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Posts by Myszolow  

Joined: 28 Jul 2009 / Male ♂
Last Post: 26 Jul 2011
Threads: 3
Posts: Total: 157 / Live: 115 / Archived: 42
From: Zgierz
Speaks Polish?: yes

Displayed posts: 118 / page 4 of 4
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Myszolow   
9 Jan 2010
USA, Canada / Differences in How Polish People Raise a Child and How Americans Raise a Child [149]

I thought the culture of sleeping with your kids developed out of necessity? i.e. there wasn't enough rooms or beds for everyone to have their own.

It's a very personal choice and really it depends on how well you sleep. My wife was a very light and nervous sleeper. Our son had his own room from day 1 and slept through the night from week 9.

I don't think there's anything particularly sick about sleeping with your children, but, except for unusual situations (bad dream etc.) for me it's preferable that they learn independence in this from as soon as possible.

Having a kid is a major shock to the family - particularly the first one. Both parents need to cut each other a lot of slack and try to understand each other's needs. No one person's needs should be totally met at the complete expense of another - that breeds selfishness. There is already too great a culture of selfishness in the world.

There's nothing wrong with letting a baby cry for a while. It's one of the main ways they can get exercise. They can't do a great deal else after all. Check the nappy, hunger, properly burped. If none of that helps, just leave them to it for 10 minutes and then go check on them.

Are you feeding on demand or do you have a routine? If you want your kid to go through the night, a routine works a treat. I recommend the book "On becoming babywise". It's simply brilliant. Everyone I know who has used their strategy has baby sleeping through the night inside the first 3 months.
Myszolow   
7 Jan 2010
Food / Poland known for their sweets? [67]

For my taste, true chocolate can only be found in Switzerland or Belgium..

Can't argue that it's not damn good stuff. I love Lindt even if I can't spell it. ;)
Myszolow   
7 Jan 2010
Food / Poland known for their sweets? [67]

Ohh, you haven't been to £ódź lately then. They already have one at Manufaktura :p

Maybe Wedel was better long ago, but in the 16 years I've toing and froing between UK and Polska I think it got better. But maybe it just got more Cadbury-like which could be what I was used to? Who knows? The fact that some people like Ptasie Mleczko shows we all have different tastes.
Myszolow   
7 Jan 2010
Food / Poland known for their sweets? [67]

I think Wedel improved since Cadbury took it over. I don't like Wawel - I think they're poo. And as for Ptasie Mleczko - I hate them. But that's a personal choice.

The plums in chocolate and liqueur chocolates are very good though. I also like the chocolate nuts and raisins you can buy (but I forgot the brand name).

My main gripe about chocolate in Poland is that there is a huge range of quality available ranging from stuff which doesn't contain any cocoa, to some quite nice stuff.
Myszolow   
3 Jan 2010
Life / Do expats living in Poland speak Polish? [233]

To learn to speak and understand a language (spoken) has little or nothing to do with orthography, though.

Quite right. I don't think I said it did though. I was just trying to be positive about Polish and say something nice. After all that's about the ONLY thing about Polish that is helpful in learning it.

The logical nature of Polish does help because you can learn a word from a book and know how to say it without having to learn all those stupid phonetics symbols or ask a native "how do you say this word?"

One of the hardest things I find about spoken Polish is the intonation and vigorous gesticulation. It's completely different from English and very hard to get used to. People often look and sound to me as if they are about to start a fight. You can't learn that stuff from books though - have to be immersed in the culture.

Mind you, most foreigners don't get English intonation, which is why we now have so many natives ending all their sentences with an upward intonation like the Australians do.

Intonation is a big part of communication too. When I ask my wife a question in English and the answer is "I don't know" the intonation she uses is the same as if she was saying "nie wiem" in Polish - and in English it carries with it a message of "I don't know and **** Off" which is totally unintended.

I think people need to pay a lot more attention to the "music of speech". But I guess that doesn't get taught in classes and also to an extent depends on aural ability.
Myszolow   
2 Jan 2010
Life / Do expats living in Poland speak Polish? [233]

What I like about Polish is the completely logical pronunciation. If you know the rules, you can read a word. It's also nice that if you hear a word, 99 times out of 100 you can write it down correctly.

