History / History of Poland in 10 minutes. Really worth seeing! [134]

Au contraire. It was a running discussion among the entire office this week (70+ Poles, 3 foreigners) what they would have done had they been alive on Aug 1st, 1944. And they've all heartily enjoyed expressing their intimate knowledge of Katyn, Dywizjonu 303 and the Polish-led Operation Market Garden.

This isn't a complaint about the obsession with WWII, but I certainly don't agree that Poles don't like discussing that war among themselves.

That EXPO 2012 video is wonderful too.

UK, Ireland / Buying a Polish vehicle in the UK [28]

I would suggest the whole reason they are trying to trade the vehicle in is because there is something wrong with it.

In terms of registering the car or being the owner, as a foreign entity (without all the appropriate Polish identity or company numbers), once you have the car in your name you will find it impossible to sell it again; certainly impossible as a valid road vehicle to be used in Poland. Unless the owner can present to you export papers proving it has been de-registered in Poland, I wouldn't go near it with a 10-foot kielbasa.

What car is it, out of an interest? A Toyota?

History / Is there any part of Polish history that's at least a bit glorious? [196]

In two pages, there've been very few posts that mention Poland's victories or charitable actions, or protections of minorities. Instead there's been fingerpointing (Brits are worse, Russians and Germans are worse, the Yanks are worse.) That's not the point. You don't justify a terrible action by saying someone else did something worse.

I will happily accept valid points about Britain's dirty history, but this continual claim that "the West sold Poland" gets tired after a while. After six years, millions dead, a whole empire collapsed and the western economy ruined, what exactly did you want Britain to do when Stalin said "I want Poland." Start another war?

To try and drag this conversation out of Harry's hands, how about Grunwald? And this period when Poland was the most diverse nation of religions in Europe?

Life / Polish authors, books & literature. [95]

I read Lem's Cyberiad in English, and I'm using the Polish versions to try and improve my Polish as a sort of comparative method of reading.

My girlfriend is constantly pushing me to get my Polish to a level so that I can read Marcin Swietliski's Jedenascie, Dwanascie and Trzynascie.

But I have read two of Kapusczynski's volumes in English (The Shadow under the Sun, and Imperium) and I find him almost painfully boring. He's beautifully descriptive, but he's so florid that I find I really don't care about any of the people or countries or situations in his stories, I fall asleep before he gets to the point (which is always the same; the horror, the horror.) He's like Joseph Conrad's character of Marlowe, but without the element of suspense. Sorry. Maybe something's been lost in translation.

Gombrowicz's Ferdydurke had me almost crying in laughter, however; mostly because, in 80 years, the Polish education system still hasn't changed.

Language / Do Poles prefer US American or UK English language? [147]


The British Council does that already; FCE and CAE-based coursebooks are the norm in private language schools and even state high schools all across the country. Oxford, Cambridge, Longman and Express Publishing do a roaring trade in English language materials here, and they are British English with a token chapter on Americanisms (subway, sidewalk, color/flavor) for the business traveller.


The form of English spoken by most Americans is not International English at all. I've had to stifle rage, then alarm, then hilarity watching an American try and teach a class on Perfect Tenses to Poles who handed him his own arse on a plate. Leaving aside specific vocabulary differences, there are entire types of structure which British English has as a norm, and American sees as aloof, yet when it comes to International Business and Finance, or Journalism, or Academic Writing, it's those British structures which are the norm.

I'm more a descriptivist than a prescriptivist, but the "me and my friend went..." and "me too..." that the Americans have brought in will do Poles no favours if they use them in business communications; and they're not just learning English for fun, like they are Spanish.

That aside, Poles have mastered that American "r" that sounds like a trained seal clapping. ARN ARN ARN!

Language / Do Poles prefer US American or UK English language? [147]

Generally this wouldn't be a problem, but if your profession is based on providing English to a client (I'm not just a teacher*), then that client needs to know what they are getting for their money.

If we rephrase the original question to "Which English are Poles prepared to pay for? US or UK?" it becomes very relevant. There are many differences between UK and US, and it is unprofessional for a teacher or trainer or consultant not to make the client aware of both.

