archbishop Wielgus was btw vehemently defended by Radio Maryja and Ojciec Rydzyk himself - there were even manifestations of support of Wielgus organized by Radio Maryja

Life / How popular is Radio Maryja in Poland? [163]

well - maybe I am wrong but the plates reads as C0-9KK - this is a number of choice (paid for - the owner of the car chooses what symbols follow the territory indicating header)(so called tablice indywidualne) for województwo kujawsko-pomorskie where Toruń lies -

- KK letters can stand for Kościół Katolicki

it could also be C0 - RKK - like say Rzymski Kościół Katolicki

Life / How popular is Radio Maryja in Poland? [163]

well the guy in the car is indeed similar to Rydzyk - it would be interesting to verify the plates

Life / How popular is Radio Maryja in Poland? [163]


sorry, but what I am supposed to search for???

what was in the link you have edited out - could you repost it?

Life / How popular is Radio Maryja in Poland? [163]


would you be so kind to name this person?


well I have heard(actually read) this Maybach story is a blatant lie - let's assume it is a lie - what does that make of you - believer of propaganda?

Life / Winter 2010/2011 in Poland, is it going to be bad? [114]


yeah seen that once in South London- I don't know why but the English don't care to buy winter tyres - and then comes some 4 cm snow and only the SUV's seem to be able to go uphill (can't remember about buses though)

still I was told about some pretty snowy winters in England - the worst in 1947 AFAICR when anecdotally buses would disapear in snowdrifts in the North of England

and as for long term weather forecasting it very often proves to be very inaccurate - the example from this summer - while May was very cold and very wet too and June was not quite warm either there were some forecasts issued that the rest of the summer would be equally cool and wet - then came July with tropical heat and hardly any rain and August was not chilly either - even some natural phenomema supposed to indicate coming weather fail - it is though that some mushrooms appear in large numbers just before cool weather gets hold - this year it was just completely different - we had one of the warmest Novembers on record

History / Polish president Mościcki and Hermann Göring hunting together in 1938 [76]


sorry but hardly hints at hostility - Germans wanted to get rid of all of their Jews including those who held Polish citizenship - the obvious way to do that seemed to expell them to Poland - Polish authorities at that time thought Poland had enough of their own Jews (many Polish politicians thought that Poland needed to pressurize the Jews living in Poland to leave the country i.e. to emigrate but as far as I know it was never an established policy but some milder policies were introduced like in the document BB has given a link to)

If this goes off topic posts will be binned. Please, be careful how you post.

Language / difference in usypiac [9]

perhaps because of not so nice connotations of 'uśpić' in colloquial Polish the perfective form of 'usypiać' is often 'uspać' when the talk is about a child (or a person) - I don't think it is somehow established dictionary wise though - in this perspective 'uśpić kogoś' is rather to put someone to sleep with use of some herb or medicine especially when done against the person's will (but also as a medical procedure as before an operation)

there is also a phrase (phrasal verb???) in Polish - 'uśpić czyjąś czujność' - to put someone of his guard (literally put someone's vigillance to sleep)

Love / Sexual diseases! Please tell me how I go about getting tested in Poland? [103]


I have never seen a bedbug before I went to London
you would hear about them as a pest from the past in Poland
I don't know what are realities now in big cities - but I still believe they are not even nearly as common a nuisance as in London (don't know about the UK in general)

I don't know about scabies at large in Poland but if my memory does not fail me I have never met a person with scabies

Love / Sexual diseases! Please tell me how I go about getting tested in Poland? [103]


your imagination is huge Richfilth - as far as I know hotel bedsheets tend to be washed after every client - public toilets - hmm as far as I know sexual organs don't have any contact with any toilet utensils during normal use of these - how high is in your opinion a chance of getting infected through healthy skin on your legs?

