Travel / Poles as tourists in foreign countries [93]

Poles in general, I've found, do indeed wear their emotions on their sleeve, so the saying goes.
Well known story about the once famous US-silent screen star Pola Negri, nee Apolonia Chalupiec,
who, even after living and working for over fifty-odd years in the US, first on the East Coast and then
of course in Hollywood, could never get used to the Anglo-Saxon concept of "keeping a stiff upper lip"
and repressing her feelings. This by her own admission.

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

Troll, Ironside?? I'd never agree about that:-) Agent provocateur, perhaps.
Anyhow, quit projecting!

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

Well, Ironside! At least you and I both agree that a AfD victory would be as disastrous for
Poland as for Germany:-)

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

Of course, we both know that. However, even if tangential to the current discussion,
what we speak today as High German developed in erstwhile "teutschen Landen" from
South to North rather than the other way round. The model, if you wish, for modern standard
German was Obersaechsisch or Upper Saxon from the Saxon Court in the late 17th, early 18th century, also referred jokingly to as "Kaffeesaechsisch"
That's all I was trying to say:-)

Returning to the thread topic, Saxony, like Thuringia, remains among the most politically reactionary
regions of the Federal Republic!

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

@TheOther, Southern German IS "High German" at least, Oberdeutsch/Upper German,
even if not High German Standard, that's true. Yiddish clearly derives though from the latter,
not from Low German.

Again Swabian for example has a number of Yiddish loan words used in daily
parlance such as "epis" for "etwas", just as in Yiddish.

"Willscht no' epis drinka?" = Moechtest du noch etwas zu trinken?

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

@gumishu,
You're correct in that Yiddish is a derivative of Southern German dialects.
However, only if a German grew up in either Swabia or Bavaria would they
be able to understand, at least communicate, with a Jew from the East European
schtettl.

Language / Why is the Polish language so difficult? [332]

@Milo, modern English, certainly since the death of Chaucer, Spencer, and the arrival of Shakespeare, shuffled
off the mortal coil of case and declension.

Where for instance in contemporary English do you have the morphological acrobatics
of German or Polish? Come on, mate!

What's tricky about English is its spelling cf. with its pronunciation. In Polish, consonant
clusters have only one pronunciation which never changes. In addition, there are zero
schwas or even silent letters as opposed to English words such as "dime" vs. "dim" etc.

Once more, what's complicated about Polish for foreigners, especially Anglophones,
are the perfective/imperfective verbal aspects along with the case endings for the three
genders, and of course, let's not forget those pesky counting quirks after the number five:-)

On the other hand, English is a pluracentric language with numerous varieties, e.g. English
and American. Polish has ONE standard written language, naturally apart from myriad
dialects such as goral.

Moreover, English tenses confuse many Polish students of mine. As Polish aspects measure
repetition of action, that is, the frequency with which an action is performed, English tenses
measure temporal action, when, rather than now many times, a given action is performe
"Do you speak Polish?" vs. (incorrect) "Are you speaking Polish?" and so forth.
In Polish "Idziesz do szkoly?" (right now) vs. "Chodzisz do szkoly?" (Do you attend school [regularly]?)

@gumishu, many of my Polish students find English nightmarishly
difficult, among them teachers, doctors, and lawyers.

Language / Why is the Polish language so difficult? [332]

Difficulty's relative, as I said.
English orthography and pronunciation are nightmarishly
chaotic, whereas Polish is relatively transparent in that regard.

Poles might not admit it, but English looks easy at first glance
yet grows ever more "difficult" by the tense.

Anglophones struggle with Polish verbal aspects, while
Polonaphones have to contend with English idioms and
spoken vs. written register.

It all evens out in the long run, Milo, like it or not.

English doesn't have declensions, at least Modern English doesn't.

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

Legally, Rich, although with their consent and herein lies the key difference?

Could some poor, non-German speaking shtettl Jew tell Dr. Mengele that he
didn't want unspeakably hideous experiments performed on him??!
Are you mad, Rich?

Language / Why is the Polish language so difficult? [332]

Polish is no more difficult than English as difficulty's relative anyhow!
For Poles, English is a nightmare as is Polish for the average Anglophone:-)

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

@Rich, do want a return to the Nazi Era? A simple question
with a simple answer NO/NEIN!!

