Life / Importance of Religion in Poland [187]

it's the eternal fight between the Barbarians (Orthodoxs or Russians/Serbs) and Civilization (Catholics or Poles)!!

Travel / Poland's LOT Air Problems [43]


Because it is the airline who decides on the seat configuration and space between rows not the manufacturer

Real Estate / Polish government targeting British property buyers!! [10]


Not quite. In France, buyer and seller can use the same notary, yet the notary is obliged the verify information re the property

Work / TAXATION for a foreigner in Poland [11]

Indeed, I remember eating a delicious meal in Wierzynek in 1986 for a few francs. Even expensive French wines were cheaper in Poland than in France when you applied the black market exchange rate.. I also remember coming somewhat shameful out of this meal; there was a table of Germans next to us behaving as though the place belonged to them..

Work / TAXATION for a foreigner in Poland [11]

Maybe it was heaven for you or for other western foreigners, but it was hell for the Poles living there. I think the current situation is much preferable :)

News / Tram line to Warsaw's Wilanów finally to be built. [35]


The line maybe but no the entrances to the metro station. I find them quite disgraceful with all those angular lines..

Love / Should a marriage proposal to a partner from Poland be done in private or public? [27]


Hopefully that happened 9 years ago..

Law / GDP or GDP per capita - what's more accurate number in Poland? [10]


That's highly debatable.. I think that in reality it is the other way around, it is a higher rate of consumption of services as opposed to primary (agri) or secondary (manufactured goods) which characterizes a highly developed economy

Language / So why did you give up learning Polish? [105]

I agree with Lyzko, there is no language which is superior a or inferior to another. Yet, what is fascinating is that by studying a language you can understand (at least partially) the culture of a country and how people behave. English for example is, as others previously wrote, relatively straightforward to learn at a basic level (simple structures, etc) but it is a very rich language in terms of vocabulary (at least compared to Polish, French or German). It is also very flexible, a key British characteristic. The main difficulty for a foreigner is to learn to pronounce correctly a word previously never encountered, since the same group of letters can be pronounced very differently (eg pea or meadow, live or.. live, etc). In English, you have to look beyond what meets directly the eye (similar group of letters) to understand the true meaning; a bit like when a Brit says "interesting " meaning in reality "utter bxx"..

On the contrary, Polish pronunciation, however intimidating it might appear at the outset (all those z, sz, cz and diacritics!) is quite straightforward in the sense that each letter/group of letters is always pronounced the same. But when you get into the structure of language, you do have a glimpse at the complexity of the Polish (Slavic?) soul. Unlike English were most nouns have no gender (with a few exceptions), French which has 2 genders, German 3 genders, Polish has 5 genders (3 on the surface, but if you had the personal, animate, inanimate subdivisions of masculine that's 5). In addition, whereas German has 4 declensions, Latin 6, Polish has 7. So that's 35 possibilities (5x7), which is impossible to get right for a "normal" foreigner, especially when you realise that declensions also vary within a given gender depending on the ending, soft of hard (Kasiu but Edyto). And that is without taking into account that negative sentences are also declined! A real nighmare! My favourite summary of the complexity (or subtlety depending from where you are coming from) is the very simple Polish equivalent of " there is bread/there is no bread". Not only do we have the declension due to the negative, but unlike in any other non slavic language i know, the verb is not the same in the positive and negative phrases: jest chleb but nie ma chleba!! For me that beats everything

Law / GDP or GDP per capita - what's more accurate number in Poland? [10]

Come on..In most developed countries, the service sector represents 70% of GDP, with manufacturing and agriculture put together 30%. if you don't take into account services, you miss out on 70% of wealth creation!!

Language / So why did you give up learning Polish? [105]


dear Lyzko, haven't you just given a ranking, albeit implicitly?? 1. Anglos (4 writers/poet names), 2. French (3), 3. Germans (2) 4. Poles (1!).. Just kidding of course, but sometimes subconscious plays games!

Law / Penalty for driving on expired license in Poland? [30]


Not true, in France it is 15 years, and the renewal is a simple admin matter (no new driving test, mo medical check)

Love / I want my Polish gf to live with me but she says life here is too hard [31]

what topic?? the thread is 9 years old..

News / Tram line to Warsaw's Wilanów finally to be built. [35]

Thanks Jon

News / Tram line to Warsaw's Wilanów finally to be built. [35]

Who is in charge of the project, is it the mayor of Warsaw or the Polish government?

News / Tram line to Warsaw's Wilanów finally to be built. [35]


3 reasons:

1) Lived in Warsaw between 2005 and 2011
2) My wife is Polish
3) We still own a house in Wilanow.

