News / Polish prosecutor 'shoots self after news conference' [93]


the thing is if he was standing on a chair and kicked it away it would break his neck - it curiously didn't - he didn't even move when hanging (as you would expect of someone suffocating)

News / Polish prosecutor 'shoots self after news conference' [93]


it's not flyers that took their lives

as for curious suicides - the one of Lepper is a pretty curious one - the autopsy: 3 days after the death - spinal cord not broken - the guy supposedly was hanging 30 minutes before he died - he took his pills in the morning

Real Estate / Residential real estate values go down in Poland [455]

in Poland property was seen as the best investment by many for quite a time perhaps not to the extent it went in Britain where property was the only good paying investment for quite some time (was in England at that time - stock market had very low returns (though it wasn't shrinking yet)) - this and the convinction that it's going to last forever (the price growth) is the recipee for a bubble

now in Poland the bubble is not as big as in Britain because people just had no such money as in Britain - and remember one thing prices won;t go down quick unless there is a crash in the economy for one simple reason - people don't want to think that they will have to part with the returns they hoped for - now there is still the question of renting - I repeat myself but again rent prices for your average flat will not go down considerably in the coming year or 2 perhaps even 3 - untill a serious trouble in the economy (we are on the track to that trouble though) - I have no idea what are your typical returns from buying and then renting property at the moment but porperty investment may still seem safer than bank accounts (though rather not new built flats with high monthly bills)

Life / Fat People in Poland? [161]


this is not my personal experience but I have read accounts by Americans who lived in Poland and returned or Poles who lived in America that most sweetened things in America are TOO sweet - inlcuding your daily orange juice, and if you think about bread - bread here is not sweatened at all - if bread in America is sweetened then it's a strange thing

News / Polish People STILL denied US Entry [96]

the reason is pretty simple - Mexican kids born in the US will be Democratic voters - Polish kids in the US will more likely be Republican voters (even though they both are worth each other)

Real Estate / Residential real estate values go down in Poland [455]


a 26 square metre studio flat, no gas, a bigger village 30 km from Opole and the price almost trippled in 8 years

Real Estate / Residential real estate values go down in Poland [455]


oh, sorry - one magnitude too much (I mean cut one zero in both prices) :) - my mistake - you know I sometimes still count in old millions when 33k PLN was 330 millions in old money

Real Estate / Residential real estate values go down in Poland [455]


yes it is true that flats cost much less outside big cities - but they gained value on the same scale - my mum bought a studio flat in a very small place in Opole region in the year 2000 for 120 000 PLN and we sold in in 2008 for 330 000 PLN

Real Estate / Residential real estate values go down in Poland [455]


no harry - your typical block-of-flats appartment gained more than 150 per cent from say 2003

News / Polish prosecutor 'shoots self after news conference' [93]

there is a surprising amount of suicide deaths around the Smoleńsk catastrophe - many among military personnel - of which the mainstream media are rather shy to report

Real Estate / Residential real estate values go down in Poland [455]


rents won't go down drastically for some time until there is serious cooling of the economy with because of first price hikes (with much lower salary rises to acompany them) and second a bit delayed job losses that will follow the price hikes - and the price hikes are pretty inevitable (with the perspective of the zloty losing more of it's value but not only that) - rents will not go down drastically in 2 or 3 years because there just aren't millions of empty flats awainting to be occupied (though there is a considerable problem for developers to sell flats already)

Life / Automobiles vs. Pedestrians in Poland [77]


yes - this is actually a very good remark an a very good piece of adive (or even advice :)

Language / Words with subtle differences in Polish language (or are they complete synonyms?) [8]


jajo - is a scientific and generic term for an egg
jajko is the colloquial word for typical eggs and also for testicles (though testicles are rather caller plural jaja or jajka)
jaje is an archaic form of the word 'jajo' only encountered in not very recent literary works especially poems


praca - a generic and formal word for 'work', also in the sense of 'workpiece'
robota - is a colloquial form but it has a notion of something that is at least slightly unwished for


