Feedback / Is it Polish forum or foreign forum? [159]


No such thing has happened. One person has claimed (either out of the blue or according to Australian usage not shared by other English speaking countries) that the word Pole is offensive and a bunch of people including Polish people have said that it is not. Poles or "the Poles" are far more used by Polish people when speaking English than is "Polish people". Examples of the Polish government and other Polish institutions using the word has not changed that person's mind. Whatevers....

Now, had you brought up the idea that the word Pole offensive in Australia that would be interesting and people might want to figure out how that happened and could have started an interesting discussion but instead you very aggressively start attacking longtime posters (including Polish people) in good standing. You're obviously intensely angry about something but posting here is not going to solve that.

Feedback / Is it Polish forum or foreign forum? [159]


Next thing he'll claim that the letter ł is offensive in Australia, or, like Polonius he could claim that the universal modern pronunciation of ł (like English w) is a sign of modern degradation and the kresy pronunciation is more correct....

Feedback / Is it Polish forum or foreign forum? [159]


In other words, your country is Australia and not Poland (where Pole and Poles are the most common translations of words like Polak, Polka, Polacy and Polki). The semantics and connotations of many words in English differ (often very strongly) by country. w#nk#r, for example, is kind of a joke word in the US but a very strong insult (fighting word) in the UK.

The question is when and how the negative connotations of Pole began in Australia, it's certainly not negative in the US (though Pollock is negative and I'd never used beyond meta discussions of usage).

Feedback / Is it Polish forum or foreign forum? [159]


Dumb suggestion. Most Poles (in Poland) are probably not very interested in the forum, the few that are interested are certainly welcome.


Nobody was stopping anyone in Poland creating a similar forum (no one is stopping you).


I never said any such thing. I merely said that the great majority of Polish people in Poland are not interested in participating in an English only environment about Poland.


Why don't you go on a Polish language forum and ask them?


The Polish government disagrees

msw.gov.pl/en/news/886,Captain-Marcin-Lisowski-on-Lone-Target.html?search=39350

PAP disagrees

pap.pl/en/news/news,435153,roman-catholic-bishops-changed-europes-history---duda-gauck.html

Radio Poland disagrees

thenews.pl/1/10/Artykul/230073,Ethnic-Poles-evacuated-from-eastern-Ukraine

Feedback / Is it Polish forum or foreign forum? [159]

Considering that everything's supposed to in English here, I'd say the primary focus is on English speaking people and their experiences with and/or perceptions of Poland. There's no need whatsoever for a forum in English for Polish people in Poland (seriously that would be very, very weird) beyond language practice. If you're looking for a forum in Polish then the comment threads on Polish media outlets show a wide range of opinion on ongoing issues (whether the sleepwalking performance of the former president or the antics of the current minister of culture).

Getting back here, part of the socialization process for anyone living in a new country is griping about stuff (I did my fair share but I realized I was just venting and as I became more acclimated it tapered off).

And seriously, if you want to see full on hatred of a host society find some forums in English on Switzerland, the Netherlands or the Scandinavian countries. The reader feedback on a Danish paper in English was so negative they stopped most comments. It made the comments on this forum seem dainty and ladylike in comparison.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

Poland is different when it comes to phones. This is partly a result of the communist system in which phone lines were hard to get, one more little method of social control.

I remember in the early to mid 1990s most of the people I knew didn't have phones at home and you had to go there in person to talk about anything). The phone company lagged on correcting this for way too long and by the time cell phones became more available people who weren't used to landline phones never bothered with them at all.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

Who has landline phones anymore? I haven't for over ten years. Isn't that distorting the results a lot?

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


Him and Jarek, it's him and Jarek against the dirty rotten traitorous homo loving world!

Food / Why Poles not like rice? [98]


OR course not, no seas tonta.

When I speak Spanish I follow Spanish usage and use América to mean the continents, when I speak English I follow (American) English usage and use America to refer to a specific country. In theory Polish follows Spanish usage but most people follow English usage more closely (I've heard both). In Polish I call America (Stany) which seems to the most common way of referring to the country:

Polish person noticing my accent: where are you from?
Me: Ze stanów.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


That's one scenario, another scenario is the youth flank uniting and getting rid of the toxic elders and turn PiS into a normal Christian Democrat party and not a personal tool of deal making and petty vengeance.

But PiS as is has essentially no real chance since it's too concentrated in one person and that person is not interested in building a healthy society.

Food / Why Poles not like rice? [98]

Why are you trying to impose meanings from one language on another. In some languages, like Spanish, America (América) refers to all of both continents while in English it refers (by itself) to a particular country. There's nothing ignorant about words meaning different things in different languages.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


You forgot the wreckers and running dog imperialists...

Tell us more about the glorious five year plan, comrade!

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


My impression was that Duda doesn't have the cojones to stand up to Kaczyński....

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


No way she could be prime minister after that ordeal, at least there's an experienced alternate waiting in the wings (with a giant hook at the ready).

Not having anything to do with the actual, real country of Poland on a day to day level you have no idea what the blowback will be if Szydło's pushed aside. There's no way the government would last more than a year or two (the promise to voters that won them victory was a post-Kaczyński PiS - if they reneg on that then all bets are off).


