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Posts by mafketis  

Joined: 31 Mar 2008 / Male ♂ 		Last Post: 1 day ago
Threads: Total: 43 / Live: 23 / Archived: 20
Posts: Total: 11927 / Live: 7225 / Archived: 4702 		From: tez nie
Speaks Polish?: tak
Interests: tez nie

Displayed posts: 7248 / page 141 of 242
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mafketis   
18 Nov 2020
News / Years of Poland in the EU - assessment of pros and cons [1199]

how many PiS fanboys have been to Budapest

Probably close to zero.... I love Budapest, one of my favorite places on Earth, but Orban seems to have done fkkk all to improve things like infrastructure and employment.

Hungary's always been a lot more stratified than Poland (the first real segregated slum I saw in Europe was a gypsy section of Miskolc years ago) but even in richer places there's a much larger have-not class than in Poland (I'm not talking about the Hungarian-Gypsy divide which is massive).

The homeless problem in Budapest goes back to the 1980s (a real sign of socialist failure as that was something that wasn't supposed to happen in a Warsaw Pact country).

The Socialist government in the early 2000s really wrecked the country (they really were about as bad as PiS claims PO was) but ORban has done almost nothing that actually helps the country and it probably is degenerating back to pre-fall-of-communism levels...
mafketis   
17 Nov 2020
Language / Game - guess Polish idioms/sayings in direct English translation [1756]

The idea of the thread are Polish idioms translated into English (can you recognize and understand the original)

Later someone added English idioms translated into Polish (same idea) you should have had "ślub ze strzelbą" (or ślub pod strzelbą?)

Until sometime in the 2000s a _very_ high percentage of Polish wedding ceremonies took place with VPB's (visibly pregnant brides).
mafketis   
17 Nov 2020
Language / Game - guess Polish idioms/sayings in direct English translation [1756]

Yes, saying "shotgun!" is a way of claiming the position in a vehicle next to the driver (where you can control the music and/or temperature and generally be cooler than the schlub(s) in back).

Supposedly the origin was in stagecoaches in American frontier when one person kept control of the horses and someone sat next to him with a shotgun in case disgruntled Indians or robbers showed up.

I've also heard it in expanded usage where a person claims the best spot in a room (or next to the best spot) with the word (I think I've also heard it used in other situations but my memory is a little fuzzy).
mafketis   
17 Nov 2020
Language / Game - guess Polish idioms/sayings in direct English translation [1756]

gun used instead of pistol

It's a very specific type of gun (hence the translation which might not work in reverse all the time).... I hear this in American tv shows movies fairly frequently... maybe it's not something British people notice...
mafketis   
17 Nov 2020
Food / What do non-Poles think about eating the following Polish foods? [1450]

here's a glimpse of my own

They look yummy! I love the color and they do look like parcels.... (more than one or two I've gotten from InPost).

Are those the end gołąbki? I've noticed that the first leaves end up being kind of awkward because they're so big and the last ones take on odd shapes as the leaves get smaller...

My ultimate multi-regional-cultural ones would use pickled leaves (like Romania) barley (... or buckwheat??!) instead of rice (found here and there in various places) and would have a lot of paprika in the sauce and be served with sour cream on top (both as in Hungary).
mafketis   
15 Nov 2020
Life / So if Poland is apparently "97% Polish" according to official statistics, what is the other 3%? [68]

(estimated 25,000 - 50,000 Vietnamese

Probably more.... at its height in the 90s nobody had any real idea how many Vietnamese were in Poland (probably several times the official number). Considering their work ethic and how well they integrated (teachers like them because they worked hard and were respectful) it was kind of dumb to not regularize immigration, but Poland isn't as attractive a destination now I think.
mafketis   
12 Nov 2020
News / 11th November Independence Day in Poland [73]

Where did you get that figure?

I didn't look long enough to get a figure I just saw references to 'rannych policjantów' - it is good to have a number to put to the far right chaos (at the extremes both far right and far left protestors have the same goal - chaos and instilling fear in the population).
mafketis   
12 Nov 2020
News / 11th November Independence Day in Poland [73]

Number of churches set on fire during abortion protests - 0
Number of apartments set on fire during independence march - 1

Number of police injured during abortion protests - 1
Number of police injured during independence march - >1

One side's not doing too great now in the publicity department....
mafketis   
11 Nov 2020
History / Question about Warsaw Ghetto (shared building?) and Monument [29]

Jews lived among Poles

It seems that non-Orthodox or secular Jews and Poles were far more mixed than say Jews and Russians (with the weird nationality laws).

The extremely orthodox tended (as they still tend) to self-segregate and so knowledge of Polish among them would be more limited...
mafketis   
11 Nov 2020
History / Question about Warsaw Ghetto (shared building?) and Monument [29]

,you can hear Hebrew all day long

Surely you mean Yiddish, very orthodox Jews view Hebrew as too important/sacred to use for everyday affairs.

Even in Israel the very orthodox use Yiddish at home and only use Hebrew during services (or when they have to in public).
mafketis   
10 Nov 2020
History / Question about Warsaw Ghetto (shared building?) and Monument [29]

@kaprys

czy to ważne? chyba z pierwszej lepszej....

some surely didn

maybe very orthodox didn't (it's my understanding that orthodox jews in NYC still don't speak English at home) but more integrated Jews surely did
mafketis   
10 Nov 2020
News / How do Poles feel about Biden? [59]

Biden's freewheeling liberalism

What's liberal about prioritizing corporations over people and being in favor of all kinds of crazy Middle Eastern wars?

And please, his brain has largely turned to oatmeal... he's not going to be let in the same room as a decision.

img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/a6KOnO9_460s.jpg
mafketis   
3 Nov 2020
History / Do Polish people in general dislike Russia or Germany more? [369]

Ukrainians who come to Poland are mostly good workers

I have the idea that Ukrainians are a bit like Poles. I remember at point in the early 1990s thinking that Polish people don't have much of a work ethic, and over time I realized that was a simplification. They didn't have much of a work ethic in Poland working for normal Polish wages (a person who worked really hard for such low wages would be a saint or a sucker) but abroad and/or at home when paid well they would work very hard.

Ukrainians are paid more in Poland than in Ukraine and so they work better than they might in Ukraine for Ukrainian wages and their presence was a boon to the economy before covid...
mafketis   
2 Nov 2020
History / Modern myths and legends about communist past in Poland [250]

I always wondered why there weren't more jokes about the name... until I realized most Poles don't see/notice the hachek on top of the s (š) and so didn't make the connection of škoda = szkoda

Apparently the name comes from the founder (more or less) of the company - I don't know if Czechs make the connection between the name and škoda (which exists in Czech with the same meaning as szkoda though I don't know how common it is).