światło is light
światłość is lightness (światłość is very much limited to spiritual or religious termniology)

more or less


zdjęcie is your generic and formal term for a 'photograph' but it has even more generic meaning that typical photography
fotka is a very colloquial name for photograph and it is simply short of 'fotografia' - 'fotographia' is mostly limited to typical photography (and not X-rays for example unlike zdjęcie) fotografia appart from being a name for a photograph is sometimes also used as a name for 'photography'


as książka is a diminutive form of księga the latter is something rather big, księga is also the word used for title of stories like in 'Księga dżungli' 'The Jungle Book' (R. Kipling) or 'Księga przysłów polskich' (The book of Polish proverbs) - also księga is sometimes used as a subdivision of a novel sometimes replacing chapters sometimes containing chapters

książka is a generic term

btw in other Slavic languages the unsuffixed word 'kniga, kniha' remained the generic word for book so the Czech 'knizka' is something smallish


królik - a rabbit
zając - a hare
truś/trusia is a sort of a pet name for rabbits (for hares less often because hares are rarely seen or kept as pets or a farm animal)

especially truś is used to call rabbits by farm housewifes for them to be fed

trusia is also part of a phrase 'siedzieć (cicho) jak trusia' remain silent and not to move - it is in relation to hares behaviour - they can remain sitting until mere meters from a person approaching or sometimes they can literally start before your very feet (not in the open though - in some vegetation even high grass)


biuro is generic (also formal) for an office - but in the physical sense rather - the office as a function or an institution is 'urząd' in Polish

gabinet has a notion of an office room that is used by a single person (some important person in an institution or a person who works for himself/herself like a writer, free lance researcher etc) while in a 'biuro' lots of people can actually work at the same time

gabinet is also the term used for a room where a doctor sees or treats his patiens - as an extrapolation gabinet is also used in more abstract sense as place where doctor sees his patients or even as a business entity of medical type (but rather a small one)

however biuro can also have a meaning of a company that is restricted to an office site - 'biuro matrymonialne', 'biuro projektowe'


this rather a grammar issue

jeść><zjeść the former is imperfective the latter perfective (simple non prefixed forms are typically imperfective but it's not an iron rule and there are imperfective verbs that have your typical prefixes (the prefixes are usually prepositions sometimes altered a bit)

if you haven't been taught what imperfective and perfective are then perfective is used when an action has been finished, completed, or just ended or is supposed to be finished in the future - as such perfective is never a thing of the now - so no perfective forms in the present tense

as you probably guess imperfective is simply more generic thing without determining if the action or the process have been completed - all verbs in the present tense are imperfective - if you want to say that some to actions or process is going to happen (or happened) simultanously with another the one (the longer) that you relate to is going to be in imperfective (Marek zadzwonił jak jedliśmy z mamą obiad. Marek phoned when/as we were dining with mum)

sometimes differences are nuancical though

jadłem obiad - I was having a dinner zjadłem obiad - I had a dinner (but it's not that clearcut in actual use and you can often hear 'Jadłeś (już) obiad?' in a sense of 'Have you (already) had your dinner'

now a the issue of the so called frequentative

frequentative is a form of a verb that is used to show something happens in a repeated manner, typically, numerous times, from time to time - it can be very roughly explained as a difference between the English present simple and present continuous (very roughly because it is not always the case) - there are more or less strict rules how frequentatives are created in Polish (you have to take into account phonetical laws and irregularities of major verbs that spring from frequent use)

jem - I am eating jadam - I eat

jem śniadanie - I am having a breakfast śniadania jadam o szóstej - I have breakfast at six
(the thing is 'jem' can be often used instead of 'jadam' and definitely in this case - however 'jadam' cannot be used to mean 'i am eating')

the frequentative can be created (typically) equally from a perfective or imperfective verb (verb form) - so you've got 'jeść - jadać' but also 'zjeść- zjadać'

the thing is a frequentative of a given form is always imperfective (however a further perfective can be created of that imperfective frequentative with a prefix (pozjadać)) - so zjadać is imperfective an can be used in the present tense