He scheduled the opening day of the Sejm (when he and Kopacz are supposed to be present) on a day when there's an informal summit meeting of the EU, which requires that every country send the head of state or prime minister). The date of the meeting has been known since April.

now there's an undignified wrangle with PiS trying to figure out how dig itself out of this latest hole..... (and Poland's reputation as a serious country will take a hit).

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


They've clearly not given up on the idea of dumping her. I give her two months at most before she's looking for a party. Note that Polonius can't actually defend what PiS is doing (though it's pretty stupid and will alienate the people that voted for them) so he keeps trying to change the subject.

And now add the mess with Duda showing he has no idea about how the EU is run (and or wants to stress to the EU that the bumbling amateurs with no idea of basic protocal are back!)

Law / Polish work visa refused - what should i do next? [23]


Go back in time and try again? You can't "avoid" it because it already happened.


Or his own.....

Language / Polish names without a nickname (or less frequently shortened) [61]


Possibly I was working from memory and pieniąche does get some google hits. I collected a bunch of forms I heard once but can't put my fingers on it right now.


I think of it as the 'bro' form (except that young women use it in a similar way) kind of youthful exhuberance and irreverent attitudes, it seems to add a breezy connotation more than disrespect or coarseness (among young Polish people).

Language / Polish names without a nickname (or less frequently shortened) [61]


No, but usually in linguistics we don't distinguish diminutives on the basis of whether they're names or not (most of the time, there will be exceptions of course).

The augmentative -sko is interesting because it changes the grammatical gender of the noun it's applied to (which most diminutives in Polish don't). Also, originally I think -ch- was an agumentative though it functions more like a diminutive in the modern language (though it suggests a rough and ready attitude rather than a tender one). Students used to be very fond of it and I was always hearing them say things like mięcho (mięso) kapucha (kapusta) pieniąche (pieniądze) and the like.

Language / Polish names without a nickname (or less frequently shortened) [61]


Not really. It's not a term that's really used in mainstream linguistics in English in my experience. The term 'diminutive' is about 368 times more common (approximately).

Language / Polish names without a nickname (or less frequently shortened) [61]

My favorite name ever Świętopełk?

(the czech version is also pretty cool - Svatopluk

Language / Polish names without a nickname (or less frequently shortened) [61]


you mean Ewunia, there's also Ewusia but not as common.

Language / Polish names without a nickname (or less frequently shortened) [61]


You're not going to change that. It's too deeply embedded in the language and culture. Even if you succeed then all you've done is make your child a social misfit. Better choose a name the shortened form of which you can stand. And even then your kid might prefer a different nickname (especially if you make it clear you don't like it).


Just be glad she didn't drop the -arr-.....

Law / Asylum laws in Poland [41]


What about religion? If he's not Muslim (or is the wrong kind of muslim) life can get pretty bad there... they've hacked a few atheist writers to death there this year.

Law / Asylum laws in Poland [41]


I would not call most of what they talk "speaking English" in any real sense, they know how to string some English words together but that's about it.


What's the basis of asking for asylum? From Pakistan a Christian or Ahmadi might be able to claim oppression (since the Sunni majority is very hostile and actively oppresses minority religions) but that's about it.

Law / Asylum laws in Poland [41]


And yet migrants run away from it to get to the UK......

Travel / I'm so bored in Poland! [129]

Wrocław is also a nice day trip from Opole, the old town area is nice and there's the Panorama, not the most exiting thing ever but worth a visit if you're in town. There's also

panoramaraclawicka.pl/?lang=en

I think maybe what's going on is that for your husband visits to Poland are mostly to chill and be with family and/or friends and he doesn't realize how uninteresting that can be someone who doesn't know those people as well as he does.

For Opole I found this in two seconds:

kulturalne.opole.pl/

No english version, though. But every Polish town has a page like this. If nothing else you can use it to plan things ahead of time.

Travel / I'm so bored in Poland! [129]

Where are you and what would you rather be doing?

News / Should Poland exit the EU immediately? [377]


And this means that Poland is no obliged to take in and try to provide for a large population with a proven track record of failure?

If there's a muslim population in Western Eruope that produces more wealth than social service debt then I've yet to hear of it (and sure the statistics would be bandied about).

Again, the story of mass muslim immigration to western europe is one of some individual successes set against a larger backdrop of dysfunction and failure.

Muslim immigration is at it's most productive when it selects for highly educated and more secularly oriented people. Bringing in large numbers actually has the effect of harming the more educated and secular.


That's just plain wrong and displays vast ignorance of what was really going on in Poland. Yes, accession has helped Poland a lot. That doens't mean Poland is obliged to sublimate its survival instinct (as has happened in most of western europe).

News / Should Poland exit the EU immediately? [377]


For the time being.


But Merkel's Folly has woken up a lot of people who don't like having such an erratic and irrational person in charge of Germany (and thinking that other countries should just blindly follow her emotional decisions). She was basically telling Hungary and Austria how to manage their borders (though the media seemed to .... not want to make that especially clear).

This time an unaccountable decision by a German leader probably won't affect Poland very much..... but more thinking people are now thinking 'what about next time?'

News / Should Poland exit the EU immediately? [377]


Very true. But economic arguments are no the be and end all of EU membership. If enough Poles start to see EU membership as having what should be domestic policy decisions (like border controls) made in Germany by irrational leaders then the economic benefits might not be enough.

Part of what Merkel's Folly has wrought is to bring the negatives of EU membership front and center.