UK, Ireland / "Strange " English language.. [264]

@Milo, if you deny the conventional British class system, then I do suggest
you review your history! Moreover, I never denied that the US and the UK have
tried to understand each other. Need I repeat the famous quote of Shaw, that
Britain and America are two countries separated by a common language?

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [638]

Nice riposte there, Alien.

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Actually, I find German academic writing for example, sometimes with those extended adjective constructions,
much more difficult than any Polish sentences I've encountered!

Polish is challenging to foreigners for her counting quirks, perfective/imperfective verbs and
morphological permutations, German for her often dizzying sentence length, myriad plural varieties, above all,
random grammatical gender assignment. Thank heavens I learned the latter as a kid. It made learning Polish
some thirty years hence far easier.

History / German Sprache aka speech in Polish films [19]

In the Resistance Era film "Zakazane piosenki", the German
officers are naturally all played by Polish actors with thick Polish
accents! In one scene, a high-ranking Nazi whose plans to attack
Warsaw have been scuttled, exclaims, "Donnerwetter, verflixt nochmal!"
with such a heavy Polish pronunciation, the subtitles actually have to
appear phonetically below on the screen in order that viewers can understand
what is being saidLOL

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Thank you, jon. At last somebody's steering the discussion back to the original conversation thread!

History / Why do Polish people hate to be called Eastern European? [120]

Oh, quite the contrary, Hr Grunwald! You might have misunderstood my
post. Both Jews AND Arabs are Semites, ergo, to be "anti-SEMITIC" in
theory means to hate Arabs as well as Jews.

Kindly await private message:-)

History / Why do Polish people hate to be called Eastern European? [120]

@Hr.Grunwald, every Finn with whom I've had contact does NOT consider themselves a "Nordic",
even a "Scandinavian" (Scandi), but instead a (proud) Finn, albeit an unwilling Swedish speaker
as their unofficial second aka colonial language after the Vasa period, even if most seem to show
a greater facility with Swedish than English:-)

UK, Ireland / English/British rudeness - what do Polish people think about it? [168]

Nevertheless, a significant pre-Brexit experience, don't you think?

History / Why do Polish people hate to be called Eastern European? [120]

Do you fully understand the meaning of "Western" or are you simply trolling again?

UK, Ireland / English/British rudeness - what do Polish people think about it? [168]

When first in the UK on a teen tour of England during the late '70's,
I found the average Londoner more politely snide than out-and-out rude
or in your face nasty.

Then again, I was a teenager and everything seemed new and exciting.
Remember though being corrected when I called a Yeoman Warder
a "beefeater" (think of the Scotch brand) and being somewhat upbraided
when I referred to England as "being in Europe". I learned that to Brits,
England is England and Europe is "the Continent"!

History / Why do Polish people hate to be called Eastern European? [120]

Often in English, "Scandinavia" and "Nordic" are lumped together, although
for example, Finland, while technically Scandinavian is NOT Nordic owing to its
language:-)

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Well now, with LGBTQ and transgenders, perhaps not!
lol

UK, Ireland / "Strange " English language.. [264]

Or "little dream" aka "drzemka", really more "little snooze", ha-ha!

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

A random sign in a Gothenburg hotel dining room (in English, not even in the native language of the country!):

PLEASE DON'T HAVE CHILDREN AT THE BAR

Indeed, perhaps a hospital would be a more suitable venue.

Directions at an outdoor rest stop in Germany's Black Forest.

BATHROOMS FOR EITHER MALE OR FEMALE OR BOTH SEXES!

Last time I looked, I had only one:-) If the signage person had meant "UNISEX TOILETS", when
in the name of Creation didn't they bloody say so?!!

OUR LIFT MAKES YOU RIGHT NOW UNBEARABLE!

Perhaps vaguely comprehensible, but geez, why not get right the first time?

Need I go on? And the kicker is that those in these different countries don't even
see the ridiculousness of it.

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Correct, Milo! English has become the global language of miscommunication.
Examples?? I wouldn't know where to start.

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

You can say that again, Rich! Glad to hear you finally admit it.

Language / I'm native Polish and I hate my own language. [106]

Spot on, elizabethwilliam!
Hate a language as one well might, I can't tell you all how many times
I've encountered Europeans typically who merrily claim to love English
and who even prefer speaking it to their native tongue.

Most of the time, their English is nothing more than a hodge podge of
vulgarity and substandard grammar, easily rationalized as representing
the "English of today" LOL

Because a tree is sick from acid rain or decay, do we therefore justify
its sickness and decay as somehow healthy? Or do we instead try to cure
it by eliminating the root disease?

Simple exposure to sound, textured, and rich English usage will cure the
language from the illness of slovenly indifference.

A language like a person is nothing more than living tissue and much English
nowadays is dead from the neck up!!

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Spot on, Milo!

Food / Traditional Polish Foods [141]

Whoops, I meant "czerwona kapusta", sorry!
Occasionally I confuse the adjective order.
I realize there is a difference:-)

Food / Traditional Polish Foods [141]

@johnny, actually, I haven't got a Polish translation program as yet. Am looking for one though:-)

Oh, yes! Fladra with a side of kapusta czerwona along with pyzy or barring that, placki ziemniaczne.
YUMMMMMMMY

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

The evidence is too numerous to list.

Language / Should I learn Polish or she learn English? [83]

Correct, Rich. You're learning!

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

The proof is in the reading, you lot, so get real!

Language / Should I learn Polish or she learn English? [83]

@Rich & Milo, all I'm saying is that twenty is bloody advanced to acquire something totally new, be it
a motor skill such as driving (most here learn by seventeen tops) or certainly a new language.

Sure it's done. It's done all the time. All I'm saying is that the younger, all the better for maximum success.
You were born in London, and so your English is obviously completely native, regardless of whatever
language was spoken at home. Rich was born in Poland, didn't even attend high school in a native English-
speaking environment. Naturally there's going to be second language interference in his English that will
probably last for the rest of his life.

My own grandfather arrived in this country at around twenty-one years of age, having never learned English
until arriving at Ellis Island from Germany. He had an accent you could cut with a machete. Meanwhile, his
children, my father, came to New York at age ten or thereabouts, surely not older, and spoke, wrote, and understood
English indistinguishably from a native-born American.

Language / Should I learn Polish or she learn English? [83]

I submit you were too old when you arrived in the States to fully adapt linguistically or culturally
to the American experience! Most people lose their foreigner accent before or up to no later than
the age of twelve.

F-bombs and Woodstock culture alone do NOT an American make (paraphrasing Mark Twain on a separate topicLOL).

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Right about the fact that my English is way superior to yours, that's what.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1442]

Quite, Alien! Don't even dignify such shock value with a response.

Food / Traditional Polish Foods [141]

My favorite traditional Polish dish(s):

Zurek (or Chlodnik, depending on the season!)

Bigos

Language / Should I learn Polish or she learn English? [83]

Therefore old enough to have already been ingrained with the Polish language.
Tough to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, Rich. Once a Pole, always a Pole.

If I'd gone to Germany at 24, having scarcely any underpinning in German, save
for a light high school course taught by some random American, I'd barely have been
prepared for what I encountered when I arrived there at roughly 25:-)

I grew up with German, you didn't grow up with English, and therein lies the key difference!

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Thanks, Lenka.

@Rich, you know I'm right and it just galls you, doesn't it!