News / FEMI-FASCISTS MARCH AGAIN IN POLAND [126]


Some people say the same about The Olympics. Not sure I'd agree, considering how much road building and renovation has finally taken place in Poland due to Euro (can't stabd soccer myself, tho!)


lesbians? Please provide links......

Language / New Dialects in Western and Northern Poland [24]


Yes, just as boletus mentions


The lad in question does a lot with Mr Cyfus. I didn't realise Dorotowo was geographical centre (it's just outside of Olsztyn for those who don't know it).

Language / New Dialects in Western and Northern Poland [24]

There are still a few older people around Olsztyn who speak Warmian. I even know a young guy who has studied and speaks it rather fluently.

News / Don't let Poland become like my country, France. [630]


Apparently the reason why French food has more sauces than British food is that some time ago the raw ingredients in Britain were a much higher quality and the food was so good it didn't need sauces to mask the taste. When the vogue for French food infected the aristocracy, the sauces appeared.

Polish cheese... do you mean the pseudo dutch stuff?

Food / Kaszanka and haggis? [34]

I think chip-shop haggis is nearer to kaszanka, but the better haggis is a lot different.

happy Burns Night, chaps!

Language / Etymology of Dupa [11]


According to the Scots dictionary I was browsing, it's also possible to say "doop". Probably a regional variation.

Although, funnily, as a verb, doup can also mean to bend or to stab. So he douped and his friend douped his doup.

I was wondering if it had come from the latin/french for "dup" referring to "two" (or something like that).

However, the above post has answered that one.

Thanks everyone.

Life / Vasectomy in Poland is illegal? Why? [123]


Some friends of mine in UK had a child and the pregnancy almost killed the woman. They had tried a number of years and been told it wasn't possible for them to conceive... yet they did.

The husband chose to have a vasectomy to limit the danger of another pregnancy which might endanger his wife. Their son is healthy and delightful. So, not a matter of debauchery or life without progeny in their case.

News / Amnesty to Illegal immigrants in Poland [102]

What does this amnesty mean? Does it allow Polish citizenship... therefore the right to travel to UK?

Life / Ideas for constructive Immigration methods for Poland. [30]


Funny, I heard they had a lot of filipino migrant workers.

UK, Ireland / Feedback needed from Poles confused about English [12]

articles the/a/an, because most Slavonic languages don't have them.

Language / a linguistic explanation for Polish parking. [14]


I hear in Paris they park without a handbrake so the other cars can nudge them along if they need more space.

Not sure how it works sideways.

Language / a linguistic explanation for Polish parking. [14]

lol, makes sense.

Work / Native Speakers increasingly desperate? Polish and African teacher forcing down wages.. [27]

It's not so much the Polish teachers are driving the wages down, more a case that there are a lot of teachers, less students and schools can force the wages down.

The school I work for refuses to drop wages, but it has also had to lay off a few teachers or give less hours all round.


I think there was also a change in the way language teachers were trained, a couple of years ago. As I understand it, anyone taking teacher training as a language teacher also had to undergo at least a year or two at university level (Might have just been a local thing), so the days of a history teacher with a FCE being an EL teacher are fading.

Language / a linguistic explanation for Polish parking. [14]


Even in free parking spaces?

Life / Expats/Immigrants in Poland: Needy, Greedy or contributor. Which one are you? [118]


Well, hmmm, I'm not sure here. I never owned a company in Britain, never supplied jobs etc but I worked and paid taxes... does that make a non-contributor in my own country? In Poland I am a one-man firm because the majority of employers in the ELT industry don't want to pay my ZUS etc for me. Unlike many Polish migrant-workers in UK, I am not sending my wages home, so I imagine my taxes in Poland are helping towards paying for the limitless posters for elections, and the paperwork to prevent my local roads being repaired.

Needy? Well, my Polish aint great, although I can survive OK when I need to. Likewise, the amount of people who either insist on trying to speak English to me (either they find my Polish painful or they want to practice/show off, or are just being friendly) or express gratitude for having a non-Polish speaking teacher (so they HAVE to use English) suggests there is a number of people who don't mind my linguistic disability.

True, the other half is Polish and one of the reasons for me moving here was that when we married she would have found it a lot harder to move to UK (the British embassy once told me not to tell the border officals that she was my fiance in case they thought we would marry in UK to get her residency!). I got a job which has served me well and which I've been able to develop in, whereas she would probably have ended up as a waitress, rather than the job she holds now... as director of a very successful Culture House, which is recognised nationally... and where I occasionally assist with projects etc.

