Language / Collection of learning resources for learning the Polish language [129]

I gave Hurrah po Polsku a go earlier this year; it's eye-bleedingly awful.

I can recommend 'Colloqial Polish' by Boleslaw W. Mazur. It does a good job of gradually introducing things. I found a lot of books are either at too much of a beginner level to adequately cover the grammatical concepts that make Polish quite different to English, or they smash the concepts into your face with a load of incomprehensible jargon. This one seems quite good though.

UK, Ireland / Fertile Polish Women in the UK [87]

Well, my Polish other half doesn't want kids.

Incidentally, any UK resident on less than £40k with kids is entitled to certain child benefits, regardless of where they're from. The government wants them to be claimed to reduce the number of malnourished and poorly educated children. I'd debate whether or not this works, but the bottom line is it's quite sensible to sticky such information on any mothers forum.

Language / "to believe is to see?" - Getting a Tattoo in Polish and Want Proper Grammar! [30]

Where are you getting the tat and how necessary is it?

My point being you're young and have a lot of time left to regret such a decision, and if it's immediately visible may scupper your chances for some well paid jobs in the future.

Life / What's the deal with Polish Piracy? [27]

You're actually paying for a licence to media when you buy it, not the plastic/magnetic strip or indeed transmission of bytes that gets it to your speakers. As far as I'm concerned, if I bought a song on CD/cassette in the past I'm completely within my moral and legal rights to knock it off the internet now.

And as for new stuff, if it's on the TV/radio every 30min then my TV licence has paid for it!

(...Your honour!)

Life / What's the deal with Polish Piracy? [27]

Isthatu2: yes it is 'daarn saarf', but I'm a Yorkshireman that only moved recently. And indeed, there is a difference. If you go into an office up north and tell your colleagues that you've knocked off a 30 year old song by someone who's now dead; they'll generally proceed with an interesting discussion about the song. Daarn saarf however, they might lecture you on how much morally better they are than you because they recently bought it via itunes (having previously bought it on cassette & CD at some point).

Life / What's the deal with Polish Piracy? [27]

The reason is a complete failure of the entertainment industry to keep up with modern times and control/licence their content at a sensible cost, combined with culturally less moral-high ground seeking one-upmanship nonsense in Poland compared to the UK and USA.

Life / An Indian wants to convert to Christianity in Poland [60]

What are your reasons if you don't mind me asking?

Not as a point to start a debate, I'm just interested to know what they out of philosophical interest.

Language / The most effective methods to learn the Polish language? [56]

I'm finding this book to be quite engaging: amazon.co.uk/Colloquial-Polish-Complete-Course-Beginners/dp/0415157528
Only paid £4 for mine though!

The odd episode of Świat Według Kiepskich provides an amusing way to learn also. It's inherently funny even if you don't fully understand what's being said!