News / Britain - problem for Poland and Poles? [117]

@rozumiemnic, I keep up with the news! 'Course the average Brit isn't going to trash their own country any more than the average American isn't going to admit to the fact that our nation is in a state of civil war and that things are going to hell in a handbasket!!

:-)

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

...but, to paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill, "have we anything better"??

No:-)

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

Amen:-)

News / Britain - problem for Poland and Poles? [117]

Look with your eyes, man! When last across the pond, the IRA was the big ticket issue. Poles weren't really a problem, as I recall, more the Hindus, the Pakis and your occasional crackpot sounding off in Speaker's CornerLOL

News / Britain - problem for Poland and Poles? [117]

Post-Brexit Britain is an entirely different place than over a hundred years ago, when Joseph Conrad came to England and became one of the best prose writers in the English language:-)

Today, Britain has become a xenophobic jungle, probably worse than it was nearly twenty years ago when I was there last.

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

Makes sense to me. This would seem to eliminate the need for refugees to come to Poland etc. when they are being aided in their home country!

On the other hand, who's stopping ANY group of people from visiting or even making a sojourn abroad for either limited touristic or study purposes:-)

Love / Are Polish men handsome to you? [182]

Polish men tend on the whole to be tall in comparison, say, with Southern Italians, Greeks or certain Asians as well as Hispanics.

As a man, I can't honestly comment on whether I find them "handsome" or not, only that most are easily recognizable to me by their distinctive lozenge-shaped head and squarish facial bone structure along with light eyes and coarse, fair hair:-)

Polonia / Let's talk about Sweden and other Scandinavian countries [236]

Sure does:-)

Isn't it true though how the more complicated the language aka grammar, the more conservative and above all, homogeneous, the speakers, e.g. Polish, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Finnish etc? It's been theorized that ancient peoples who felt themselves especially threatened by surrounding hostile populations used the difficulty of their native tongue almost as a protective shield against perceived enemy forces around them. If their speech seemed impenetrable to outsiders, they could more easily protect themselves from harm.

Sorta make sense?

Polonia / Let's talk about Sweden and other Scandinavian countries [236]

Didn't you find that it was helpful knowing Swedish, Rustygun?

Polonia / Let's talk about Sweden and other Scandinavian countries [236]

To which country are you referring, Rusty? Sweden or Poland?
:-)

Polonia / Let's talk about Sweden and other Scandinavian countries [236]

Indeed, Polson!

Oddly enough, I once heard a youngish woman speaking to her American husband in English, and her accent reminded me uncannily of Ingrid Bergman.
I happened to address her in Swedish, quite by happenstance, and it turned out she was from Poznań:-)

Polonia / Let's talk about Sweden and other Scandinavian countries [236]

@Maf, Swedish is probably the most widely-spoken of the extant Scandinavian languages aka the most "practical":-) It's also spoken in much of urban Finland, and was at one time more popular then English, German or Russian.

Most Swedes up till round about sixty-five or over, speak (or at least THINK they speak) nearly fluent conversational English, often with even a slight American-style accent, compared, say, with the Danes, Germans or Dutch, who often sound rather British!

Swedes on the whole are critical of foreigners who speak their language, as relatively few non-Swedes actually have bothered to learn it, thus, are liable to be a bit on the corrective side concerning mistakes.

I too speak several Scandinavian languages, though find Swedish to be far and away the most melodic.

Genealogy / Why are some Polish people dark complected, and others very light [511]

...possibly intermingled with Laplanders, themselves known to be dark-haired and somewhat yellowish complected:-)

Language / Slavic languages words similarities with Polish [240]

Prekrasno = prekrasnoy in Russian, right?
:-)

Always found it intriguing how close the Russians words are for "red" and "beautiful".

Love / What do you like most about Polish girls? :) [120]

From where then did the pervasive myth arise that women's lib has never reached Poland?? At least make the (not so subtle) distinction between Polish women living in the countryside compared with those urban professionals living and working in the larger cities:-)

Language / Slavic languages words similarities with Polish [240]

Translation, please?

OK, let me try: "Poles and Serbians belong to essentially the same language family. It's only natural that there will be certain similarities in vocabulary what with our borders constantly changing hands......"

Is that about it, Crow? It was hard for me to wade through the thicket of your somewhat 'dense' Serblish prose.
lol

Language / Slavic languages words similarities with Polish [240]

Thanks!

Could've sworn I either heard (or read) "Boli mi głowa". Then again, I might have been dreaming, perhaps simply not paying enough attention:-)

"Boleć"!! Of courseLOL

Language / Slavic languages words similarities with Polish [240]

Curious as to whether or not it should be "wszystko MI boli", since I thought "bolić" requires the Dative:-)

Language / Slavic languages words similarities with Polish [240]

True, Polonius!

@Ziemowit, d'you honestly think the average marginally educated Pole could actually recognize the similarities between those two phrases you quoted?