I suppose my work with village schools and Special Needs groups might class as a contribution, although some of it is paid... Not sure about my theatre and music concerts, cultural activites etc

Ex-pat holes? Avoid like the plague (although I don't know if there are any where I am)

UK, Ireland / 50 babies a day born to Polish mothers in UK [81]

Ah, it's a catholic plot to repopulate the world with catholics... they've seized the Church of England already!

News / 4th Polish Republic may re-emerge [244]


Exactly, and during one of the debates with Tusk, when the matter of PiS using the police against political adversaries, Kaczyński joked about having the surveillance on Samoobrona from before they went into coalition with them. Tusk didn't pick up on it but he might have asked why, if K felt that way about them, was a PiS government prepared to allow people they thought were crooks into government and into positions of major power.

UK, Ireland / Raising Bilingual Children - How are you teaching your children? Your experiences? [74]

I was talking with a colleague about this recently. She had seen a presentation where one man, a teacher, warned to be careful of alienating the child by only speaking one language to them, as they would observe you speaking a different one to other people, which might cause emotional distancing in later years.

I have no personal experience of raising kids myself, however, my brother's kids are bilingual German/English and I believe it was just a case that he and his wife focussed mainly on using their own mother-tongue with the kids but didn't worry too much if they code-switched (swapped languages).

I have a Polish friend (single parent) who has basically taught her 5 year old English to a level that it is better than many native-speakers of the same age. She lets her watch childrens BBC (with the result the girl picked up some Spanish as well, from Dora Explorer). Her daughter also speaks with her in Polish and seems very happy. Another colleague is trying the approach where one parent speaks English (both are Polish) and the son was very awkward about speaking English to me and, so I've heard, is quite resistant to it. Interestingly, it is the father who speaks English.

Obviously, these are only a couple of cases, and I imagine other people will have very different experiences.

News / 4th Polish Republic may re-emerge [244]


I thought they just created coalition governments with them.

News / Are Polish newspapers causing problems for Rom? [35]

Teffle

Aha, must be those pikeys hijacking my thread and locking it in a dog kennel ;-)

No probs, it's been interesting (just surprised the mods didn't close it)... any news on the Polish guys who were freed?

News / Are Polish newspapers causing problems for Rom? [35]


Not all of them. I've met some who still travel during summer seasons etc. Don't forget there are also Welsh and Scottish Gypsies/Rom. There used to be a number of settlements along the border, particularly on the Scottish side, because of the anti-Gypsy laws in past centuries.

News / Are Polish newspapers causing problems for Rom? [35]

But in Poland there are only Rom/Gypsies (and other tribes/clans).

My point is that 2 newspapers refer to "Romów", which implies Rom, rather than anything else.

Still, maybe I'm just being way too sensitive to the matter.

Food / What's your favorite Polish beer? [870]

Just tried Żubr ciemnozłoty. Not bad at all.

News / Are Polish newspapers causing problems for Rom? [35]


Yeah, but it's also because they aren't Gypsy/Rom.

Yeah, I'd heard the term 'knacker' in Ireland and a mate of mine was doing anthropology research amongst them in Northern Ireland and he explained the term 'pavee'. Also said that they didn't like it when non-pavee used it, apparently.

Pikey: apparently an old term... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikey

News / Are Polish newspapers causing problems for Rom? [35]

My point is that Irish Travellers are not Rom, they might have some connection but they're not the same. The reports suggest that there were a number of Poles and other Europeans freed from the site, and it may have been part of an international trafficking ring.

I don't think Rom people would like it thought that their folk were involved in slave trade.

Work / The level of English of Polish teachers of English. What do you think of it? [101]


You're kidding? Many areas were colonised by Irish and Scandinavians. The Orkneys and Shetlands were under the Norwegian crown for a long time.

I'd heard it was east Scotland, around Fife which had the best English. Don't forget, many islanders speak Gaelic and (especially if they learn Gaelic first), have a Gaelic mouth when speaking English. We had a literature prof from Lewis when i was at Glasgow Uni. He spoke something like this, "Tooodey ve are going to shtudy forms of transhendence in the poetry off Percy Shelley and hish 'ode to the vestering vind' and 'Adonaish'" The young guy from Lewis sitting next to me leaned over and said, "Trev, I don't understand a f**king word he's saying!"

Life / New Polish generation prefers black culture? [145]


They say that about Russians and Albanians too