The BEST Guide to POLAND
Unanswered  |  Archives [3] 
  
Account: Guest

Posts by mafketis  

Joined: 31 Mar 2008 / Male ♂
Last Post: 9 hrs 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 160 of 242
sort: Latest first   Oldest first   |
mafketis   
5 May 2020
News / Presidential elections 2020 - your opinions about campaign, candidates [2222]

PiS games are really third world level

Sub-third world, organizers of Mexican dog fights would have too much self-respect than to emulate them...

she's doing a truly tremendous job of representing American interests abroad

She's not.... subtle but she understands that part of the job very well.
mafketis   
5 May 2020
News / Presidential elections 2020 - your opinions about campaign, candidates [2222]

the USA is now starting to talk about how elections are being handled

The current US Ambassador to Poland has been making statements in defense of the non-PiS controlled media... I'd have thought that was worth mentioning, but.... who would? The Brits don't care and hardly any sane Americans are left here...
mafketis   
26 Apr 2020
Study / Coming to study at UITM Rzeszow, Poland [10]

it may be automatically recognized in other EU countrie

Back when Poland was negotiating its entry into the EU the government specifically attempted to make sure that Polish nursing qualifications would _not_ be recognized - it was a way to try to keep nurses in Poland without actually improving their pay...

In recent years there have been attempts to create nursing programs in English but I don't know about the quality....

In this particular case, it should be noted that this looks like a private university, the quality of which varies wildly in Poland (and programs in English are never as good as programs in Polish)

And... unless you're familiar with the region Rzeszów is liable to not be an especially easy town to come to terms with - the southeast is traditionally the poorest part of the country and unless you know (or can quickly learn) Polish getting everyday tasks done is liable to be difficult.
mafketis   
25 Apr 2020
News / Presidential elections 2020 - your opinions about campaign, candidates [2222]

PiS seems determined to steal this election

Yes, it is simply impossible to hold elections in any form that meet the standards of a third world dog fight in the current environment. But that doesn't matter to the neo-RPL thugs of PiS... corrupt and thieving liars to the core, determined to plunder the country with the support of the gullible and poorly educated... all for 500 a month (say goodbye to that not long after the "election"...)
mafketis   
23 Apr 2020
Law / How to get custody of my children? I am a foreigner on a Poland's karta pobytu (temporary residence card) [29]

talked to a lawyer where I live, in different Eu country, he told me that I can go and fetch my children

Virtually every EU country favors bringing and/or keeping kids in it rather than in other countries. A Polish court will almost certainly side with the mother to keep them in Poland and if you try to abduct them then you could find yourself in serious legal trouble.....

You need a lawyer in the country you're living in and maybe in Poland but in international custody cases where the kids are at the moment counts for more than most anything else.
mafketis   
22 Apr 2020
Language / Short Polish<->English translations [1050]

The job title is a well-established one

Maybe in the UK I'm pretty sure American terms (like large swaths of educational terminology) are very different. I had a vague idea of what the OP was after but the specific terms didn't mean anything to me....
mafketis   
22 Apr 2020
Language / Short Polish<->English translations [1050]

Can you tell me what this job is called?

People need much more context including (but not limited to)

country you're talking about

duties of said job

start with those and maybe we can help...
mafketis   
20 Apr 2020
News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [996]

only concern is that Italians, like most southerners, jump from one strong emotion to another and may quickly forget

Yeah, who ever heard of Italian vendettas?
mafketis   
18 Apr 2020
Genealogy / Looking for a person living in Warsaw - any online phone book in Poland? [33]

Actually there were no regular phone books before rodo.

Very long ago they used to have them I remember back in the 1990s going to the post office to get phone books for different województwa.. (for work related travel). that was also when you usually made long distance calls in the post office too.

Back in the PRL many people didn't have home phones because the commies didn't want them to so phone books weren't that... necessary? I also remember people used to use the telegram service in the post office to send info to people without phones...
mafketis   
16 Apr 2020
News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]

You cannot blame the Russia of today for the past.

But you _can_ and _should_ blame the Russia of today for acting like the USSR invading other countries and denying the past and killing journalists. Russia is still in the ancient social model of hundreds of years ago, they've just changed from the Tsar and later first party secretary to a banana republic style president for life.

