Life / Poland Is A Gem In Europe [71]

Poland is also known for some of the best natural produce on the Continent,
furthermore, she has considerable wilderness, often not found in most European countries,
except perhaps for Northern Sweden or Finland.

In addition to a rich history, Poland can also count Adam Mickiewicz as the first to
write an epic in modern European literature, namely, "Pan Tadeusz", add to that,
the first composer to teach the piano to sing, Frederyk Szopen aka Frederic Chopin, and so forth, and so on....

Language / Short Polish<->English translations [1040]

Thanks, jon!

Language / Short Polish<->English translations [1040]

Most intriguing! Any inkling as to why?

Perhaps a verb using the preposition "za" would be the
nearest equivalent, e.g. "wyjsc za maz", literally "go after [a] husband"

Language / Short Polish<->English translations [1040]

Hmmm, interesting. Will have to ck. into that, jon.

I somehow recall though "byc nastepca", "nastep(-ow)ac".

Language / Short Polish<->English translations [1040]

kombinowac = to make stuff up

UK, Ireland / "Strange " English language.. [255]

I agree, jon.

News / France and Germany plan to flood Poland with illegal migrants. [95]

Well, Johnny, I'm glad to hear one of youse admit it!

UK, Ireland / "Strange " English language.. [255]

Much of such talk has long been debunked by scholars.

News / 33rd Jewish Culture Festival in Cracow [6]

Krakow still has the largest population of Jews in Poland
as well as the most active Jewish life.

News / France and Germany plan to flood Poland with illegal migrants. [95]

Macron and partner in crime Scholz will risk losing the election next time round!!
All this will make Le Pen and her cohorts among the AfD look ever more attractive:-)

Same here with Biden allowing illegal migrants over the border who end up killing
a college student. The bone heads out there in la-la land, people who don't read the
New York Times because they probably can't read, will simply end up voting for Trump.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [412]

Thanks, Milo! Appreciate all the hard won kudos I can get there, mate:-)

UK, Ireland / "Strange " English language.. [255]

Albanian for "you" formal is "Ju" and pronounced 'yeeew',
with a nearly pure umlaut homophone! Hungarian for "house" is "haz"
(acute accent mark above the "a"!), and while a direct cognate for the English lexical equivalent,
albeit with varying pronunciation, points to ZERO historic relation with the Germanic languages.
Hungarian is Uralic with a heavy dose of neighboring Slavic vocabulary and Albanian, as far as we
can tell is mostly Illyrian, add to that, strong admixture over the centuries from Greek and Turkish.

In short, as a linguist myself, I'd have to side with both Maf and Milo and dub your notions double bullox!!

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [940]

There I agree with you, Rich, I didn't miss your point at all!
Europeans often speak a kind of bookish English
because they translate literally in their head before expressing
themselves and not figuratively, that's quite right.

Why d'you think most traditional American humor such as the Marx Bros.
or Abbott & Costello usually goes way over their heads?

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [412]

Then I suppose you're referring to yourself with that last sentence, right?
You came from Poland, oh' sorry, that's right. I almost forgot. Only brown-skinned
"foreigners" should stay away, even if the original inhabitants of North America
were reddish or brown-skinned.

You don't like the double standard, Rich, or merely the fact that I called you on it?
Don't answer right away though. Think about your answer before making the usual ass
of yourself. LOL

Off-Topic / I saw flying oras many of them flying above my backyard [5]

Most likely you're right:-)

Off-Topic / I saw flying oras many of them flying above my backyard [5]

Oras, Robin 1988?? Do you mean perhaps "orcas"?
LOL

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [412]

Rich, we criticize foreign governments on a regular basis. Why shouldn't
foreigners aka non-US citizens feel as free to criticize us? That's a double standard.

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [940]

@Johnny, Atch is right!
Since Continentals don't speak English as a first language, what can happen
is that, say, a Pole speaking in English with a German, or a Frenchman with a
Balt, a Spaniard with a Swede for example, will talk past one another, owing frequently to differing pronunciation
of English words.

Swede: Are you estranged from your parents?
Spaniard: Oh, jess, my parent are very estrange persons...

German: What do you make here for the work? (Translation: What do you do here?)
Frenchman: I make many money!

I think you get the idea. Often, the results are quite funny:-)

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? [412]

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? [412]

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? [412]

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? [412]

@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? [412]

@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? [309]

@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? [309]

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? [412]

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? [309]

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? [412]

@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? [412]

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.