Polish is an official language in the UK?

I think it happens everywhere. People are leaving their home country looking for better life, living conditions etc. But it doesn't always work. If they loose everyething abroad then they become homless abroad because they do not have any funds to go back to their home country. It is hard for me to believe someone left Poland to become a beggar somewhere else in the world. It just happens.

We don't get that in Warsaw, or at least in central Warsaw, I wouldn't know about the suburbs. I haven't notice them outside supermarkets in east or south-east Poland either.

possibly Poland has a problem? If it's better to be a tramp in a different country than live in your own? Londonczyny?
As Harry said, public information is published in many different languages here in the UK, one or two signs in Polish hardly make it an 'official language' - it's because the British are so polite..;)

I have never been to Warsaw before, I was talking about Gdynia, Rumia and Reda.

I knew the Gare du Midi very well - I used to live in les Marolles and I knew a lot of people who'd hit hard times. I don't see the same sort around Warsaw much, but there again I don't move in the same circles as I did in Belgium. In warsaw they tend to group around soup kitchens - there's one (or was until recently) on the south side of the Palace of Culture (almost called it the Palais de Justice!).

Homeless Poles should be sent back to Poland. end of.

This is England, and no bloody sign should be in ******* Polish or Arabic or Urdu or whatever ******* language immigrants speak yet can't be bothered to learn the language of the host country properly.

if they are going to be SENT back to poland, who do you think should subsidise this? are you going to put your hand in your pocket? :)

Rather like most of the British immigrants in Spain, Bulgaria, Cyprus etc.

@KingAthelstan , racism = ignorance...

Some might say we are too polite.

Spending money on roadsigns or leaflets from the council in various languages doesn't solve the problems caused by foreigners coming here to live that can't / won't learn English.

This is just like trying to use a plaster on someone that has just lost a leg to a shark.

The only ignorance is from the people coming here who can't be bothered to learn English properly.

I wouldn't expect everything to be translated into English if in went to work in say Korea for a year.

The gov would obviously, i mean many Poles that are here for the benefits should be sent home. Problem is they'd be straight back again, i knew a few that were deported prior to May 2004 (Polands EU accession) and they got back in on the backs of trucks, literally.

True, let's deport the millions in the Costas, shall we? None of those ******* speak a word of Spanish.


Strangely enough, many Brits in Poland complain about the lack of English information...

This is England, and no bloody sign should be in ******* Polish or Arabic or Urdu or whatever ******* language immigrants speak yet can't be bothered to learn the language of the host country properly.

Yeah. Like these backward-looking arses-

It is a deeply conservative community that venerates religious learning above all else and in which Yiddish is the primary language. Following the Biblical commandment to 'be fruitful and multiply', families of seven or eight children are common; relations between the sexes are stringently policed, and arranged marriages are the norm... A community where television, secular newspapers and visits to the cinema are forbidden, where the internet is frowned upon, and where outsiders are treated guardedly.

telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8326339/Inside-the-private-world-of-Londons-ultra-Orthodox-Jews.html

Of course only a Jewish owned newspaper could say that. Anyone else would be branded anti-semetic.

The key point here, I think, is that it IS indeed only a modicum of respect to at least learn the fluent, survival basics of the target language of the country in which one has decided to or even is obliged to make one's home, end of story. The issue isn't Brits complaining there's not enough English in Poland, or Koreans bemoaning the lack of adequate Korean directional signs in Britain etc....

The same applies tot them, one rule for all. Britain is the ******* laughing stock of Europe in terms of asylum and benefit laws, bending over backwars to hekp immigrants over the native population. why do you think those3rd world shitbags from Afghanistan and somalia come to their droves to Calais?

France has a similar quality of life, per capita GDP and average wage, yet they do not have absurd laws that give huge handouts to refugees and asylum seekers, and accept every African asylum seeker on a whim as we do. They expert everybody to speak French and do not translate every council document into 101 different languages. BTW they have actually have immigrants and ethnics of immigrant background than we do,yet they know how to lay down the rules and have some national pride and dignity.

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1172017/Asylum-seekers-lured-UK-enormous-benefits-says-Calais-mayor-blistering-attack-Britain.html

I completely agree! After all, if Poles decide that UK is a better place for them to live than Poland, then it doesn't make much sense attempting to transform the said UK into another copy of Poland. Assimilate (nobody is expecting a 100% assimilation though) and be respectful to the culture of the host country!

I can tell you now, all the signs in Howarth are in English :) Was there the other week.

