Language / Do Poles prefer US American or UK English language? [185]


Not India? I've seen newspaper stories from there that are..... not easily comprehensible.

Speaking of Nigeria, what do you think of this?

bbc.com/pidgin

I've followed it off and on (mostly off for months and months at a time) but over time it seems much less.... Englishy with more phonetic spellings and Nigerian words like 'dey' (a copula).

Language / Do Poles prefer US American or UK English language? [185]


What couple of places? English is a pluricentric (or polycentric) language (like French, Spanish, German,Chinese... sort of Arabic) with more than one standard version and speakers of one standard do not necessarily accept others.

There's an emerging 'international English' but it's kind of impoverished (and dreadfully boring to listen to for native speakers) but it's a better single option than something mostly centered in one country.


I've noticed that.... I remember a friend being convinced that a person on tv was from a particular place just because he ended almost every sentence with ...nie? which is not regional at all...

I remember a meeting years ago and the question of why Czechs understand Polish (in general terms) better than Poles understand Czech...

One Czech person said "Because we're used to hearing Slovak" which was I think only part of the answer. Czechs have big differences between formal and informal forms and regional dialects are still a thing there. So Czechs grow up being more attuned to differences than do Poles who grow up hearing Standard Polish almost exclusively.

Language / Do Poles prefer US American or UK English language? [185]


Define "Standard English"....


Years ago during exams a student came in and I thought I heard something of an Australian accent (not too overt but around the edges). I asked and she had family there and had spent a non-trivial amount of time visiting them.

None of the Polish teachers (despite being very competent and extremely fluent) heard that at all. I wonder sometimes how apparent accents are for non-native speakers of English.

If you reach B-2 or so level in Spanish different accents sound completely different in very obvious ways (watching an Argentinian series (with lektor) I heard a few syllables spoken by a maid and 'said 'She's not local, she sounds Andean' and a few minutes later it's revealed she was from Peru). This surprised the Polish person I was watching with.... a great deal.
But time and time again Polish people whose English is as good as or better than my Spanish don't hear different accents (or can't place them as such).
I wonder why that is.... I have ideas but I'd like others' input.

Language / Game - guess Polish idioms/sayings in direct English translation - part 2 [816]


Mine (as a native speaker of GAE) also goes against the ugly word 'Poless' men and women are Poles. Olga Tokarczuk is a Pole (or Polish woman) as is Beata Szydło.

Language / Game - guess Polish idioms/sayings in direct English translation - part 2 [816]


should be 'arms and legs' (or hands and legs... ręce sometimes is equivalent to arms and at other times hands).

Anyway, it means feasible, doable, a sound idea or plan.

Food / Origin of the pierogi [127]


pierogi and uszka are mixed together for some reason.... or are they supposed to be pielmieni? the two tend to look a lot alike

Language / Game - guess Polish idioms/sayings in direct English translation - part 2 [816]


Not many here are known for taking the high road....

Food / Traditionally-Polish salads, help needed [49]

I've had bigos that looked like something you'd be embarrassed to offer to a starving pig.... and it was delicious.

Once or twice I've had horrible bigos with a nasty taste... it didn't taste like it had gone bad or anything... it was just.... nasty. I think there might be some ingredient or combination that some people use (since every family has their own recipe) that just does horrible things in my mouth.

Language / Game - guess Polish idioms/sayings in direct English translation - part 2 [816]


I think this is about the translations of Powstanie warszawskie. He got in a major snit because I prefer 'Warsaw Uprising' to 'Warsaw Rising' because I think the former is clearer and better conveys the heroic nature of the uprising.

He started calling me names and then blocked me and then lied about it claiming it was a problem with his computer....

I also dislike his (re)invented word 'Poless' which sounds ugly and unnatural.

Whatever.... I don't care but I think that's the background.

Language / Game - guess Polish idioms/sayings in direct English translation - part 2 [816]


Yes.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]


Andrew Hammel crunches some numbers and more or less predicts that this will become a weekly to daily occurrence....

x.com/AndrewHammel1/status/1890027272029028659

I'll repost this about the motivations of the attackers. I don't have the knowledge/experience to say how accurate it is, but it is a cultural insider and it explains things like the Syrian stabber smiling while being arrested...

x.com/DanBurmawy/status/1890059479431139660

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]


Interesting take on the psychology of those that carry out these deeds..... if it's even 20% correct then this will become a weekly or daily occurence.... THANKS ANGELA!!!!!!! If not for you a bunch of Germans would be alive....

x.com/DanBurmawy/status/1890059479431139660

Off-Topic / Music Thread - part 2 [980]

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Language / Game - guess Polish idioms/sayings in direct English translation - part 2 [816]


Which means....?