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

It didn't have to, Rich.
Clearly anything other than the stay-the-course path of the current administration
would be a step in the wrong direction for Germany, above all Germany!

If the AfD gains any more ground, that is indeed regrettable.

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

According to today's NYT, regrettably the AfD's beating the Greens in the polls.

Language / Why is the Polish language so difficult? [332]

You're right about that, jon.
Recently finished a lengthy piece about modern Italy post-'45
and apparently even by the mid-'60's, in major cities, except for
the professional classes, the majority of Italians, especially
Southern Italian men, couldn't read or write.

Love / Swedish Love for Poland [46]

Jeg ogsaa, men Kobenhavn er blevet farlig.
In '86, Olaf Palme was assassinated in Stockholm and
now this in what many once considered the most peaceful
metropolis anywhere, certainly in Europe!

What's this world coming to?

Study / "Dirty Polish" - I want to buy this book [22]

Hmm, looks tempting!

Language / Why is the Polish language so difficult? [332]

Goral language and Polish seems nearly as different from the other
as Sicilian and Standard Italian.

History / Russian Greatness - and its Polish Contributors [77]

Russian is morphologically less complex than Polish,
however Russian pronunciation continues to dog me,
especially those palatalized consonants!

Language / Why is the Polish language so difficult? [332]

:-) Nice one.

Love / Swedish Love for Poland [46]

Certainly back to Hoovervilles and Shantytowns.
America was even more of a violent country then than than it is now.
But from 1946 or so, right after the Second World War, through around 1963,
America was about the most financially prosperous nation on earth.

Again though, this doesn't mean things were perfect or even close.
It never is.

Language / Why is the Polish language so difficult? [332]

My, my. If all of us were such cynics, nothing would ever have gotten done.
Better to die innocent than live forever in a perpetual state of rancor.

Love / Swedish Love for Poland [46]

Memo to Rich: Forget Trump who really wants to take us back in time rather than forward and remove
your cancerous hatred from Polish Forums ASAP:-)

Language / Why is the Polish language so difficult? [332]

Hey, Rich! Post-War Germans ain't stupid. They know on which side their bread is buttered.
They reject US-cultural imperialism while cleverly realizing that if this crazy world of ours
isn't to become even further unglued, we've all got to work together as one and somehow
learn to trust one another...OR ELSE.

Language / Why is the Polish language so difficult? [332]

No, it was more like this; "You Americans are all like Homer Simpson. GET YOUR MISSILES OFF OUR SOIL!!!"

Love / Swedish Love for Poland [46]

I found Swedes quite different temperamentally from Poles!
First off, Poles are Catholics and Swedes overwhelmingly unaffiliated
Lutherans who typically keep a healthy distance from the Church,
particularly the young.

Although Swedes too had long been the butt of jokes here in the
US during the latter half of the 19th century, e.g. "the dumb Swede-
My name is Jan Jansson, I come from Wisconsin", Sweden after WWII
became one of the most envied nations on earth, both economically and
socially.

Sadly, Poland was still considered a backwater until perhaps only the middle
of the 1990's.

However, there are also a number of positive similarities as well. For example,
both Sweden and Poland produced some of the finest world class cinema
during the post-war period. Sweden gave the world Bergman and Mai Zetterling,
Poland gave us Wajda, Andrzejewski, and Polanski.

History / Did Poles living in Germany support Hitler's rise to power before World War II? [161]

Correct, Alien.

Language / Why is the Polish language so difficult? [332]

"Dumb Yank" jokes were also the rage in Germany when I was there
as a young student during the mid-'80's as well!

Teasing cuts both ways, you know.

Life / Is there a self-help movement in Poland? [13]

Yes, probably.

Life / Polish sentimental ballads [38]

Quite, jon. 1947 is the exact year,I checked. Sorry!

Life / Polish sentimental ballads [38]

Not entirely related, but the sentimental wartime Polish film "Zakazane piosenki" (1944)
naturally contains a number of such ballads, albeit resistance songs, among them
"Warszawianka" along with several others.