Life / Americanization of Poland - good or bad? [49]

When any country becomes "-ized", the results will usually be less than favorable!

Poles are and always will be Polish, Germans German, the French French and so forth.
Motto here? Ya can't fit a square peg into a round hole.....it won't work:-)

Superficially of course, English, in the future most likely, American English, will be used exclusively in nearly every country in the customer service sector, bar none.

This doesn't mean though that a foreigner's knowledge of the whatever local lingo won't still be tremendously helpful, albeit no longer absolutely necessary for basic every day transactions.

Language / Verbal nouns and past-tense adjectives from imperfective & perfective verbs..when to use which aspect? [48]

As you've obviously noticed by now, Polish is much more grammatically precise than English, more exact as well in her lexic function, compare
for example English "to see"/"look" vs. Polish "widzic", "zobaczyc", "ogladac", "patrzyc", "spojrzec"...

I SAW a movie. = Ogladalem film.
I SAW my friend in front of his flat. = Widzialem mojejo przyjacielu przed swoim mieszkaniem.
I've already SEEN the menu. = Juz zobaczylem menu.
Hey, LOOK there! = Hej, patrz tu!
I briefly SAW him standing at the corner. = Spojrzylem go stajacy na rogu.

Certainly English has perhaps even a richer lexic of synonyms, my point being though that English is to an extent relatively more flexible
in her choice, whereas in Polish, "Widzialem film" might sound to a Polish native speaker as if somebody was able to use their eyes to

experience the film (as opposed to another part of the body). Obviously, a film is meant to be seen first and foremost. And it an English

speaker says/writes, "Ogladalem mojego przyjacielu....", a Pole might think that the person was in a movie in which they were moving
as though in a succession of images:-)

Po polsku / Wielkimi krokami zbliża się... Dzień Przyjaźni Polsko-Węgierskiej [50]

Szeretlek magyarok.

Language / Verbal nouns and past-tense adjectives from imperfective & perfective verbs..when to use which aspect? [48]

Interesting that you mention this since I teach ESL, at the moment, to a rather large group of Polish exchange students, who, though considered
advanced, often make correspondingly similar errors in English:-)

Temporarily thrown off by adjectival phrases such as "...polskomowiacy = [a, the] Polish speaking man, which is technically not a gerund and therefore
not at all germain to the current topic thread.

Language / Verbal nouns and past-tense adjectives from imperfective & perfective verbs..when to use which aspect? [48]

Thanks, ForumUser!
I see now that the analogy of mine in this instance was false.

Language / Verbal nouns and past-tense adjectives from imperfective & perfective verbs..when to use which aspect? [48]

"widzac" would correspond to the English "-ing" gerund form.

History / BARBAROUS / BARBARIC / BARBARIAN tribes in Poland [62]

I know more about Germany than you and in fact Ziem agrees with what I posted. So there!

History / BARBAROUS / BARBARIC / BARBARIAN tribes in Poland [62]

And the other half is Protestant aka Evangelical Lutheran, so what does that prove, Johnny?

Language / Verbal nouns and past-tense adjectives from imperfective & perfective verbs..when to use which aspect? [48]

Put more simply, English tenses tend to calibrate WHEN an action is performed, whereas Polish aspects calculate HOW OFTEN that same action has been performed.

A little too complicated here to bother getting into atelic or indeterminate vs. telic or resultative. More for a purely linguistics forum:-)

History / BARBAROUS / BARBARIC / BARBARIAN tribes in Poland [62]

Once again, if only to reiterate for those who might not get it, the advent of Christianity in the Holy Roman Empire didn't quite work out; the Germans are still pagans!

Language / Verbal nouns and past-tense adjectives from imperfective & perfective verbs..when to use which aspect? [48]

Verbal aspects are considered by students to be about the most difficult stage of learning Polish.
German and English don't measure the duration of action in such terms! Polish has tenses as well, only the concept of perfectivity vs. imperfectivity doesn't correspond to English directly.

For example, "I go to school" means that the action is a general state of repetitive or frequentative continuation. In Polish, various verb forms are often required to express such action, whereas in English, words may be added to the sentence to clarify same.

To put things more simply, Polish aspects calibrate how often an action is performed whereas English tenses quantify when the action occurred.

News / Why is Poland so hostile against Germany? Do they realize how their reparations rubbish damages relations? [510]

As Poland's closest and (second) richest neighbor, you should be more interested.

How do you define a "pure bred" German anyway? This confuses me as nobody to date, German or foreigner, has been able to give me a legit explanation!

Prior to Hitler, my family had been living in German lands since at least the end of the Middle Ages.

Does that make me a "pure bred" German?LOL

Trust you're familiar with that old saw: "Was er glaubt ist Einerlei, in der Rasse liegt die Schweinerei"

Language / Short Polish<->English translations [1050]

Thanks, paw! That's what I figured, just wanted to be sure:-)

Language / Verbal nouns and past-tense adjectives from imperfective & perfective verbs..when to use which aspect? [48]

Just sent you a private mail in that regard:-)

Language / Verbal nouns and past-tense adjectives from imperfective & perfective verbs..when to use which aspect? [48]

To be noted here too the root "ob + DAR + owany" > 'da[wa]c' =to give, literally "present" = that which is given cf. Russian "padarek" with Polish "prezent"

:-)

History / BARBAROUS / BARBARIC / BARBARIAN tribes in Poland [62]

Indeed.

The Teutonic Knights journeyed as far as former Livonia.
Sergei Eisenstein shows their cruelty in his epic "Alexander Nevsky" (1938) with Nikolai Cherkassov. Certain scenes though of babies being consigned to the flames of those being burned at the stake might though have been apocryphal.