Właśnie zjadam ślimaka - I am eating a snail right now (rather than I am having a snail right now) - but again 'jem' can be used here instead of 'zjadam' (as a form with a more general meaning)

History / Mother tongue in Poland - acccording to 1931 census. [174]


you should love it :)
wikitravel.org/en/Tok_Pisin_phrasebook

History / Mother tongue in Poland - acccording to 1931 census. [174]


btw did you know that in Papua people call a car 'bird-he-go-long-way' ;)

History / Mother tongue in Poland - acccording to 1931 census. [174]

no it wasn't because of political reasons - many Slavic nations had very different histories but most of them kept their complicated grammatical features - you may not be familiar with this but the simple thing that Slavic does allow a lot of freedom in the word order offers a lot of nuance meanings with the use of the same words - an flectionless declensionless language like English requires in contrast quite a rigid word order to tell the subject (the doer) from the object - both approaches have their merits and their trade-off - there are things much easier expressed in English than in Polish (English has a lot of very generic terms which Polish lacks) but there are also things that are much easier expressed in Polish than in English

Life / Automobiles vs. Pedestrians in Poland [77]


btw - you begin to love the Netherlands the next moment you have managed to get your bottom onto a bike saddle - cycle paths everywhere (OK almost everywhere) - and all tarmac

Life / Automobiles vs. Pedestrians in Poland [77]


you know some of these places don't have other 'cycleable' roads - they are just a one-street village and that street happens to be the main intercity road (and many lack sidewalk) - what do you do if you need to go to the neighbouring village on the same road - go through the mud of the field roads? and how many kilometeres of cycle paths beside such roads have you seen in Poland if any? - don't you think people would be using cycle paths if they were present

next consideration is (it is just me though) - I often went on cycle tours - after some 15 km in your legs when you go through a village you don't bother to ride on the pavement/sidewalk because of couple of things: one thing - there is often broken glass on Polish sidewalks, the next thing they are not an easy ride - (sometimes even hardly suitable for cycling) - electricity posts in the middle, road signs in the middle, ups and downs and sometimes high margins, people walking - not fun at all - also the paved surface is much harder to cycle on then the tarmac - if the road isn't as narrow as to make two lorries hardly pass by on the oposite lanes then I just stick to the road

History / Mother tongue in Poland - acccording to 1931 census. [174]


the very complicated Polish grammar and language developed into what it is now mostly before Poland was subjected to any foreign rule (foreign rule only started in the 18th century and the language was mostly already formed) - Russian grammar is not a lot simpler than Polish (a bit simpler yes - phonetics is a bit different story) - it's still complicated enough for English native speakers and this is neither because Russia was once under the Mongol boot nor because it was an imperialistic state later on

if you think of complexity of the Slavic grammar (it's most probably true that Polish is the most complicated one - but you haven't seen Lithuanian with it's 16 different participles compared to present day 4 Polish participles and 2 participles of English) it's just a different approach to express different relations between objects and doers in this world and it is in big part an inherited system (if you just read some linguistic stuff about the origins of both Polish and English languages) -

History / Mother tongue in Poland - acccording to 1931 census. [174]

hmm - there was no state education in the Polish state until the 19th century - and in the 19th century anything that was under influence of any Polish statehood was Księstwo Warszawskie and Królestwo Kongresowe - none of which had any powers over present day Belarus and Ukraine - so what policy of polonisation was there ? there was hardly any central administration in the Polish Lithuanian-Commonwealth - when the personal union united Poland and Lithuania the Polish language was for a long time not present in public affairs in Lithuania - Ruthenian was the language of law at least up until the creation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569 (Union of Lublin) and I guess even long after eventually giving way to Polish because the elites of the Lithuanian Grand Duchy went to embrace Polish language - W roku 1697 na Litwie, na wniosek miejscowej szlachty (tzw. zrównanie praw) wprowadzono język polski jako urzędowy, w miejsce dotychczas obowiązującego języka starobiałoruskiego. : Polish language as a legal medium was only introduced in Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1967

the actions of catholic church were quite independant of these of the Polish state

