The BEST Guide to POLAND
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Posts by Lyzko  

Joined: 12 Jul 2013 / Male ♂ 		Last Post: 8 hrs ago
Threads: Total: 45 / Live: 31 / Archived: 14
Posts: Total: 10129 / Live: 6011 / Archived: 4118 		From: New York, USA
Speaks Polish?: tak
Interests: podrozy, rozrywki, sport

Displayed posts: 6042 / page 146 of 202
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Lyzko   
17 Jan 2019
News / Pawel Adamowicz, Gdansk mayor, dies after stabbing [354]

Any kind of hate speech, especially in public, hurts everyone, is therefore everybody's business, both victim and onlooker!!
National disgust and rage notwithstanding, such virulent forms of expression really cannot be justified, albeit the roots of such hatred can
be readily understood.
Lyzko   
15 Jan 2019
Polonia / Poland, Germany, France, Spain or Greece? [35]

Living and working in a country means unconditionally, irrefutably, knowing the language of that country in order to communicate with her inhabitants!
English won't help too much in Poland, Spanish not at all. When I lived and worked in Spain for several months, without Spanish, I couldn't have survived, even for a day!

English proved of even more limited usefulness than in Poland. Germany? Without a serious working knowledge of the local language, one can be literally bamboozled to death, especially in the big towns, where you start to speak in your basic English, at their suave insistence of course, only to learn that they perhaps miscommunicated your message into German, presuming you didn't understand, thus can merrily put one over on you so that YOU seem the fool and not they: In the best case scenario,

they actually DIDN'T understand your English, but typically were just too damned arrogant to admit it:-)
Lyzko   
14 Jan 2019
Polonia / Let's talk about Sweden and other Scandinavian countries [236]

In the US, the definition of rape has been traditionally "penetration", there need not be any completion of said act. Violation is sufficient before the law.

Not sure any more whether the above applies to Sweden as well or no.

When I was first in Sweden as a student during the '80's, the country was just coming out of the heady '60's and late '70's and so the atmosphere was probably completely different from what it is today, For one thing, there was little to any "globalization" yet in Sweden, I stood out like a sore thumb..until I started to speak.

After that, I was dubbed a plain freakazoid and the locals, particularly the men, looked at me as though I had two heads and a third eye growing out of the middle of

my faceLOL

After a few seconds, they generally calmed down and we proceeded to get along famously:-)
Lyzko   
14 Jan 2019
Polonia / Let's talk about Sweden and other Scandinavian countries [236]

Sweden has become a bastion of liberal dictatorship, almost like Germany, in which opposing views are automatically dubbed racist ad nauseum, even before the person has had a chance to air their views entirely! Even in the Parliament, one can hear "Lass ihn/sie doch ausreden!" = Just let him/her talk! repeated numerous times.
Lyzko   
11 Jan 2019
Polonia / Polish workers in Denmark [41]

At least a passing (and not merely a "passive") knowledge of Danish should also come in handy as well, I would think.
Lyzko   
10 Jan 2019
Life / Live-in maids in Poland? [12]

The joke here in the States is that the Poles are even too expensive for the Russians....who are out (and under-)bid by the Hindus for the same job(s)!

LOL
Lyzko   
5 Jan 2019
Language / Slavic languages words similarities with Polish [240]

The Czechs were far kinder to their Jews en masse than either the Poles, the Hungarians, certainly the Rumanians, even the Russians.
Only the Albanians and the Bulgarians appeared to do what was necessary NOT to curry favor with Germany.

Aside from false friends I've mentioned, Czech seems closest to Polish:-)
Lyzko   
2 Jan 2019
Work / Work as English proofreader in Poland [19]

Yup, makes sense too, delph! However niche markets are typically hard to fill as it is, no?

Text editing was my stock in trade, along with translation, for nearly fifteen years and many firms prefer in-house to freelance nowadays. In the '90's it was a

different world aka economy:-)
Lyzko   
2 Jan 2019
Work / Work as English proofreader in Poland [19]

Sound advice! Seems right on the money to me.

The earnings can indeed be very high, but the trick is finding a publishing outfit WILLING to pay for quality!
Lyzko   
2 Jan 2019
Work / Work as English proofreader in Poland [19]

I figure the logical follow-up question would be, why would one even need to look for work as an English proofreader in Poland? Translator/interpreter I can well

understand, but foreign-language publications I'd imagine would be so highly specialized that a native English speaker couldn't dream of being hired as they'd be deemed too expensive.

Most likely, the major publishing firms in, say, Warsaw, Poznan, Krakow, would use a run-of-the-mill Pole off the streets who went beyond lyceum English and took some courses at university, possibly spending their holidays in the UK:-)
Lyzko   
2 Jan 2019
UK, Ireland / Why are Polish people, especially women, so disrespectful toward the English? [442]

Frankly, often what passes in my experience for "rudeness" is merely a form of continental European directness, quite common everywhere, not solely in Poland.
While I'll grant you, it's often shortsighted and negative, as dolno said, no false smiles here, typical also for neighboring non-Slavic countries such as France and Germany! If somebody's having a grumpy day, people typically won't mask it behind meaningless small talk as we do here in the States or in England.
Lyzko   
31 Dec 2018
Life / Why is circumcision not practiced in Poland? [701]

It's all relative anyhow, folks, so lighten up! What the Jews and Arabs consider proper practice, European gentiles do not. Neither is more "right" than the other, they're merely different.

It's rather like asking as to which language is "better", French or Russian. It makes no sense, because language, as with religious practice, has no moral imperative.

It is what it is, whatever it is:-)