News / Mr President Joe Biden comes to Poland again [177]

To those paying attention....

W and Obama ---- Although the rhetoric surrounding the policies was different, mostly the same policies

Trump and Biden ----- Although the rhetoric surrounding the policies was different, mostly the same policies (and very different from W-Obama)

Stop paying attention to personalities and slogans and pay attention to policy, there was a large shift in personnel around the government around 2016, that's where the difference is.

Language / mężczyzny vs mężczyznę? language help please! [8]


IME there are some verbs which are supposed to have objects in the genetive case (dopełniacz - kogo czego) but which, in common, informal everyday usage often appear with the accusative (biernik, kogo co) instead...

potrzebować and używać are among those (though I've even heard szukać with the accusative a time or three).

So 'używam mężczyzny' is more 'correct' but not necessarily more common in everyday speech.

Life / Poles speaking English - examples [263]


Most of your experience comes from immigrants who arrived with very little English (formerly the norm). It's not really reflecting of modern Poland.

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [1006]


B
3. (I'd say there is no finite verb or no personal verb form... but different people use different terminology)


D.

History / Ghetto Uprising better known than Warsaw Uprising? [111]


Almost, it's teetotaler.... but I've never heard it used in relation to tobacco, only alcohol.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teetotalism

Food / Which foods are generally disliked/unpopular in Poland? Which non-Polish foods are slowly gaining popularity? [180]


I love it two (though anymore I just buy the pre-packeaged type). I also always make sure to have vodka with it (disinfectant) and I use.... mayonaise rather than raw egg.... (heresy I know....)

History / The Battle of Stalingrad saved Poland [34]


A weak link in the chain of support for Ukraine (along with amiga500)....

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [1006]


This is exactly why I'm not big on exams (except for open book type exams). Life is too short to get involved in an escalating cold war between teachers and students...

If someone _likes_ that kind of existence it's.... okay, I guess.... but I have better things to do....

News / Alexander Dugin is coming to Gdańsk! [17]


He has no influence in russia, he does a mystic-monkey act cause westerners fall for it.... he just recycles garbage from previous garbage russian "thinkers" and has no original ideas whatsoever....


Ask him why he had his daughter killed....

Travel / Poland in photo riddles - part 2 [1680]


sztuka drzewa?

or

rodzaj drzewa (type of tree, kind of tree)?

History / What do Poles owe to Hungarians? [275]


the lower the barrier to entry... the higher to the barrier to fluency and the higher the barrier yet to mastery

Stick to the topic please

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [1006]


That is so ugly.... I especially hate kh.....


I'm pretty sure that it's what their Ukrainian documents use....

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Ukrainian see "Ukrainian official systems for romanizing Ukrainian"

Personally, I'd prefer a combination of different ISO systems, so that я is ja after vowels or at the beginning of a word and â after consonants... Ja Natalâ. but no one is asking me.

History / What do Poles owe to Hungarians? [275]


What a Polish English teacher (married to a Polish German teacher) told me was that for Polish learners the first two-three years of German are much harder than English but after that the German learners catch up and start to overtake the English learners.

There's just more cultural connections historically between Polish and German and ....a kind of... similarity in lots of very deep ways that show up later.

Language / Which books do native Polish people in Poland use to learn Polish? [72]


I think Mr. Buggy might be a better translation (in NAEnglish buggy can be used of cars, especially implying one without a top....)

I'm not sure how that would work in other varieties...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buggy_(automobile)

History / What do Poles owe to Hungarians? [275]

A co-worker is married to a Czech woman who claims that the political situation in CR was just as bad (or worse) than Poland.... hopefully they can turn it around. When Babisz said he woudn't send Czech soldiers if russia attacked Poland... (sealed his fate then?)

History / What do Poles owe to Hungarians? [275]


according to generalsvr (usual caveats) russia is pressuring him heavily.... (and had promised him a chunk of Ukraine when they won)

No one's mention the recent elections in Czech. Apparently the pro-russian candidate (and Orban ally?) lost and the former NATO general won...

bbc.com/news/world-europe-64438955

Good news!