The official language in the Britain is English, unless you are in North Wales....


They dont need to seek asylum, they all have French passports! Have you seen the suburbs of Paris these days???

once we leave the EU, they to will be kept out.

When I was in Germany as an exchange student years ago, a classmate of mine became rather frustrated during the course of our program and at one point rather loudly insisted that foreign, i.e. US students should be "exempt" from the university's unspoken German-only rule with regard to term papers, all class discussion, even impromptu student talks etc... The professor then responded (but in German, although we later found out he spoke English like an East Coast elitistLOL) that when he was a student in the US and taking an exchange program at Columbia, he scarcely would've even dared "insist" that the target-language country accomodate HIM, but assumed that he must accomodate THEM!!!

This sums up the whole thread:-))

You have to remember,Lyzko, in the UK people were brought in specifically to do menial jobs. They were not supposed to be intelligent. Just enough English to ask for bus fares in the days when buses had conductors.

There is a middle aged Polish type that works for a younger Polish person as a 'hand', who just doesn't care to speak English let alone read Dicken's. They make some money, not much, but more than in Poland. Then go back to Poland. I read somewhere those types average less than a one year stay.

We're not talking about Dickens, Shakespeare or any of that. We're saying we'd like our neighbor, living and working in our midst, to be able to answer a direct, simple question in as simple and direct a manner. "I work no make no..." or some such gobbledeygook is NOT COHERENT ENGLISH!! Presumably, not even being able to answer a question in English at all, although living and working in the US/UK is unacceptable!

I disagree. If I need a heap of something moved from here to there, I will tell the foreman to get it done. How he communicates to the hand, whether in Polish, Lithuanian or British Sign Language is not my concern. I don't have to communicate to the actual shoveler.

all of my polish friends make a real effort to speak english.some of them had lessons before they came to england,some couldnt afford them.with the economic climate being what it is today,everyone is struggling workwise. dont know if you even know any polish people personally,but the major problem i can see amongst my polish friends, is that they are employed in menial jobs. this means they are literally working 10/11 hour days. when do you think they have time to learn english? am very proud of the efforts my friends have made to understand my language. quite a few now have better jobs, simply because they have persevered with learning.btw most of my friends are employed at a big mushroom farm. 90% of the workers are central and eastern european. they dont even get the chance to mix with english people....how would you suggest they learn if they are working all day and too knackered to do anything else when they finish work? look at your grammar first,didnt think you were english :) there simply isnt a straightforward answer to this..

1. Open a beer
2. Turn on the TV, put some good movie in the DVD player. In English. Turn the English subtitles on.
3. Enjoy
4. Repeat the process every evening.

you got it in one!!:)

I've read some of your posts and I believe that you exhibit the typical mindset of a first-gen immigrant who is scared to be identified with the unpopular at the moment group of newcomers.

No Brit I’ve ever known was as detailed in their racist remarks as you were, unless they were somehow “connected” to the subject. Perhaps one of your parents is an immigrant, possibly both, eh?

None of your native and well established English friends are going to neither back your up nor approve of your rant because they have too much to lose. They do not whish to be involved in this filth, so grow up, be a productive member of your society and don't be scared to admit of your own true heritage.

People in glass houses.....

yeah i made a mistake.was too tired.i should have said i thought you were english. hold my hands up, i was wrong :) still too tired now actually

Yet, Modafinil, that shoveler, ditch-digger, whatever, is in this case a resident of a country other than their own, i.e. England, possibly even a citizen. At least this is the case here in the US. The number of times I've counted so-called 'jurors' called up for voie dire with ZERO English competence other than the barest minimum 'Hi!', 'Morning!', 'Bye!' etc.. is staggering. No, we should expect more from those whom we call our neighbors. Even the charwoman needs to buy her bleedin' rolls and coffee every day. Is it too much to ask that she not need an English shop attendant to act as interpreter along with the latter's dozen and one other jobs they've got to do??? Again, plain ol' double standard! In Poland, Germany, Hungary, particularly France, if someone doesn't know the native language of the country they are really lost and will find the local populace understandably uncooperative, save a true life-death emergency.

English is a fiercely hard language, we all know that. Yet did that ever stop a foreign worker in Poland, Norway etc. from learning the target language of that country?? Let's finally stop making excuses for every Mieczko, Lech and Zbyszek, Achmed, Francisco ad infinitim who comes to Britain's 'golden' shores looking for a warm place to sleep with a roof over their head, bringing one sob story after the other!!