I'd be quite surprised!

Language / Slavic languages words similarities with Polish [240]

Not even mutually intelligible, Serbian and Polish! Rather like asking whether or not French is "another version" of Italian, or German a dialect of Dutch:-)

A famous Yiddish linguist, Uriel Weinreich, once described the difference between a language and a dialect: "A language is simply a dialect with a navy and an army!"

lol

Life / Will Poland ever be multicultural like Sweden, Germany or France? [283]

Unlikely, at least for the foreseeable future. Hope springs eternal:-)

Genealogy / The typical Polish look, or all Eastern Europeans [676]

I can usually recognize Polish people by their facial bone structure, for both men and women. Italians tend to have rounder faces and more acquiline features. Germans are often extremely tall and large-boned, with squarish body types and faces, even if many have dark-colored eyes or skin:-)

Love / What do you like most about Polish girls? :) [120]

I suppose if I had to hazard a gross generalization regarding Polish vis-a-vis German, French, Russian, or Italian women (on the whole) upon pure observation over the years, I'd have to conclude that Polish women seem much more guileless and curious than the other nationalities mentioned, who look to have "been there, done that" etc.

If I were to further compare Polish women with certain Scandinavians aka Swedes and Danes, or with Dutch women, I'd again have to conclude that the latter act more worldly wise, a trifle jaded perhaps and less enthused about the attention being given them.

The above are based solely on personal experience:-) Obviously, there can be no acid test.

Life / Polish movies with English subtitles [87]

Yessss! English movies with ENGLISH subtitles on close-caption TV. Now why didn't I think of that? A no-brainer:-)
LOL

Language / Short Polish<->English translations [1049]

Now you need to "translate" from SMSese into standard English. You should charge a fee for it, you make a bundle:-)
Forget learning a second language until the first one has been mastered!

News / "A merciful heart can share its bread with the hungry and welcome refugees and migrants" Pope Francis [89]

??? Come again?
LOL

To paraphrase: "We Slavs should expect that the Christian churches pay heed to our wishes and return........" (I think)

Am I getting warm?:-)

Language / Short Polish<->English translations [1049]

A difference here, granted.

Thanks, gregy!

Language / Short Polish<->English translations [1049]

"Taka sobie" can sometimes substitute for simply "nieźle" or "not bad" and "wszystko po staremu" = same old, same old.

:-)

News / "A merciful heart can share its bread with the hungry and welcome refugees and migrants" Pope Francis [89]

My Polish is probably on a par with Crow's English, but neither knows German as well as I or Jolly:-)

A mute point, as I'm clearly right in this instance!

As far as the clear split in opinion between what Francis preaches and the points of view I've read thus far, hard times are always the acid test for what unites strong faith vs. recurring fad.

The mean-spirited hypocrisy which supports "Jesus wasn't no creampuff!" and other bilge one hears throughout the broad country of the US, justifying bullying etc. instead of the really tough love of true compassion (even when it strains) is a sharp contrast between those who merely call themselves Christians and those who ARE Christians, and needn't go to Church every Sunday to prove it!!

Europe's center is indeed being challenged nowadays, more probably than at any other time in recent history, at least since WWII and immediately after. It is precisely in times such as these that the resolve and love of Pope Francis is relished as never before.

Dirty shame on those who justify attacks on Muslims (including those who errantly attack Christians Europe in the mistaken belief they are doing Allah's work), when Christianity itself has taught "Hate the sin but not the sinner!"

News / "A merciful heart can share its bread with the hungry and welcome refugees and migrants" Pope Francis [89]

@Nothanks, the analogy with Nazi Germany and the Jews is perhaps well-meaning, but faulty and easily misunderstood as "historical relativism"!

The Muslims are non-German speaking, recent and unwelcome arrivals to Germany, brought in by boatload (potential future voting block, don't forget) with one momma of time required to integrate...if they ever can:-) A number have steadfastly and openly REFUSED to do so.

The Jews had been living, working and contributing to the host culture for nearly two-thousand years, practically since the fall of the Roman Empire, a people who assimilated to the point of nearly losing their own identity, JUST to do their host culture proud because they grew to love Germany. Furthermore, the German-Jewish symbiosis was as nearly complete as any other in history; they displayed Christmas trees in their homes, they joined the army to fight against England, gave their lives for THEIR Fatherland and some received the Iron Cross, while many became some of the leading scholars of Goethe, Lessing, Schiller and other Enlightenment figures with a love of the German language second to none, perhaps even the gentile Germans themselves. Mendelssohn, Mahler and others remain staples of our concert repertoire and until Hiler's lunacy, Jews were on the surface as "German" as any German Christian. And that's how it should be, as the Jews truly earned their "place in the sun", merely to paraphrase out of context.

You should reconsider your comparison, as some of us might easily get the wrong ideaLOL