History / BARBAROUS / BARBARIC / BARBARIAN tribes in Poland [62]

A Ruthenian, you mean? Hmm, the plot thickens.

History / BARBAROUS / BARBARIC / BARBARIAN tribes in Poland [62]

He might well, Milo!
He might even be a Kaschub, a Sorb or
a Wend.

History / BARBAROUS / BARBARIC / BARBARIAN tribes in Poland [62]

No reason not to be proud, Weimarer, so long as you're proud of the right things!
Naturally, no thinking German is proud of Hitler, rather, it's an eternal source of bruising shame.

However, when one thinks back on such luminaries such as Leibniz, Kepler, Semmelweiss, Koch, Behring, Oberst, Beethoven, Goethe, Grunewald, Durer, Stoss, Tilman Riemschneider and innumerable others in science, research, music, medicine, literature, theater and so on, one may indeed swell with pride.

Back to your statement at the beginning of the post. Jews weren't permitted by the Catholic Church to participate in being a member of the society in which they were living. They couldn't join tradesmen's guilds or even the army. Therefore, they were condemned to exist on the periphery of society, hence held responsible for the Plague, among other things, rumors and lies were spread about them.

Language / Verbal nouns and past-tense adjectives from imperfective & perfective verbs..when to use which aspect? [48]

Not sure if you know any German, Forum User, but Polish, like English, doesn't always make the same distinction between "being"/to be = byc vs.

"becoming"/to become = zostac. "Stac sie", a reflexive verb, also means "to become", but "byc" and "zostac" are sometimes used in the passive voice + Instrumental, e.g. "Byc aktorem" = to be an actor, "zostac profesorem" = to become a professor etc.

There's a lot to say on this subject.

Back to your question.
"On BYL zdenerwowany." = He got really unnerved. is probably more common than "On ZOSTAL zdenerwowany." Then again, Polish in my experience is more
likely to use the active rather than the passive voice.

"Zgubilem moj portefel." = I/I've lost my billfold. vs. "Moj portefel byl zgubiony" = My billfold got lost.

History / BARBAROUS / BARBARIC / BARBARIAN tribes in Poland [62]

Spot on.

Genealogy / Polish & Prussian/German town name cross-reference. [100]

Both of the latter two also have German equivalents, Gneissen and Bromberg:-)

Language / Verbal nouns and past-tense adjectives from imperfective & perfective verbs..when to use which aspect? [48]

You see. I knew what I heard, but haste caused an idiotic typo!
Learned the above nearly my second half of first year PolishLOL
)))

History / BARBAROUS / BARBARIC / BARBARIAN tribes in Poland [62]

Although whether Germans actually BECAME Christians in their hearts, souls, and minds, whether or not they truly internalized both the teachings of Christ, later of St. Francis, definitely cannot be gleaned from the savagery with which, post-(failed) Enlightenment, Germany aka the Nazi Era, descended so rapidly, then unrepenetently, into the depths of pagan barbarism.

Historians, both German non-Jewish such as Dieter Zimmer, Hajo Holborn, along with numerous others, continue to puzzle over this same question.

When push came to shove, far too many rank-and-file Germans chose to push out their Jewish fellow citizens (as Luther himself had foretold) and shove them into gas chambers!

If you don't believe me, you have only to read Christopher Browning's best seller, "Ordinary Men", as well as Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners". I'm sure they're available in German.

Language / Verbal nouns and past-tense adjectives from imperfective & perfective verbs..when to use which aspect? [48]

Context notwithstanding, Maf, yes, Ziemowit, I see what you mean!
Probably, "Czy moglby (better:...chcialby) Pan zobaczyc.....?" works much better, yes?
Thanks:-)

Language / Verbal nouns and past-tense adjectives from imperfective & perfective verbs..when to use which aspect? [48]

Aspects (as opposed to "tenses") requiring the "perfective" or "dokonany" reflect the ONE-TIME completion of an action.
Just briefly with yet another example sentence or two, if you walk into a restaurant, the waitress might well ask, "Czy moze Pan zobaczyc menu/jadlospis?" = Would you like to SEE the menu, sir?

In English, there's considerable leeway in this regard. Save for sarcasm, everybody understands perfectly that the waitress or whoever knows that one can "see" the menu, unless of course they're blind!:-) Therefore, there's no substantive difference between "Would you like to SEE....." vs. "Would you like to TAKE A LOOK AT....", or even "Would you care to GLANCE AT....." etc. The meaning is crystal clear unless the person spoken to is simply giving the wait staff a hard time.

Not so in Polish, where "Czy moze Pan widzic menu?", might indeed imply that the customer needs to "see" the menu as opposed to something else. It would be understood, but would definitely sound odd.

"widzic" (imperfective) means "to see", as in "to have the ability of sight"
"zobaczyc" (perfective) means "to take a look or glance at"

Language / Short Polish<->English translations [1050]

I was being serious, pawian.

History / BARBAROUS / BARBARIC / BARBARIAN tribes in Poland [62]

Sometimes the truth is disquieting, Milo! Sorry you can't handle it. I thought a little more of you than all that:-)

@kaprys & Ironside,

Try to be politely objective for a change and credit me with a little common sense on this topic. After all, if I weren't sure of my statements, I'd scarcely post them on open forum now, would I!

Furthermore, what makes either of you all any more of an authority on the subject than I? You know about as much of my educational/academic background as I do of yours.

Law / The right to own guns: would you support such legislation in Poland? [2237]

I can concur only in the latter point, to which I will gladly concede some degree of merit, if only because Israel too takes tremendous issue with those Ultra-Lubovitch Orthodox who steadfastly refuse to fight for their country, hiding behind the cloak of religion to mask their overt pacifism.

News / A better Polish solution: aiding refugees in their home region [29]

The question is whether or not you relinquished your Polish citizenship:-)