Unfortunately, in my observation, teachers from the US aren't aware of the UK-style systems, simply from lack of exposure (you won't learn them from Monty Python or Mr. Bean), whereas teachers from the British Isles at least have some idea of Americanisms, from the sheer number of films, TV shows and music that country produces. That's not to say a US teacher CAN'T teach UK English, it's just much less common.

* I'm not a gigolo, don't ask for my full-night prices

Life / What's the story with Nergal? (Singer from Behemoth) [40]


Black metal as a genre shows as much respect to religion as religion has shown to humanity. That is why religion is treated with utter contempt, and it's a sentiment I can agree with.

I've also found musicians from the metal genre (such as Varg Vikernes and Gaahl) to be far more articulate in expressing their thoughts than musicians who play, for example, jazz.

Behemoth (and genre-mates Vader) are one of the few Polish exports I'd heard of before I moved here, and I'd like to believe that Poles will show as much solidarity for Nergal as they've done for other Poles in tragic circumstances.

Travel / Hiking around Zakopane/ Tatra mountains [22]

[Moved from]: Polish Mountains in September (any tips or experiences?)

I'm looking to bring my Dad over to Poland for a long weekend doing something in the mountains; probably hiking up and down the trails between PL and Slovakia.

Does anyone have any tips, or recent experiences? Good trails, advice on where to spend the night, highlights; that sort of thing?

Travel / Traffic roundabouts not common in Poland? [13]


Staying in the inner or outer lane depending on your chosen exit, not finding the "racing line" that involves clipping the inner verge and then careering across both lanes half a second later.

TVN Turbo has given many Poles ideas of driving skills beyond their station ;)

Law / HELP: ALLEGRO... Do most Polish buyers at allegro.pl use PayPal? [33]

I buy and sell on Allegro a lot. Paypal is not an option here, but bank-to-bank transfers and Allegro's own pay system are very good, and free (unlike Paypal's daylight robbery fees.)

I've got a decent rating, only been fobbed off with cheap Chinese junk a few times, but I've never lost serious cash on it. In that respect, Allegro is much better than eBay.

Law / Opening a Polish Bank Account by a foreigner in Poland. Recommendations. [299]


Currently the best performing bank in Poland, and PKO BP (the last state-owned bank, and worst in terms of customer service) were looking at taking it over before the Government themselves announced they might be selling their stake in PKO, which has put the whole aquisition into doubt.

Still, aside from PKO BP every bank in Poland is foreign-owned, so the staff have to have a modicum of English to get things done internally.

Law / Opening a Polish Bank Account by a foreigner in Poland. Recommendations. [299]

Alior was financed by an Italian, and staffed by all the talent who left during the merger of Bank BPH and Pekao SA (so mostly ex-BPH staff.) They offer astounding returns, but they're a VERY new bank so I have no idea about how long their dynamism will last.

I cannot urge enough to stay away from Pekao SA. But Millenium have been very good to me with their current account and mortgage products.

Travel / My visit to Poland - Likes & Dislikes. [137]

The weather and food are the two criteria that prevent me from ever returning to Greece. Too hot, too much seafood; vomit-inducing in every aspect. Different strokes for different folks...


Ahhh, my home town. How glad I am to have swapped its urban decay and potato-faced population for Warsaw...

Love / English Men vs Polish Men [207]

I simply cannot subscribe to the ridiculous concepts put forward on either side of the Polish v English male camps. I can, however, spout some anecdotal evidence.

I've worked in language schools in Warsaw for six years. Many schools, with many teachers, with a high turnover of natives from both English and the colonies (sorry, Commonwealth.) In all that time, all those years, I've only met one female teacher (from England) who has run the gauntlet, married a Polish man and settled here. The other women run, run as fast as their flat-soled shoes can carry them.

Why is that? There's no clear answer, but it certainly makes me feel that English men with Polish women is a more appropriate match than a Polish man to an English woman. It doesn't mean that either man is worse; just how they meet the expectations, however shallow, old-fashioned or demeaning, of either side.