Grammar is a different story, but we get our own back on the Poles by having articles which they cannot fathom at all. You can always tell a non-native English speaker/writer because they get the articles wrong or omit them altogether.
Myszolow   
26 Aug 2009
News / RHD cars in Poland - my campaign to change the rules in Poland [128]

Also, please to get in touch if the Ministry refuse to give you permission.

You're starting to sound like a Pole Harry. ;) Been here too long?

(Ahh. I see your post has been 'adjusted'. Perhaps that was an adjustment?)
Myszolow   
25 Aug 2009
Life / Cost of converting cars in Poland to left-hand drive [58]

I've just been told by my insurer who I have a long-term European policy with (I can stay outside the UK all year) that they accept Polish przeglądy, so I no longer need to go back just for the MOT!

You can't tax your car without an MOT, so that's not particularly helpful unless you will insure your car with przegląd and not tax it at all - in which case you will be illegal (although it's doubtful you'll be caught if your car never returns to UK).
Myszolow   
24 Aug 2009
Life / What is it with the Polish love of antibiotics? And Why do Poles get ill more? [40]

In Poland it seems as if the doctors prescribe antibiotics willy nilly - pretty much for anything because they are cheap and, in the short term, effective.

But in the long term this is irresponsible because it prevents the body from developing its own immunity and also selectively encourages the emergence of super bugs.

What is the cultural reason for this? Does it stem from the communist times when the only thing that mattered was a day's work? Is there another reason?

I've noticed that Poles will try to "work through" any illness instead of taking time off to get properly better (and not spread the bugs around to work colleagues).

It's a clear cultural difference between Poland and UK. Can anyone throw any light on the reasons behind it?

I also noticed when living in Poland that people get ill much more often - particularly children. In winter, I put this down to the dirty air (lots of coal smoke) and cold climate.

Your thoughts anyone?
Myszolow   
23 Aug 2009
Life / Why Do You Love Poland? [907]

You got a link to back up that claim? I don't dispute that the life expectancy is lower than many other countries, but "most people die before 50" is utter rubbish. (I also agree with you that the free healthcare available is poor).

I found a link here: stat.gov.pl/gus/5840_894_ENG_HTML.htm

The worst life expectancy voivodeship in Poland is £ódzkie (great, got a house in Zgierz, but only there a few weeks a year).

For males born now, the life expectancy is 69, for females it's 78.
For males of 45 the figure is 72 and for females 79.

So there is some credence to your comment about expectancy lowering, but your comment about most people dying below 50 is complete cobblers.
Myszolow   
20 Aug 2009
Language / Funny/strange/deviant words in the Polish language [35]

Does 'huje' has something to do with 'chuje' or something?

h and ch are pronounced the same in Polish so anything with that ending gets a schoolboy snigger. ;)

My wife was telling me about a hilarious latin lesson when they were learning the declension of hic, haec, hoc. And someone had to read it out without laughing. It goes something like this...

hic haec hoc
hunc hanc hoc
hujus hujus hujus
huic huic huic
hoc hoc hoc

...bet it was hilarious.
Myszolow   
19 Aug 2009
News / Polish Mom claims daughter got pregnant from swimming in pool! [162]

After all, how many thirteen year old girls want to admit to a Roman Catholic Polish cow that she is already a slut?!!

Oh. I know this one. Three. ;)

There's a bit of a shortage of Roman Catholic Polish cows this year though. The price has gone through the roof. :p)

Anyone considered the possibility that she got pregnant before she went away?
Myszolow   
19 Aug 2009
News / Polish Mom claims daughter got pregnant from swimming in pool! [162]

It annoys me! Feels like I killed the thread :

Perhaps you did? ;)

Or, on the other hand, maybe everybody else was in bed when you posted? Or maybe everyone's said what they wanted to say and the thread has become boring?

In my opinion it would be impossible to get pregnant swimming in a pool with a costume on. And if she was swimming without a costume on, she would probably be capable of "bumping into" a stray erection as well. :p)
Myszolow   
18 Aug 2009
Life / Why Do You Love Poland? [907]

Cost of living
Prices of food and drink
Cost of land and building (although it's going to go up fast)
Summer weather
Watching it progress from grey abomination to a land where everyone has a mobile phone (over the last 15 years).
Castorama, OBI, TESCO, Auchan, REAL ;) (much bigger and better than UK)
My workshop (about as big as our UK house LOL)
Myszolow   
12 Aug 2009
Life / Do expats living in Poland speak Polish? [233]

Many English speakers think Polish is primitive; many Polish speakers think the same of English. They can't all be right, can they? ;-p

Not unless both languages are primitive. ;)
Myszolow   
12 Aug 2009
Life / Do expats living in Poland speak Polish? [233]

Ask people who speak both English and Polish fluently, which language they think best differentiates subtle shades of an expression?