Study / How do Polish students support themselves? Government suport for students in Poland? [12]


Polish students can receive 'stypendium' from the state-owned high schools - there is the 'stypendium' for low income family students (but the threshold is really low and most Polish students can't receive that type of the 'stypendium' - even if it is not restricted to Polish nationals you won't be coming below the income threshold (if you have a family who support you who live in Germany)

there is also another type of 'stypendium' which is an incentive for students to receive good grades - this is the 'stypendium za wyniki w nauce' - the threshold here is quite high (the scale of grades in Polish high schools is 2-5 and the usual threshold for receiving any money in the form of that stypendium is usually the average 4.5 (in some schools or faculties even higher) - the better the average of your grades the more money you can get but it is still not much (I'm not familiar with the present situation but you could get around 200 PLN for the best grades back in the end of the 90's )

History / Mother tongue in Poland - acccording to 1931 census. [174]


you confuse the policies of the Catholic church in the ages past with those of the Polish state - there was no serious polonisation effort nor any catholicisation effort on the part of the Polish (Polish-Lithuanian state) for the most time Polish state occupied these territories

Life / Price of cigarettes in Poland? [192]


my brother and his girlfriend only smoke their roll-your-owns - and there is already a black market in tobacco cut for that purpose with ridiculously low prices (compared to cigs but also to the usuall roll-your-own tobacco brands)

History / Mother tongue in Poland - acccording to 1931 census. [174]


first of all - no mother tongue was forbidden to use in public - though I am pretty sure that only Polish was allowed in formal contacts with the administration - I don't really know about the school status of these

Life / Polish home remedies for cold, stomach ache, migraine? [49]

Prostasan Fix from Herbapol (Herbapol Lublin I presume) is not the same thing as a saw palmetto Prostasan marketed in the English speaking world - that maybe the reason why you have seen so divergent prices (but maybe the importers into Britain charge that much I don't know)

History / Mother tongue in Poland - acccording to 1931 census. [174]

use your imagination a little bit Harry - and some knowledge - in western Ukraine nationalist movement was anti-polish (and could have then allied themselves with the Germans) - there was also possible infiltration by communists - if the free Ukrainian state was somehow hijacked by one of these forces Poland would become very vulnerable - so yes, Poland could well have given a lot of autonomy to Ukrainians and not pursued the policy of trying to polonize (such policies were neither constant nor consistent) them but granting them independence would have been a folly by the Poles back then - and you cannot compare the situation with the Baltic States or even Lithuania - there was real anti-russian (and so anti-soviet) sentiment in Lithuania after over 100 year of Russian rule - there was also big wariness of the Germans in Lithuania (yes Lithuanians did collaborate with the Soviets in 1919 but I think they quickly realised what a threat the Soviets pose)

History / Mother tongue in Poland - acccording to 1931 census. [174]

I agree on all points actually here - just a note: free Ukraine was not viable in 1921 and throughout the interbellum

History / Mother tongue in Poland - acccording to 1931 census. [174]


Harry please do post your other VIABLE options/solutions in 1921 and throughout the interbellum

History / Mother tongue in Poland - acccording to 1931 census. [174]

there was no serfdom anymore so those Polish colonists worked they land themselves or hired local people to do it - it is not to say I know how the relations actually were just a hint at what was at the base of these relations

Language / How should "Polish" be written? Maybe Polski? [27]

I'm not sure what you mean by passages here (I am not that proficient in English to be honest) - if the title is (as I guess) meant to attract general English public (including many Poles) then it is a good idea to mix both languages in the title like you did - and Polskie Passages is actually very good even better than Polski Passages - a title in Polish only won't attract many English people as they would think this is purely Polish and for Poles (I believe Polskie Passages has some obvious meaning to English people which I don't know simply for sure) - the other solution is to have parallel titles in English and in Polish (but I cannot suggest a good titles now - need to look up what passages can mean (appart from the meanings I am familiar with)

I don't believe you wanted the title in Polish only btw