Genealogy / Where in Poland is the town of Laka? [20]

Ellie

Do you have any idea from which part of Poland your granfather might have come?
Laka most probably was £ąka, meaning "meadow", and there are 7 villages of this name in Poland now.

7 miejscowości w Polsce:
£ąka - wieś w woj. dolnośląskim, w pow. bolesławieckim, w gminie Bolesławiec
£ąka - wieś w woj. opolskim, w pow. nyskim, w gminie Otmuchów
£ąka - wieś w woj. opolskim, w pow. oleskim, w gminie Zębowice
£ąka - wieś w woj. podkarpackim, w pow. rzeszowskim, w gminie Trzebownisko
£ąka - wieś w woj. śląskim, w pow. pszczyńskim, w gminie Pszczyna
£ąka - wieś w woj. zachodniopomorskim, w pow. drawskim, w gm. Czaplinek
£ąka - wieś w woj. zachodniopomorskim, w pow. goleniowskim, w gm. Stepnica

Lauga might also be a distorted form of £ąka, written phonetically by some English-speaking clerk.

Language / Can accidentally using the wrong gender form cause offence? [26]

Wow, you're doing great! Not a single mistake :)

co to jest "upierdliwość "?

I've just come across a nice English expression - "Dutch uncle" - which seems to be the exact equivalent of upierdliwiec.
Upierdliwość then is being a Dutch uncle.

To all the Dutch who might be reading this: nothing personal! :)

Czy ta istnieje?

Definitly it exists. And in this life too. I should know. I can be a perfect Dutch uncle if I choose to.
:)

Language / Can accidentally using the wrong gender form cause offence? [26]


It's all right, the last sentence was faultless. Do you still want me to lead you to perfection? :))

Polish version: Czy nadal mam być upierdliwa?

Love / Is she genuine? - I would like some advice please re a Polish girl. [130]

Andy_McRae

She might still be a he, have a big black moustache, beer belly and insatiable greed for your money. But at least she's in Poland and not in Nigeria :))

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Kochanowski

Language / Can accidentally using the wrong gender form cause offence? [26]


Strzygo


Tak myślałem, ale napisałem słowa w błędnej/niewłaściwej kolejności


Good :)


Także pamiętam, że 'pomóc' to czasownik a 'pomoc' to rzeczownik

Anytime :)

Food / Polish culinary dislikes [83]


You can get it in some stores, bottled:

But it's full of chemical add-ons, at least the products that I've seen. No better that coke actually.
People generally know about it - I mean, know it's drunk in Russia and Ukraine, but not many here drink it.
It may be different in the families resettled from Kresy after the WWII.

Language / że & iż [16]

Obywaciel for me sounds like cielak - obywacielak anybody?

Somehow I don't have such connotations with nauczyciel and przyjaciel.

Love / Is she genuine? - I would like some advice please re a Polish girl. [130]


When giving someone a mobile number many people in Poland start with 0048 or +48 in order not to get it confused with fixed line numbers, where you need to put one zero before the area code. I do it too. And I'd definitely do it this way when giving my number to somebody from another country, just to save them the trouble of looking for the country code. It works for Europe, you don't have to put in any additional codes.

As for the number starting with 5, that's the case with half the numbers in my phone book, the other half begin with 6 and I've got two numbers starting with 7. I think that's about all the possibilities. Two of the three big mobile operators here have numbers starting with 5. So the phone story seems perfectly plausible to me.

Anyway, now that Andy has the girl's number, he can call her and check if she's real, right? :)

Work / Teaching English in Zakopane, is it safe? [45]


Yoga and Aikido haven't been spared either. It's the Dominicans who are responsible for the anti-sect propaganda and they really go over the top sometimes. Not that many people treat that seriously though, apart from some die-hard Catholic fundamentalists.

Love / Is she genuine? - I would like some advice please re a Polish girl. [130]


please do :) and good luck!

Language / Can accidentally using the wrong gender form cause offence? [26]


Niech żyje Polska!

Language / When do you use 'się'? And what does it mean? [37]


it means directed towards self, as in: I wash myself, look after yourself.
Compare to: Mary washes dishes, mother looks after a child - the action is directed towards some external object, not self.

Love / Is she genuine? - I would like some advice please re a Polish girl. [130]


yes. 0048 is Poland and we do have a mobile operator whose numbers start with 5.

Love / Is she genuine? - I would like some advice please re a Polish girl. [130]


It happens here, I've even seen a Gocha on a TV programme technical cast list.


I understand that and it's fine as long as you're willing to do the same for her.
And I think that honesty and straightforwardness could be the best option. Just tell her about your Nigerian experiences and ask if you could get some proof that she's real. I think she shouldn't have any problem with that. And though she might be hesitant about giving all her personal data to somebody she doesn't know well (wouldn't you be?), an internet camera might be the perfect way out for both of you.

