History / The British Royal Family and Poland: Any connection? [70]

Thanks for your engaging answers!
Was merely wondering as to the political as well
as cultural "proximity" between the Thames and the Vistula:-)

Life / Trendsetter from Poland. [86]

What do you mean exactly? Do you mean, Germans are naturally a little stiff? Is that what you were trying to say?

Life / Polish movies with English subtitles [87]

Believe I saw an advertisement for a Romanian film "Dracul", though not based on the Hollywood-style folk legend, but rather a serious biographical treatment of the life of Vlad Tepes, as he actually lived! I decided to ck. out the local art film houses and found one which did show it.

Interestingly enough too, the film was quite inadequately subtitled, but with my knowledge of Latin, French, Spanish, and some phrasebook Italian, I could more or less understand much of the basic conversations. Reading however, proved far more difficult for some reason.

Life / Trendsetter from Poland. [86]

Why is being German necessarily a drawback, Alien?

Life / Trendsetter from Poland. [86]

@Alien, ergo every Polish woman dreams of a German manLOL
The Brazilians are no different. Ck. out "Hour of the Star".

Life / Polish movies with English subtitles [87]

The Italians got it spot on: "Traduttore, traditore" = translator, traitor!
A translation is ALWAYS a different work from or version of the original, a mere copy of what once was, useful, yet in the end never the same.

Life / Polish movies with English subtitles [87]

Problem with most subtitles is that they rarely if ever faithfully capture the flavor of the original language!

I usually try to watch all movies in their original language, even when it's in a language I know only minimally, such as Russian:-)

Recently caught a video production of a Gorky play (name presently escapes me) and tried listening to the Russian without watching the subtitles. I noticed throughout the beginning that the characters were portrayed as essentially uneducated proletarians, a favorite Gorky theme, and yet the subtitles translated their obviously common language in practically academic vocabulary. LOL

Even with my primitive knowledge of the language, I knew that "I say, my good sir, you're talking though your hat!" simply didn't, indeed couldn't, ring true.

Life / Trendsetter from Poland. [86]

Which ones, Alien? Perchance Miss Poland?
:-)

News / Poland to officially demand $1.32 trillion WW2 reparations from Germany [457]

According to today's NYT (New York Times), Germany has been ordered by the Holocaust Claims Conference to pay out $1.2 billion in compensation, both to survivors along with their families, as well as to the Ukraine War Fund! As you probably already know, numerous nonnegenarian Holocaust survivors presently living in Ukraine have been evacuated to Germany because of the current crisis.

Adds a new twist, doesn't it.

News / Poland to officially demand $1.32 trillion WW2 reparations from Germany [457]

The history of Germany and Poland is indeed a contentious one, Pawian and Cojestdocholery.
While hardly an excuse, present-day post-War Germans have done their level best to build bridges between the two countries, with exchange programs and a large number of German grad students learning Polish!

Learning to UNlearn past wrongs and misconceptions is never easy.

Life / Polish movies with English subtitles [87]

Good for you, tavi206!

If the translator in question is an educated English-native speaker (probably many direct from the UK would work for peanuts), you won't regret it.

Again, I'm a translator as well, and when starting out, spent nearly as much time correcting the howlers of my foreign-born colleagues who had the nerve to compare their schoolbook English with that of an English native speaker, as I did actually doing my own work LOL

Even if I, for example, knew Polish a bazillion times better than I do, I'd never claim I could translate as easily into Polish as into my English mother tongue:-)

News / Poland to officially demand $1.32 trillion WW2 reparations from Germany [457]

@amiga,
Not quite sure what your point is. At whom are directing your anger?

News / Life and work of Stepan Bandera - controversial figure of Europe [42]

@Crow, my sources didn't indicate such, then again, he might have been adopted etc.
Not sure one way or the other!

News / Life and work of Stepan Bandera - controversial figure of Europe [42]

Definitely not!
I base my answer on limited research, but also on historical probability, considering where and when he was born.

News / Life and work of Stepan Bandera - controversial figure of Europe [42]

Well, if one believe Wiki, he was born in Russian-controlled Galicia and was of local ethnicity.

Life / Polish movies with English subtitles [87]

@tavi206
Maybe it would be more useful to find an English native speaker who knows either both Romanian and/or fluent Polish alone in order to translate INTO English!

As translator myself, I do realize that expense definitely plays a role in hiring expert assistance. Nonetheless, if you want the best (and one should never settle for second best), you will have to pay for it, no way around it.

Life / Trendsetter from Poland. [86]

Of course.

Life / Trendsetter from Poland. [86]

You're paying tor the name, you mean.

News / Poland to officially demand $1.32 trillion WW2 reparations from Germany [457]

@Kaszub,
I'm certain Scholz has more important things on his mind right now than potentially dodgy or even specious Polish claims for extracting money from the German government!

Even major Holocaust organizations have eventually come to terms with the fact that no single country could possibly process every single, bloody compensation claim out there, a modicum of satis-faction in that as there may be.

It's time to let bygones be bygones.

Life / Trendsetter from Poland. [86]

Yes, I've even seen the former in the States, about two years or so ago, when we were shopping in Greenpoint:-)

Life / Trendsetter from Poland. [86]

From Soul of Poland to a mere potato vodka?
Man, how the mighty have fallen LOL

News / Poland to officially demand $1.32 trillion WW2 reparations from Germany [457]

Well put there, paw!
A real exercise in sheer futility.
PiS actually thinks Scholz will even give such demands the time of day??!

Wariatem jest LOL

News / Poland to officially demand $1.32 trillion WW2 reparations from Germany [457]

Once more, seems to me far too much for WAY too late in the game! Still not clear as to why now of all times is Poland making such egregious demands on her neighbor, particularly as war continues to rage in Ukraine. A distractionary tactic, perhaps?

News / Poland to officially demand $1.32 trillion WW2 reparations from Germany [457]

I meant "FOR the BREXIT", sorry, I misstyped.

Life / Trendsetter from Poland. [86]

...Marcella Sembrich, Jan Kiepura ("The Polish Caruso"), Marie Curie (nee Manya Sklodowska), Andrzej Wajda......

Apropos comestible items, Wedel Czekolada and Krakus cookies, pickles etc.

News / Poland to officially demand $1.32 trillion WW2 reparations from Germany [457]

@jon,
During the '50's, the French were still discussing the idea of a United Europe:-)

@Cojestdocholery,
Why should Poland be exempt from EU participation? Probably if you were English, you would have voted against the BREXIT!

News / Poland to officially demand $1.32 trillion WW2 reparations from Germany [457]

Poland certainly does need [THE] EU, Cojest! The entire continent of Europe needs a "capital" of sorts if she is ever to join the much desired Concert of Europe, long envisioned from Metternich up through French Premier Schuman.

If the United States of America has Washington, DC. why then shouldn't a United States of Europe have Brussels?

Feedback / I love this forum - It's so Polish: tolerant, inconsistent, amusing [325]

Exactly, Gumi!
O.N. (Old Norse) remains the foundation of all contemporary Germanic languages.
Swedish on the other hand, like German, appears to have borrowed even more extensively from the French than often admitted ("fonstret"/das Fenster > la fenetre, cf. highfallutin

English "to defenestrate") = to throw out of the window LOL

News / Poland to officially demand $1.32 trillion WW2 reparations from Germany [457]

@Kaszub and Korvinus,
Again I refer you guys as well as the rest of PF-participants in this thread to the somewhat analogous Arab-Israeli conflict, even the England-Ireland situation, both as yet unresolved!