Language / The Polish word for fart? [28]


I'd prefer "uwznioślenie"...

or another one, very much fancied by the CC clergy: ubogacenie.

just to give Catsoldier something to do ;)


which one do you have in mind?

Life / Free Poland Health Care - Paying minimal to no Zus [105]


If it's any consolation to you, it's "no ZUS, no joy" for Poles too. You need to be either employed, or self-employed, or unemployed with the unemployment rights, or covered by a spouse who's one of the above.


In order to claim unemployment benefits you need to have been employed for a certain amount of time, or a fresh graduate. The benefits are laughable but ZUS is covered then. You can't just do nothing for a number of years and then claim unemployment. I'm not sure however what it looks like in case of a non-Polish UE citizen who comes to Poland, becomes a resident and can't find a job.

Life / Free Poland Health Care - Paying minimal to no Zus [105]


That's the full package, complete with sick leave salary and old age pension contributions. If you're not employed full time or registered as self-employed then you can buy just the health insurance part, which is about 200-300 zł a month.

Language / The Polish word for fart? [28]


could be bączki (plural diminutive of bąk, sing. is bączek)

Life / Schizophrenia treatment in Poland [19]


If you pay the state medical insurance (NFZ), hospitals and doctor visits are free unless you prefer a doctor with a private practice. Medication is free when in a hospital. For outpatient treatment, it's partially refunded, depends on the specific drug. But treatment of a condition like schizophrenia requires very good communication with the doctor so the language barrier might be the biggest obstacle for you, even if you find a doctor who speaks some English.

edit, I've just noticed that you wrote "moving back to Poland", so if you're Polish and speak the language, you'd just have to pay the NFZ insurance.

History / Life in Poland before the fall of communism [30]


The curfew was 10 pm, children should be in beds then anyway.


The choice vas limited, but we were not starving.
Noodles, dumplings, pancakes, pierogi, anything you could make from flour. Vegetables and fruit in the season, home made vegetable and fruit preserves. Eggs and dairy products. Potatoes and cabbage (yes!).Most people had vegetable gardens or plots (see the recent thread on these plots, działki), growing whatever possible. Most people had family or friends in the countryside so that was a way to get chicken, pork etc.Farmers' markets, the so-called "baby" (village women) selling eggs, cottage cheese, sour cream and veal.

Lots of people had big freezers at home and froze season products in the summer. Or meat, if you were lucky enough to get half a hog.

Food was home-made, as processed products were not available, with the exception of some canned meat or fish.
I was a student in the eighties, the times when the shops offered just vinegar and matches. The shop near the dorm offered processed cheese and we somehow managed to live on that. Whoever went home, came back with a big bag of mummy-made pierogi and another one of preserves in glass jars.

Genealogy / Common surnames in Poland NOT of Polish origin ? [87]


how did it find its way into the list?

A very interesting list, looks almost like the list of names from my elementary school or from my childhood neighbourhood, and I live in south-eastern Poland. Looking at it, I recognized most of the names, I wouldn't have remembered these people otherwise.

Another popular one is Szmit/Szmidt with the polonized spelling.

Life / Are Polish natives intolerant of foreigners who do not properly speak the language? [30]

So you really believe the beer-cans-and-phones story? 8-|

Life / Are Polish natives intolerant of foreigners who do not properly speak the language? [30]


c'mon... just admit that you need a few days off to sell all the phones you've collected.

UK, Ireland / Crying Polish truck driver on British roads is Internet hit [269]


Yes, it's very hard to understand.

Life / Are Polish natives intolerant of foreigners who do not properly speak the language? [30]


Just collect these phones and the trip might be worth it. Also the cigarette packages, provided they're not empty.

Genealogy / Common surnames in Poland NOT of Polish origin ? [87]

and General Bem, a Pole, is a national hero for the Hungarians. That's Mitteleurope for you :)

Genealogy / Common surnames in Poland NOT of Polish origin ? [87]


Czech is just Czech - somebody from Czechia. It sounds the same in Polish and the name could have independently originated in many locations. As Magdalena says, it was just describing an immigrant from Czechia, just like the names Litwin (a Lithuanian) or Rusyn (a Ruthenian). Certainly not all Czechs were crested nobility.

Many names ending with - uk or -icz are of Eastern origin (Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Lithuanian, whatever) - Wasiluk, Bohdanowicz, Hawryluk.

Language / Using Polish declensions.. [14]


it's not wrong at all


I think this is a misunderstanding - the OP has problems with nouns and not with verbs.
Getting the book will certainly not hurt him, but is probably not what he's looking for.
Unfortunately, I don't know if any "301 Polish nouns" exists at all.

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

at first I thought it's from "kołczan" :D

Language / Essay on biggie smalls for my Polish lessons [10]



That's fair, thanks :)

so I'll venture again:


pieprzyłem/pierdoliłem twoją kobietę

BTW it's sort of a classic... remember Psy?

Language / Essay on biggie smalls for my Polish lessons [10]


Mods, this is a translation matter, so I don't think censoring vulgar words is in order - aren't you a bit overzealous?

Language / Essay on biggie smalls for my Polish lessons [10]


I don't think prochy includes weed, it's rather for chemical stuff like amphetamine or extasy.
If you want it to include all kinds of substances, dragi is better. Or maybe I'm splitting hairs here.


edit

Life / The Polish Wedding - What is it Like in Poland? [338]


That's from the parents, if they're there.


Some do and some don't. It's increasingly popular but nowhere near obligatory.


no, maybe just the wedding cake


Do they have any interests/passions? If not, money is the safest way out.