Life / Do you think women have the place they deserve in modern Polish society ? [66]


Need to know more about what qualifies as science an engineering... so I found this:

"Women working as scientists and engineers were primarily employed in the service sector"

In other words.... working with people.

And the 'definition' is broad enough to be meaningless: "occupations that could be involved in the systematic generation, advancement, diffusion, and application of scientific and technological knowledge, independently of the level of studies. This category also includes other occupations like technicians or associated professionals"

Care to translate that?


Very true. And most women probably want to have kids and don't want to spend large portions of the day away from them.

Some women are very career driven and prefer a fulfilling career to family. They don't make up the majority.

I'm all for women going into whatever field they want. But I'm not obsessing that not enough are going into any particular field is a fools' errand.

Life / Do you think women have the place they deserve in modern Polish society ? [66]


This has been replicated before... in places with more.... delicate economic situations women find STEM types of education and jobs more appealing.

In more settled and prosperous places.... women tend to follow their personal interests and preferences more.

And... for better or worse. Overall.... (with many individual exceptions) women are less interested in STEM topics, not least because they often involve lots of time alone and/or as occupations they don't leave much room for personal lives and overall.... (with many individual exceptions) women value the idea of work/life balance more than men do.

You have the same overall range of interests among men and women but the averages skew differently.

I'm not sure why this is framed as being a 'problem'.

News / Coronavirus in Poland - part 2 [599]


Yes, I am. But truth is truth. Dates are dates and they don't support some of what PAK was saying.

I'm very critical of the vaccines (mostly crappy and ineffective and possibly dangerous to those under 40 and no need for anyone to get 'boosters'...) but that's based on evidence.

Show me evidence of be quiet.

Alex Berenson was more accurate than pretty much anyone.... a voice of sanity when everyone else was going nutso....

x.com/AlexBerenson

alexberenson.substack.com/

Law / Moving back to Poland - Healthcare [112]


Scholz is a coward.... Merkel was a fool (or a traitor).... Macron is a strutting rooster with no courage.... Stameter (can't be bothered to look up the spelling) is a megalomaniac.... other countries are too small or too divided....

Law / Moving back to Poland - Healthcare [112]


western European and EU leaders are mostly cowardly wieners...

Poland should not depend on NATO but rather create a new coalition of countries that understand just how rotten and duplicitous russia is (Poland, Czechia, Baltics, Finland, Ukraine for starters maybe Meloni's Italy).

Germany and France are simply too weak-willed to be useful allies at this stage and the UK, despite some good steps is run by a power mad freak who throws people in jail for telling the truth (see Southgate).

Language / Game - guess Polish idioms/sayings in direct English translation - part 2 [816]


Originally French and most English speakers use the French expression "Après nous le déluge" or maybe "After us, the flood" to express the same sentiment (or refer to it rather than express it as aspirational).

What about a reverse one?

Nie można tego ze soba zabrać. (I go back on forth on word order here...)

Law / Moving back to Poland - Healthcare [112]


What kind he say... his egg has been cracked and he's transitioning.... from now on hi..... her new name will be Oksana (please no deadnaming.... her).

News / Coronavirus in Poland - part 2 [599]


Those are all items of public record and very easy to check....

Language / Game - guess Polish idioms/sayings in direct English translation - part 2 [816]


thank you, I don't know why he blocked me (I don't believe his story that it's a computer malfunction)

USA, Canada / Poles Living in the Chicago Area [343]


I'm not so sure about that... being pardoned is not the same as having a conviction overturned....

Pritzker is terrible from what I hear (even worse than predecessor?)

Illinois just sucks in terms of politicians....

Law / Moving back to Poland - Healthcare [112]


Not my experience.... when was your last encounter with the Polish healthcare system?

Travel / Poland in photo riddles - part 3 [818]


Two things jump out:

RP transcription (almost all Poles include r's in their pronunciation even those trying for a distinct British sound).

screen is not 'monitor' but 'ekran'

Language / Game - guess Polish idioms/sayings in direct English translation - part 2 [816]


To play dumb.....

Language / Game - guess Polish idioms/sayings in direct English translation - part 2 [816]


someone wanna tell him?

Off-Topic / Music Thread - part 2 [980]

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History / Recommended Poland's history books [257]


in Hofstede's cross cultural studies (largest scale research in social science history IINM) the only dimension of culture that has a strong correlation with wealth is individualism vs collectivism (more accurately 'nuclear family oriented' or 'extended family/clan oriented').

when countries get richer they become more individualistic collective clan orientation provides protection from poverty but also reinforces poverty...


and because they don't have other, more attractive, options...

'power distance' (how much inequality is tolerated by those with less power) also has a weaker correlation with wealth though countries where the less powerful tolerate inequality (like Latin America or russia) tend to have small super rich elites and gigantic have-not classes with no real non-violent means of material advancement