Love / English Men vs Polish Men [207]

It is in all the countries Britain has exported its boorish idiotic binge-drinking culture to. Therefore, Ireland, America and Australia. Other countries might get catastrophically drunk, but the sudden desire to bare their buttocks (and their other, significantly smaller, muscles) is a purely Anglo-saxon trait.

Life / Class system in Poland - does it exist? [90]


There's 38million Poles, so there's 38million classes. They all find a reason to look down their nose at one another at some point (although, in fairness, occurrences of such snobbery are now only about five a day, per person.)

Compared to the English system of lower-middle versus upper-working and all the others, no, there's no class system. But that doesn't stop insults like "wiesniak!" being hurled around occasionally...

Genealogy / Polish looks? [1410]

Trying to break your image down into separate European countries is a fool's task. The English, Irish and Scottish have been interbreeding for a thousand years now, and are themselves a mishmash of all the previous invaders to that island. Similarly, the number of foreign hordes passing through Poland have left their marks on the genetic landscape so that it's rather hard to distinguish any one Slav from the other.

If it's any help, you're not ugly enough to have a face from the British Isles. But you definitely don't have the "Polish face" either.

Law / HELP: ALLEGRO... Do most Polish buyers at allegro.pl use PayPal? [33]

The allegro payment account still requires a Polish bank account to withdraw money into, so if you don't have one of those, then you still don't have a valid method of payment.

Some buyers insist on using Allegro's system, others don't trust it (because they don't like to leave any trace of their purchases - national suspicious character trait there), but either way, Paypal is pointless in Poland.

Love / Polish women are complicated. Why? [51]


I've heard this tale too, although I don't have much sympathy for the men. If they insist on this macho attitude of "me work, you cook", then what result do you expect?

Law / Poland - Temporary Residence card - Karta pobytu - required documents [142]

Karta Pobytu and Right to Stay are two different things. The first is a flimsy piece of photographic ID, the second is a paper document, passport-sized, that looks like it was designed during the PRL. If you've been here long enough, your KB is exchanged for this Right to Stay.

Process is to get Meldunek, then go to the office with four photos, Meldunek, proof of income, proof of medical insurance, passport, proof of date of entry into Poland (visa), proof of marriage, and then fill in the appropriate form. Then copy EVERYTHING four times, pay, and submit papers to the right woman. Then come back four weeks later to collect your card, find they've spelt your name wrong, and repeat the process once again.

Law / Zloty lifts Poland's Economy [43]

Whilst that's a fair point in terms of economic regulation,

a) Poland is not a big enough country to play the currency game against the big world banks. If JP Morgan want to make another announcement predicting a drop in the zloty strength (like they did two years ago) just so that they can make a killing on the recovery, the national reserves are not strong enough to counter that action. The country simply isn't strong enough (yet) to compete in that sort of market.

b) Poland signed the Maastricht treaty, and must join the Euro at some point; it's simply a matter of when. As other countries around it adopt the Euro, there will be increasing political pressure on Poland to join the bloc, with Germany and France's own banks stepping in to mess the zloty up until Poland has no choice.

Law / Zloty lifts Poland's Economy [43]


Yes, I know, and I agree, but my point is more that, when outsiders decide "it's time for the zloty to come down" there's very little the NBP can do about it. JP Morgan was however fined as a result of their misleading news, if I remember rightly.

I don't want a Euro either. I'm just pointing out that I don't think Poland will be given the choice, and that it's pretty much a guaranteed thing within ten years whether we want it or not.

Work / Favourite English textbook (to learn/teach from)? [13]

Most textbooks are designed for use by a teacher, giving a class to a group. Therefore, as self study books they are essentially useless as very few present the grammar in any sense, or provide any vocabulary explanation, and are filled with practise exercises that require a partner or a CD Player.

Having said that, Headway Advanced (the one that's now five years old) has proved a lifesaver and has some great pages that work out as "instant lessons", or can be customised into hundreds of explanations. FCE Expert has some excellent exercises in it, and for a reference book and for giving vocabulary exercises, Macmillan Publishings book "CPE Use Of English 1" is absolutely superb. Those three books know my photocopier intimately.