Ukraine has turned the corner in building a civic society (it has a long way to go but it's on the right path) Russia remains mired in oligarchy ignorance and violence (because that's what a majority of Russians want).
mafketis   
15 Apr 2020
Language / Can I buy the Polish language certificate B1? [12]

here is an example

Sounds like a conman, should be deported ASAP...

he could print some hearts and flowers on it

Like toilet paper? That's about how much it would be worth...
mafketis   
15 Apr 2020
Life / Place of Living Choice: Poland vs Hungary vs Germany [44]

The language seems a bit of a problem

It's very alien to both Polish and English ways of thinking but it's far more regular than either and once you adapt to the basic framework not so hard....

On the other hand, Hungarians are a lot less forgiving of foreigners mangling their language than Poles are. To be sure, most are quite forgiving and nice but the minority of jerks is a bit bigger..... ( it also might be influenced by Austro-Hungarian brusqueness which is very deeply ingrained there).
mafketis   
15 Apr 2020
Genealogy / Looking for a person living in Warsaw - any online phone book in Poland? [33]

Those are the Polish initials of General Data Protection Regulation, a particularly useless EU law

Rozporządzenie o Ochronie Danych Osobowych

It doesn't really help or protect anybody but it makes it harder to access lots of web sites in the EU (and I can no longer access many US papers that don't want to jump through EU bureaucratic hoops)

It also enables more surveillance than before so there';s that I guess....
mafketis   
14 Apr 2020
News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]

Most Polish not consider Jews to be Polish

It's not that clear cut.... the more Russian influence the less likely they are to consider Jews to be Polish, the less Russian influence the more likely they are to not be so dogmatic (and conversion to Christianity is seen to be more important than ethnicity)

Most Russians do not consider Jews to be Russian

True, that was (still is?) official policy, of course it's a Russian idea and therefore sort of insane, but...

Brit-ish is a Hebrew word for Covenant-Man

Batsh[t insane, you are.
mafketis   
14 Apr 2020
News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]

Russians are Russians

Not in the USSR (or modern Russia AFAIK) where "Russian" and "Jewish" were officially separate nationalities. I've made the mistake of asking Russian speaking Jews from the USSR if they considered themselves to be Russian and.... no, they absolutely do not (maybe a few somewhere do but it doesn't seem to be the majority view).

Poland never really had such an extreme separation.
mafketis   
13 Apr 2020
News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]

The aim is to downplay Russian complicity and to replace it with a 'common enemy'.

yeah, and the eternal Russian (and Serbian?) desire to escape blame....
mafketis   
13 Apr 2020
News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]

I see no difference especially under Putin , all Russians love him

Well now Russia =/= CCCP but a lot of former Soviet places have radically changed... It's important to remember that a large majority of Russians had no problem with the USSR and it was the other natioanlities (whether Lithuanian, Georgian, Ukrainian or Uzbek or whatever) that wanted to break free The USSR was dominated by Russia but they weren't the same thing.

Russians have never acquired what you might call 'civic consciousness' while a lot of the other Soviet nationalities have (esp Baltics or more recently Ukraine though the latter has a long way to go still)
mafketis   
13 Apr 2020
News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]

thought I was going mad for a moment

but it's important to separate Soviet and Russian - it's very hard to understand what happened in the USSR or why without understanding insane Soviet nationality laws.... (which are still sort of a thing in Putin's Russia)
mafketis   
13 Apr 2020
News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]

So you guys are saying that the Russians and Germans were not responsible for WWII

Soviets and Nazis to be precise, the Nazis were German and Soviets were mostly Russian (though of course Stalin was in no way Russian)
mafketis   
13 Apr 2020
News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]

So soviets were not Russians?,

Sovets included Russians, Belarussians, Ukrainians, Georgians, Azerbaijanis, Tatars, Jews, Chechens etc etc etc Russian was the common Soviet language but lots of non-Russians (like Stalin) were able to get ahead in the USSR...
mafketis   
13 Apr 2020
Language / Can I buy the Polish language certificate B1? [12]

Can i buy this certificate

Never heard of anyone buying it, sign up for the test and ask them how much they want and see what happens.

B1 isn't that hard, how dumb are you that you can't learn it?
mafketis   
12 Apr 2020
Food / What do non-Poles think about eating the following Polish foods? [1450]

. It isn't just an easter thing

But horseradish is definitely even more important for easter (normally a part of święconka)

Before coming to Poland I hated horseradish and Polish horseradish is still the only type I can stand (even in Germany it was...blllhhh)
mafketis   
10 Apr 2020
UK, Ireland / Irish (live in London) moving to Poland [44]

Poles are not known for their flexibility as you'll soon find out :))

It depends, they can be very flexible when it suits them. You do need to know what pressure to apply to what points though...