One thing I can think of is the penny shower - like rice shower but you use pennies. And they're supposed to collect them all.

Language / Essay on biggie smalls for my Polish lessons [10]


narkotyki. Leki are for healing, narkotyki for poisoning (to make it simple).
Also: prochy, dragi.


Very unnatural.
Przeleciałem twoją kobietę - it's slang, but not very vulgar.
Lots of other variants are possible, depending on how vulgar you want to get.


Gangstas are gangstas - a purely American breed :)

Travel / My holiday, Gdansk or Kaunus, Lithuania? Help me decide! [23]


yes, Vilnius Gatve, and the whole area is just a 30 min walk.


I talked to a nice young priest who was there selling brochures and collecting donations for the renovation of the place. A huge task. The cathedral used to be in good condition still in the 1920s, but in the Soviet times it was turned into a storage place for some chemicals I think, which completely destroyed the interior, plus there was some war destruction. A pitiful sight, all the stained glass windows broken and covered with wire mesh, the walls in a very bad state, and so on. It's going to take loads of money to restore it. A powerful remnant of the communist times, but at least the building survived - many others had no such luck.


I hope you won't be going there with Legia fans ;)

Travel / My holiday, Gdansk or Kaunus, Lithuania? Help me decide! [23]


Actually, it's one central pedestrianized street and just the front part of it that has been renovated. Last year we had rooms in one of the buildings in that street and the front was nicely painted, but the back, with the entrance to the studio, looked like a favela. The inside was good though, nice and clean, with all brand-new equipment.

And there are not many places around Kaunas to go to, either.
So Pam, Gdańsk with Sopot, Gdynia and Malbork seems to be your best bet. Even if the weather is not great, there are things like the amber museum and Malbork castle or the Gdynia Aquarium:

aquarium.gdynia.pl
mhmg.gda.pl/international/?lang=eng&oddzial=4

Travel / My holiday, Gdansk or Kaunus, Lithuania? Help me decide! [23]

Pam, I'm not sure what exactly you want to do and see, but I think you realise Kaunas is not big and seeing all the tourist attractions will take you 2-3 days at the most. If the 5 days include the journey there and back, it should be all right but 5 days in Kaunas itself could be a bit too much.

It's certainly an interesting experience if you haven't been to Lithuania before.
Did it occur to you to go to Vilnius instead? It's more beautiful, there's more to see and you can also visit the Gedyminas castle and the Troki castle on the lake very close to the city. Vilnius is good for 5 days.

Comparing Gdańsk with Kaunas, well, Gdańsk is much better :) but you've been to Poland before and if you want to experience a new country, it's a good enough reason to go to Lithuania.


oh come on, if you're lucky, October can be one of the best months here :)

Travel / Pot in Poland for tourists [285]

JON357: Poland has a lot of countryside and the right summer temperature to grow it.

Not really -we don't get quite enough sun, at least not every year. Hungary is better :)

Life / Individualism in Polish culture...Is it almost Nonexistant? [170]

NATASA: Sadly, people do equate those two.
Yeah, the land of plenty stands for the land of freedom.

NATASA: I just wanted to tell you that you are quotable ;)
Thank you ;)

Life / Individualism in Polish culture...Is it almost Nonexistant? [170]

FUZZYWICKETS: yeah, that's all I needed to read. surely you lived in the land of freedom, after all, you had meat on the table once every two weeks when the "peasant woman" stopped by from the "illegal home butchery." haha.....oh man.

well, if freedom and individualism for you is just about avilability of meat, or whatever goods, in shops, then I frankly don't know what to say.

BTW, what's with the quote function? It disappeared a few days ago. Am I the only one having this problem?

Life / Individualism in Polish culture...Is it almost Nonexistant? [170]

Magdalena: I was in secondary school in the eighties and most of my friends had English at school, I did as well. This was in Warsaw though so the percentages might be a bit skewed.

I was growing up in a 30 000 town in eastern Poland, where there were two general secondary schools (liceum) and both had English in the curriculum. True, not all students had it - some groups had German, some French and everybody was having the obligatory Russian. But there were also afternoon English courses - not so many as nowadays, but still available. The thing was most students considered English a bit superfluous - "you'll never use it" was the common approach.

As for travelling, it was like Grubas and Boletus say. In the sticks where I lived I knew lots of people who travelled to USA, Canada, Italy, England, France, West Germany and other places. True, it was bothersome and expensive, but possible unless you were a public enemy meaning engaged with the political opposition. If people say you couldn't travel back then they mean that you couldn't just grab your passport, buy a last minute ticket and go wherever you wanted - every journey abroad took some serious planning. But people did travel.

Travel / What is the ugliest city or town in Poland? [89]


Not trying to sidetrack anything.These factors, combined, largely determine how a place looks today, that's why the ones built in the 70s and 80s are the ugliest. And right, I forgot about Sieradz.

Travel / What is the ugliest city or town in Poland? [89]


Oh yes, it does matter, as well as the materials they had at their disposal. I'm not trying to denigrate the role of the design, or the designer, but even a bad design can hold its ground with good workmanship, and vice versa. And the work ethics - one more factor.

The designers of the concrete osiedla didn't have much say, their role was mostly to arrange a given number of typical blocks over a given area, and the building technology was subject to government regulations.

Anyway, Tarnobrzeg gets my vote.

Travel / What is the ugliest city or town in Poland? [89]


Nowa Huta was built soon after the war, by builders who'd known their trade from pre-war times and used bricks, not the pre-fabricated concrete elements. And that made all the difference. If you're looking for the ugliest place, look among those built in the 1970s and 80s.