Love / Is she genuine? - I would like some advice please re a Polish girl. [130]


that's right, but some girls don't like these diminutives as sounding too childish and prefer augmentative forms: Kacha, Krycha, Gocha.


No, actually, it could be a perfectly good Polish nickname.

The name Pygota doesn't show on the map of Polish names, nor in Google in general.

It should be possible to find the gallery where she works and check if she's really working there, or even confirm that she really writes to you.

Still, assuming that she's a real person, there is an ethical question. Andy, would you be willing to provide her with the same kind of information and be subject to the same kind of check-up?

Love / Is she genuine? - I would like some advice please re a Polish girl. [130]


It comes from "kreska" and means more or less "a thick line". It's not a first name, could be a last name or a nickname.

A similar word, Krycha, is sometimes used as a shortened form of Krystyna, but that's Christine in English.
Or Kacha - actually from Katarzyna.

Language / Difference between "i" and "oraz". [6]

It's similar as with "że" and "iż". "I" is much more natural and is usually the first choice; "oraz" appears when there are too many "i"-s, to avoid repetition. Stylistic matter.

Language / że & iż [16]


It's perfectly OK in speech, but in writing one of the "że"-s would need to be replaced with "iż". It's a matter of good style really. Check in any novel.

Usually the first one remains "że" and the second changes into "iż", but it depends on the sentence, can be the other way around.

Language / 'ucha' [23]


are you sure? this came to my mind too, but Chaza asked about endings and not ending, so...


I think you meant parsley

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4501]

sounds like Ukrainian version of Długopolak/Długopolski, meaning "a long Pole" or "coming from Long Poland". There is no such thing as Długa Polska - Long Poland, but the name is a real, existing one, so maybe somebody will be able to tell you more about it.

Language / When do you use 'się'? And what does it mean? [37]


True. But that was the original question in this thread - Turtleonfire didn't have any problem with the reflexive use, which is quite logical; he was asking about the other, seemingly illogical "się" words.

Language / When do you use 'się'? And what does it mean? [37]


That's probably true. But what you say further on doesn't explain verbs like śmiać się, stać się or wydawać się, where "się" doesn't mark any reflexive action, still it's necessary to use it.

Language / When do you use 'się'? And what does it mean? [37]

there was a very good explanation on "się" already posted in one of the threads, but I can't find it now.

Anyway, I'll try to summarize it:
- basically, there are two types of verbs which take "się":

one is verbs needing an object - e.g. myć - myję ręce, matka myje dziecko, on myje się - you always wash something or somebody and when the thing washed is oneself, then you use "się". It's the same for every grammatical person - ja myję się, on myje się, wy myjecie się. This is your example with killing - ona zabije się.

The other group is verbs which take "się" for no apparent reason, you just need to remember which ones they are and treat "się" as a part of the verb itself. Examples:

stać się - to happen
okazać się - turn out
podobać się
Notice that some of these verbs take on different meaning when devoid of "się", as with "stać się" and "stać", which means just "to stand".

IMO you should just accept that some verbs are like that and memorize them, complete with "się".

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

The word robot was introduced to the public by Czech writer Karel Čapek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), published in 1920.

However, Karel Čapek himself did not coin the word. He wrote a short letter in reference to an etymology in the Oxford English Dictionary in which he named his brother, the painter and writer Josef Čapek, as its actual originator.[14] In an article in the Czech journal Lidové noviny in 1933, he explained that he had originally wanted to call the creatures laboři (from Latin labor, work). However, he did not like the word, and sought advice from his brother Josef, who suggested "roboti". The word robota means literally work, labor or serf labor, and figuratively "drudgery" or "hard work" in Czech and many Slavic languages. Traditionally the robota was the work period a serf had to give for his lord, typically 6 months of the year.[15] Serfdom was outlawed in 1848 in Bohemia, so at the time Čapek wrote R.U.R., usage of the term robota had broadened to include various types of work, but the obsolete sense of "serfdom" would still have been known.[16][17]

The word robotics, used to describe this field of study, was coined by the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot

Language / 'ucha' [23]


It's correct when meaning not human or animal ears but e.g. pot handles, in the same way as "oka" is correct for the fat floating on the surface of broth.

Language / Polish Swear Words [1242]

it would be either "o kurwa!" or "o Jezu!", take your pick

Love / Is she genuine? - I would like some advice please re a Polish girl. [130]

is she from Poland, born and brought up here?
if so, ask her what her favourite cartoons were when she was a kid or sth along these lines... and then come back here and check up on it :)

News / Poland's fidelity to support wars and its limits. [46]


and rightly so. All the names that end in -ska in Polish get -aya in Russian (think Krupska - Krupskaya). Preserving the -aya ending would mean unecessarily retaining the English transcription. There's no need to transcribe Russian names into Polish via English.

Language / Nice Polish phrases to say to men [76]

Kocham Cię i do końca życia będę za Tobą tęsknić. Proszę, wróć tu, gdzie jest Twoje miejsce albo zabierz nas ze sobą, bo umieram z tęsknoty.