Food / Is brain-damaging vegan fad growing in Poland? [176]

Polonius, do you really think, 100 years ago, that Poles could afford to eat meat every day? That every single family had enough pigs and chickens to slaughter that they could eat meat all the year round, including winter when there's hardly anything to feed the animals with?

Humans are perfectly capable of living on a vegetarian or even vegan diet. With advances in medical research, this has been shown more and more true, and with enough information about ingredients it can be cheaper AND healthier to live a vegetarian lifestyle in the modern world. Of course, meat gives us a lot of essential vitamins in one basic package, but it comes at the price of a lot of fat and, to be honest, wastage too. 5kg of grain to grow 1kg of chicken meat, which doesn't have 5 times the nutritional value? There's no way an agricultural economy could survive on those numbers.

So don't let your smalec-addled brain distort basic scientific fact.

Food / Is brain-damaging vegan fad growing in Poland? [176]


Bloody hell, it's just food. It goes in one end, it goes out the other. Do you have an orgasm every time you take a sh!t? Do you go to gourmet bathrooms, with heated seats, and pay $10 per sheet of paper woven on the thigh of a Columbian virgin? No. It's just bodily functions. Food is food, whether it's dry bread or caviare, and it's not worth getting that upset about.

Work / Favourite English textbook (to learn/teach from)? [13]

The trouble with all business books is the topics they choose. If you're doing a business class with some Sales managers, why are they going to need chapters on how to have a job interview AND marketing AND human resources AND customer support? And when are secretaries going to want negotiation practice? Each person in the group might find one unit interesting, but that just means all the other students are bored of the topic, every single class. Business books try to be all things to everyone, and that is their failing; business doesn't work like that.

There's a distinct lack of ESP Business books; a book that covers ALL aspects of Human resources (interviews, CVs, Health and Safety, Corporate Culture) or one that ONLY deals with Marketing and Sales and explores those areas thoroughly.

I normally use the Ian McKenzie Book "English for Business Studies" which is really dull but has a hell of a lot of useful vocabulary and ideas in it; much more so that any business coursebook, including Market Leader.

Law / Buying a USED CAR in Poland, my personal experiences and TRAPS to avoid !! [133]

As sound as this advice is, I can't imagine how naive someone would have to be to think any differently. Modern cars in Poland are a VERY new thing; five years ago the streets were still filled with Polonezes and old 1970s Mercedes. If anyone thinks that a three-year-old used car started its life in Poland, they are beyond gullible.

I never spend more than 3000zl on a car, and they're always 20 years old, and from that I've always been amazed at the lengths Poles will go to to keep a car running, often well beyond what any tester would consider safe. And yet the car will have a przeglad stamp every year for the past five years...

Law / Buying a USED CAR in Poland, my personal experiences and TRAPS to avoid !! [133]


I've been buying and selling cars in Poland for six years now. I've not made any money doing so, but that's the way of these things. I don't do it for money.

The way the market looked in 2004, pre-Schengen, pre-EU money, was vastly different to the way things look now. And of course, "new" cars are sold here, but almost always to businesses buying cars for their workers, which then pass on to their wives; a pathetic dribble of those three-year-old cars are now on the second-hand market, and that's what I'm referring to. Those not sold to businesses were mainly sold to Germans (nearly 20% of new car sales!). So my point still stands; a new (three-year-old) used car in Poland has a very VERY low likelihood of starting its life in Poland.

Real Estate / Building a house in Poland need advice from anyone that has built [100]

Can anyone update me with costs on building houses, now it's 2011? Looking to construct something in the region of 150m2, brick-and-blockwork, probably beam-and-block floors for the second storey.

I've heard wild estimates for the shell, from as little as 100,000zl to as much as 500,000zl, so I'd like to have some idea what the expenses are.

Real Estate / Building a house in Poland need advice from anyone that has built [100]

Yeah, the price I'm looking for will not include the cost of the land or purchasing the plans. So Monia, does your 1million+ PLN include the land as well, or is that just the materials and the construction crew?

Basically, I have my eye on a few plots of land in and around Warsaw, and want to know what's within my budget. I don't think I can quite afford 1million PLN...