Polonia / Poland and France cultures are similar [112]


Who knows? You have the remember that the Plantagenets who gave England several kings were in fact of Norman origin (in fact not exactly from Le Mans but the city was in Normandy at the time); that Henri II spent most of his time in what is today France rather than in England and that he married Aliénor d'Aquitaine who became queen of England after having been queen of France; together they produced two subsequent kings of England


A colony can keep its own language. Examples abound


All the above has to be taken with a pinch of salt!

News / Tram line to Warsaw's Wilanów finally to be built. [35]

Have they started to build this tram line?

Polonia / Poland and France cultures are similar [112]


I suppose you mean l'âme de la nation polonaise rather than l'ane (the donkey) de la nation polonaise??


Nope. Remember that the vikings navigated the Seine from there raided France several times from the IXth century until they decided to settle around the river, hence the name Normandie (land of the men from the North). Then a century later after having settled and become de facto French (France has jus soli and not jus sanguinis), they raided England thanks to William the Conqueror. What can we infer from this:

1) Britain is in fact a French colony which turned sour :)
2) if not French, the French would be speaking a Danish or Swedish dialect. Proximity between Scandinavia and France is further confirmed by the fact that the current Royal family of Sweden is of French origin, the first of the dynasty having been Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, one of Napoleon's marshalls, who became King of Sweden in 1818.

Polonia / Poland and France cultures are similar [112]

Yes, but Chopin, despite his "French sounding" name is definitely Polish, not French.. His love of Poland (and its struggle to become independent) transpires in all the music he wrote.. That shows that it is more the place where you were born/where you live that makes one's identity, rather than the "blood linage".

Life / Why are Poles in other countries called "Plastic Poles"? [168]

Nonetheless i believe a person should be proud of rheir roots, their culture, traditions and seek ro pass it onto their kids and have their kids pass it onto theirs and so forth - for all cultures.

Agree with the second part of this sentence, not with the first one. How can one be proud of something in which one played no role?? And by definition, no one is responssible for where they were born; one is responsible for what one becomes, and that can be a matter for being proud.

News / Poland's young voters turning to the right - DW news [105]


Polls also said Brexit would not take place

History / Why is Poland weaker than Russia? [390]


They are ruling the UK

News / Poland's "historical path" is that of "fascism" (Jew attack alert) [43]


Of course, we all now that liberal hysterics getting the vapors is not the reason. The reason is Germany's past during WW2, when deportation was put to good use.. Shame about that past is also what drives Merkel's position on immigrants.

Law / CHINESE TO BUILD POLISH ROADS.... [92]

Shortly after having been awarded part of the A2, COVEC , the Chinese contractor in charge, stopped paying its subcontractors and fled back to China citing much higher costs to build the road than initially anticipated (the Chinese bid had come at around 50% of the Polish Govt own budget!). Poland had to hire European contractors to finish the road in time for the Euro 2012. COVEC and GDDKIA settled the ensuing lawsuit only last year:

khl.com/construction-europe/polish-motorway-dispute-settled/128084.article

News / Tram line to Warsaw's Wilanów finally to be built. [35]

Hello

Anyone living in Warsaw able to give an update on the tramway line that was to built from Centrum to Wilanow? Have the works started yet?

Thanks

News / Which French candidate for president will be best for Poland? [512]


More commie or Trumpist propaganda? Quite the opposite is true, with the EU outperforming the US..

ft.com/content/0bbc026a-ea12-11e6-967b-c88452263daf


They have been screvved about by all those before Macron.. 9 out of 10 employment contracts signed by youngsters in France are part time. That's what he is trying to change with the El Khomri law.

News / Which French candidate for president will be best for Poland? [512]


Dear Johnny, are you aware that French voters receive ballot papers also at home? Yes, one for Marine and one for Macron.. So even if what you write were true (which I very much doubt), voters can always take their papers from home to the polling station and use them...

News / Which French candidate for president will be best for Poland? [512]

Pleasure. The issue is that nowadays so much of news reporting is biased and presents distorted pictures of the reality. Having just moved to Paris following a 3,5 years stint in Istanbul, I was deeply shocked at the coverage Western media (or let's say in UK and France, which are the two I follow most) gave of the situation in Turkey during my stay. I am myself no big fan, to say the least of RTE, but each country has pluses and minuses, Turkey like others. But when the focus is put relentlessly on the negative side without any respect for balance, it creates completely misleading pictures in the general public's minds..

News / Which French candidate for president will be best for Poland? [512]


As usual from Polonius, and bit of truth and a sweeping generalisation: out of the 4 most likely contenders for the second round (Fillon, Le Pen, Macron, Mélenchon), only Mélenchon and Le Pen are anti American and anti German. Fillon and Macron are pro NATO and neither are pro Russian (the former having changed his stance from the first days of the campaign)