Bet they will answer whichever is their native language or the one in which they have the best ability. ;)
Myszolow   
11 Aug 2009
Life / Do expats living in Poland speak Polish? [233]

'Pantoflarz' is one of my favourites to describe a guy who is controlled by his wife or girlfriend. Somehow, 'a henpecked man' isn't practical and words like 'a p***y', 'wuss' etc. are too informal and general in meaning.

What about "under the thumb?" Still, I agree a one word description is good. What about wimp? :p
Myszolow   
11 Aug 2009
Life / Do expats living in Poland speak Polish? [233]

what do you think about it?

I forgot to answer this part.

I think it's amazing that people can converse without opening their mouths. :)
I have a theory about why the language developed in such a closed mouthed way and it is this...

Being a very cold climate in winter, opening the mouth wider to speak would involve more heat loss to the body. So a fairly closed mouthed language evolved.

...it's probably a heap of crap, but I'd love to hear other people's ideas.

What else do I think about it? I think agreement and declension suck, but I've tried to learn Polish like a child learns language, by absorption of whole phrases rather than consciously thinking about cases and genders. (Conversely, it takes a very gifted Pole to be able to get definite and indefinite articles in the right places in English. You can spot the non-natives on this forum very easily on that alone - but fair play to them for posting - I wouldn't be able to post decent quality written Polish).

The adult way of learning a language might be faster (vocab and grammar) but that's not how we teach our kids to speak natively is it? At least, not until they reach school age.

My son (almost 7) has been brought up "one parent, one language" from birth. He often corrects my Polish, but I can still get him sometimes. For example, the other day I told him "Kuba is short for Jakub". He disagreed with me. "No it's not". I said "Let's ask Mummy" ;)

Dad was right. I still know more than him about tennis, photography, building etc. But how long will it last?
Myszolow   
11 Aug 2009
Life / Do expats living in Poland speak Polish? [233]

I'd say "quite well". Not perfect, but I can pass for a Polak unless I need to use a complicated sentence with lots of declension and agreement in it. ;)

I started by learning the pronounciation, learned some basic grammar from a book and the rest has been picked up the hard way. For example I learned a lot of building terms (and swear-words) when we built our "piętro" extension on the house. I learnt a lot of tennis terms when I got out there and played tennis with the locals.

Knowing the language is essential to understanding the people. I don't just mean understanding what they say, but understanding why they are the way they are. I found that once I can speak directly to people and have a conversation in their own language, I started to understand some of the differences in ways of thinking. (And boy are there some large differences:) )

I agree with the poster above. Anybody who makes no effort to learn the language is missing out.
Myszolow   
2 Aug 2009
Life / Things that annoy you in Poland. [114]

Hee hee. Well if you're in Wrocław they are LOL. I thought they were redoing most of the major roads through town though?

I haven't come across many cobbles in the £ódź/Zgierz area though. That motorway from Cottbus to Wrocław is kind of "special" don't you think? Baboom, baboom, baboom. Like travelling by train. ;)
Myszolow   
1 Aug 2009
Life / Things that annoy you in Poland. [114]

I hate many many things in Poland, but there really isn't much point complaining about them, because it won't do much good.

I can tell you're not a Pole. ;)

If you're a Westerner it takes a lot of getting used to. But remember this...

There is usually a reason why people do things the way they do. And sad but true, the reason for many things the way they are in Poland is because it is a territory that has known very little peace and freedom.

Freedom comes at a price though. And although there is peace now, and the younger generations are adapting to cope with it, the older Poles have been swept aside and have trouble adapting. Give it a generation or two of people born into freedom and prosperity and we will see attitudes change. I'm sure of it.

I think Poles both in Poland and abroad, though, will be surprised at how many of the "lost generation" who buggered off to UK and other countries when Poland joined the EU decide not to come back. Nearly all of them went with the dream of making a stack of cash and coming back to buy/build a dream house/start a business. But a lot of them will like the easier lifestyles available to them in the West.
Myszolow   
28 Jul 2009
Life / Mosquitoes in Poland [40]

No. From what I hear there are less than usual this year.