History / What do Poles owe to Hungarians? [275]


the far right (whether in Poland or abroad) tends to sympathize with russia. Maybe it's the longing for a powerful big daddy? rightists love the idea of a Sugar Daddy State (right wing version of the Nanny State) and RT has convinced them that Vova is a sugar daddy for them, willing and able to subsidize their efforts on his behalf....

Language / Which books do native Polish people in Poland use to learn Polish? [72]


trying to translate the diminutive ending -ik..... not a good idea (though Mr. Automobile.... isn't good either.... not sure what would work.... )

Language / Which books do native Polish people in Poland use to learn Polish? [72]


Probably Pan Samochodzik

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Samochodzik

Work / English teachers in Poland - why are they so unhappy? [89]


I had the usual dysfunctional mess taught to hapless American students... "don't begin a sentence with 'Hopefully', dont' say "it's me", dont' end sentences with prepositions etc....

Work / English teachers in Poland - why are they so unhappy? [89]


I'm not talking about Polish for Polish speaking children.
I'm talking about adults learning Polish as a foreign language.

The grammar that gets taught to learners of English as a foreign language is very different from traditional grammar taught to English speaking childen (and good thing, what English speaking children get taught is a combination of cr@p on a stick and nonsense).

Work / English teachers in Poland - why are they so unhappy? [89]


For actually learning Polish, nom. acc. gen. first makes the most sense.

thinking of the acc and gen together helps students keep track of animate and inanimate masc nouns

inanim - nom and acc are the same
anim - acc and gen. are the same

Thats one of the hardest things for learners to get and it helps heuristic sense to group them together,

dat. isn't that hard (and not as much used as in some other slavic languages) so keeping it apart helps too.

Life / Poland's birthrate on the decline [480]


No but I've seen enough Polish fathers in action (interacting very closely with their children).... It's too bad if your father was emotionally absent.... makes some sense.

Life / Poland's birthrate on the decline [480]


no.... not close to the reality I've seen....

Law / The right to own guns: would you support such legislation in Poland? [2237]


Tell me you don't understand Poland without writing "I don't understand Poland"......

Law / The right to own guns: would you support such legislation in Poland? [2237]


Only because most people aren't interested in in acquiring guns.... if they were then whatever the law said would be irrelevant.

Culture trumps laws every time... this case could come straight from the US (a bunch of shots and random victims is a calling card of party shootings which are specialty of US Blacks and Latinos.... and the shots here took place at service for a couple of women from.... Colombia - an extremely violent society, bring in Colombians and the violence will follow them....).

twitter.com/markwhiteTV/status/1614340181674319872

Work / English teachers in Poland - why are they so unhappy? [89]


natives don't need them but rules and paradigms and charts can be tremendously useful for learners

I even make my own paradigms because I tend to find them more useful than those given in grammar books.... so if I'm thinking of how to decline a Polish noun I use the order nom. acc. gen. rather than the one used by Polish grammarians (where accusative is fourth... a very inconvenient location).

Learning in an organic child-like fashion is okay but very lengthy.... who has six or seven years to spend mostly soaking up language info?

Law / The right to own guns: would you support such legislation in Poland? [2237]


As in London?

twitter.com/markwhiteTV/status/1614340181674319872

The idea of 'tightening' laws is an admission of defeat... once you have to legislate against something you've already lost...

Life / Poland's birthrate on the decline [480]


In the PRL an overwhelming majority of women had jobs and the idea of a stay at home housewife was kind of exotic, weird US conservative ideas about the evils of women in the workplace were completely irrelevant - the US and Poland are very different societies and problems and solutions from one just tend to not compute in the other....

Law / The right to own guns: would you support such legislation in Poland? [2237]


At least twice it was somebody showing someone else a gun (both at night in public places). One instance freaked out a friend who wanted immediately to run away...


yeah.... It's a bit like sharks... when people see one they freak, not realizing they're all over the place in the sea/ocean just mostly not interested in eating people....


Exactly.... sports aren't an occasion for mass violence in the US (apart from world series/superbowl victory parties getting out of hand), even college football (the closest in fan spirit to European soccer leagues) there's no need to keep fans separate, even in really long rivalries...