History / Polish president Mościcki and Hermann Göring hunting together in 1938 [76]

well actually what the film tells is an interesting story which some of our historians and authors have studied and debated about (the topic seems a little controversional) - the story belongs to the realm of 'what if' - the core of the thing is previous to March 1939 the Third Reich (and Hitler personally) were pretty keen to make an alliance with Poland - there was little to none aggressive rhetoric in German Nazi controlled media against Poland for a good couple of years - even before the start of the War the Nazi rulers didn't formulate demands that would cripple Poland much unlike what they demanded from Czechoslovakia in 1938 (the demands were ceding Gdańsk to the Germans while it was a German city anyway (with some Polish minority) and was of little value to Poland (it was not part of Poland - Poland had a couple of authorities over Gdańsk inluding duty and post) and exterritorial routes (a highway and a rail line) to the East Prussia through 'the Polish corridor' in Pommerania. (well there was also proposed plebiscite in the Polish corridor but Germany would have leave the port of Gdynia to Poland regardless of the plebiscite outcome with free access to the port for Poles through the inland)

Hitler was quite an admirer of Piłsudzki to the extent that after Piłsudzki's death he (1936) declared a national mourning in Germany - it was also a sign of friendly policies towards Poland (top Nazi echelons attended a mourning service in the memory of Piłsudzki)

The main goal of Hitler was a conquest of Russia which Poland as an ally would have much faciliated. Having Poland as an ally would enhance Hitlers option in that he would have been able to decide which way he wanted to turn his forces first - had he wanted to assault France first the Polish ally would be his shield against possible Soviet interference - with the help of Poland and most probably other central European countries like Hungary and Romania Hitler could have instead attack Russia first sooner than it actually happened having secured a line of defence (based on fortifications) on the French border - one can argue whether it would be more succesful but the further starting location of the invasion and at least a million more soldiers (Polish army) make the invasion look better on paper.

Hitler treated Poland as a friendly country in 1938 because the Poles anexed Zaolzie joining German crippling of Czechoslovakia. Ribbentrop even congratulated Poles for that. But the Polish policy makers were not that keen to join up with Hitler instead they were seeking reassurance from France and Great Britain. The turning point for German diplomacy came when Chamberlain issued guarantees for Poland's territorial integrity which Poland's ruling elite (foreign minister Beck) had taken as genuine - which in the hindsight were just luring Poland into stiff stance and eventually war with Germany - it would have given the western allies some valuable time - the time proved not enough for the French but enough for the British.

there is even a quote by Hitler going as that (Polish translation): "- Zrozumiałem, że jeżeli uderzę na Zachód, Polacy, wypełniając swe zobowiązania sojusznicze, zaatakują nas - mówił Hitler do swych oficerów na tajnej konferencji w Berchtesgaden 22 sierpnia 1939 roku. - Dlatego zdecydowałem się rozpocząć wojnę z Polską. "

which in English reads as this : I have understood, that if I strike west, the Poles, fulfilling their ally duties[to France], will attack us. That's why I decided to start a war with Poland" ( these words were allegedly spoken on a secret conferrence Hitler held with his high command in Berchtesgaden on 22nd august of 1939)

(the source is a polish historian Bogusław Wołoszański)

similar alternative history is also a part of Harry Turtledove political fiction 'The War That Came Early'

you can also choose to read this : comicism.tripod.com/390822.html - some excerpts of the Berchtesgaden conference in English


well the ultimatum was not much malevolent actually

if you can read Polish Nathan you can have a read of this : prawica.net/node/15900

Law / Polish business haven't got a clue: Discuss. [72]

Quite recently I bought a book on Amazon US - the delivery was very soon (almost the soonest date Amazon predicted) - in Poland it was managed by Polish Post - what I guess these lesser companies haven't developed good procedures yet and they definitely try to run things as cheap as possible including saving on the personnel e.g. not enough people to handle things - I think it is the fault of Polish management even if companies are international - having said that Polish Post can be also quite unreliable when the Christmas nears

News / How can Poles make a conscious choice about elections? [15]

the thing Olaf the majority of Poles don't care much about what is going on unless or until it hits them directly (they also don't know what they want or don't want any government or authority to be (like)) - and the politicians act accordingly - they do not formulate programs or stuff them with empty nice-sounding promises - the general majority won't care or is swayed in their moods with things completely different that whether the promises are fulfilled or not - there is also an issue of the incompetence on the side of candidates - this is also influenced by the fact that most authorieties in Poland prefer to act in semi-concealed (more or less concealed) manner which doesn't help those new people who would like to address the problems they perceive