You are Polish if...

-you have relatives who aren't really your relatives
-you know how to sing Sto Lat and sing it on all holidays/special occasions
-you love soccer
-you know very well Pope John Paul II was Polish and his name was Karol, not Carol.
-you go to Midnight Mass every Christmas Eve and keep your Christmas tree up till February.
-you know it’s wodka. not vodka.
-you open your presents on Christmas Eve.
-you don't feel the need to add an "s" to Pierogi because you already know the word is plural and it annoys you when others do.

-you see a girl/guy and the first thing you check out are her eyes
-you sometimes slip up when speaking English and add an ‘y’ to already plural English words.
-you love electronica, dance, and European techno in general
-your parents make you listen to polish disco
-you can spot Polish people like Asians can spot each other
-your grandparents hardly (if at all) speak English
-when you're at a stranger's house, you expect their garbage can to be under the sink
-you always take off your shoes as soon as you step into someone else's house, even when they say you don’t have to.

-you still think that American weddings should last days, not hours.
-you know Chopin was born in Poland and not in France
-your grandma understands you better than you understand yourself
-you were speaking Polish before you were English
-you have never eaten meat on Good Friday
-you dash your sevens and hat your ones
-your parents have no idea how to use a computer except for solitaire.
-your grandmother has a picture framed of Pope John Paul II, right beside your family photo
-your family considers mushroom/berry picking as 'having a good time"
-your grandma insists you wear slippers because the floor is chilly and you'll get a cold.
-you have paper towels in the house but they're just for show, because everyone knows -you're supposed to use a cloth.
-all your friends wished they were Polish because of Śmingus Dingus
-you couldn't say a bad word, even butt, around your mother without getting smacked.
-you would fail a blood/drug test because you've eaten so much poppy seed cake
-you, or your family/Polish friends talk in English, you occasionally slip in Polish words, and it's ok because you all know what each other are saying.

-your grandma can tell if you like a girl/guy just by looking at you
-you often doodle the polish eagle during class
-someone in your family owns a car with a Polish sticker on the back
-there are curtains on all of the windows in your house, even in the bathroom.
-you celebrate your birthday and your name day.

So what is the singular form out of curiosity?

Pieróg.

What is Śmingus Dingus?

It's a Wet T-Shirt Contest..

;)

...you don't don't consider canned soup as soup, but rather dogfood, since you are used to eating real soup.

hardly - it's rather soaking and dripping sweater contest :)

Addressing pgtx's examples:

Inventing relatives?

Soccer? Poland is in Europe so football

Wódka ;) ;) Vodka is nice :)

Poles don't feel the need to add 's' to standard English plurals either so they are consistent. What on earth is with that anyway? Eh, there's an 's' there and it's voiced. In the absence of a clear explanation, that's just moronic!

Or generally don't pluralise, period!!

In other words, music for morons!

Yeah, they can spot alright. Usually the dour-faced person smoking by themself.

Why would they speak English? It's only the world's main trade language ;) ;) They stick to Russian.

The Japanese are more strict about taking their shoes off.

for me it's soccer :P

But you are from outer space, Gumi, we all know that ;) ;)

You are Polish if....you say Polish like you say polish.

Soccer? Not volleyball?

-your parents and uncles talk about politics every time they meet
-you check twice whether you locked the car/front door
and a few more

almost everything you wrote is sooo true:) especially about sto lat:D


is there a difference?

Yes, there is a clear difference for native speakers, Gaa. Polish is pronounced like Edgar Allan POE, with lish. PAW lish is polish. Surely you can hear the difference, no?

Consider it thrown! IT IS football!!!!!

• 
  IT'S FOOTBALL!
  

i'll remember.
i live in Poeland, i've been to the UK only once and for short time. i don't have much contact with English, especially spoken English. but none of my English teachers(all were Polish) ever taught me the correct pronounciation of words . they were accurate in English but imagine a teacher speaking with such accent:

He has a funny accent but speaks English pretty well. What other pronunciation problems do you have?

i often hesitate how to pronounce words

especially when to say dż & g (eg.gesture) or u,a,e(tunnel) i know it only after i check it in dictionary.

I think there are lots of problems like that I have found with my students. Not helped by the various different accents around. The way something is pronounced in London will be different to Liverpool, which again will be different to Glasgow, which will be different to New York, which will be different to Los Angeles.

There was an article on Scottish TV about a speeding sign we have which says:

Twenty's Plenty

and the fact that it doesn't rhyme...which was the point. Twenty and plenty rhyme, but twenty's is pronounced more like twentees which would only rhyme with Plenty in parts of liverpool where the accent makes plenty sound like plentee.

Yeah, sorry, i have rambled off course...do carry on.

That was pretty good, pgtx!
The paper towel thing is true. I feel validated.
And spotting another Polish person.

Whatever is being won at the moment...speaking of which, does anyone still watch ski jumping? :)


Especially considering he could rip your arms out.

In high school we used to call our English teacher "Mazerowa" cause she pronounced "mother", "father", "sister" like "mazzzer", "fazzzzer" and "ziizzter" ;)

- you have problem to stop at the zebra crossing even there are ppl in the half way.
- you risk your life to try to take car in front of you which is driving 5km/hr slower
- you have difficulties to understand why you need to park the car on a parking space
- you try to kill another person (they did the same) in a shopping center parking before Christmas in order to get the fish in time for Happy Christmas

- you dress like an eskimo on public transport when the sun is shining
- you decorate your home once every thirty years and spend so much you have to take credit for it
- your best friend doesn't know where you work

you moan when anything is left open for more than 3 seconds like a fridge or a door.

you insist that your Polish teacher knows better than a qualified native speaker.

you totally lose track of how much you have in your bank account.

you think cabbage is a gift from God.

Now this thread is going more and more up to the wall.. I've never seen anything similar except for the "Life of Brian"s

- Let us, like him, hold up one shoe and let the other be upon our foot for
this is His sign, and all who follow Him shall do likewise.
- Follow the gourd! The Holy Gourd of Jerusalem.

Maybe it's more like you guys, prostrating in front of unanimated, not even slightly appealing objects..

- you sleep on a sofa bed
- you can't reverse park
- you put ketchup on a pizza

-when you're at a stranger's house, you expect their garbage can to be under the sink
for me as a true Polish this one is the most accurate

rest: less or more
there is a lot of stereotypes

I can spot a Pole a mile off.
A lot of these apply to me - I am English, but have spent quite a bit of time in Poland.

Still many do not. Paper towels are WAY better than cloths, which just spread bacteria around.

you cannot accept criticism and get defensive quickly.

you feel that it is ok not to say thanks when getting meals etc from foreigners.

you feel that you should get the best service, regardless of the standard you paid for.

you say goodbye to the floor when you leave a shop

you rigidly stick to your line on the pavement and don't budge

you think nobody can compare to the uber Slavs and that no-one can look as good

you talk endlessly about a very limited range of 'celebrities'

you insist on kicking up a fuss, even though very little is wrong

you think swearing like a moron is cool on different forums (fora)

The above are slightly provocative but contain more than half-truths in many cases. I don't like to generalise but it's just a laugh ;) ;)

i have noticed it's more typical for the British...in Poland mostly teenagers(13years olds) are interested in lives of the celebrities