The BEST Guide to POLAND
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Posts by HAL9009  

Joined: 13 Mar 2007 / Male ♂ 		Last Post: 3 Jul 2022
Threads: Total: 2 / Live: 1 / Archived: 1
Posts: Total: 323 / Live: 83 / Archived: 240 		From: UK
Speaks Polish?: Tak, ale niedobrze = A little
Interests: Languages, design

Displayed posts: 84 / page 3 of 3
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HAL9009   
19 Nov 2007
Language / I want to learn Polish. Where to start? [180]

If you can find it, an old version of Polish Linguaphone is well worth buying. I just bought one (1991 vintage). It is a serious language course with lots of sounds recordings - i'll be in Polish heaven :D

It'd be a bit dated in content terms - published around 1970 i'd say.
HAL9009   
25 Oct 2007
Food / Borscht - Zurek / Bialy barszcz recipe [153]

I like zurek with hard-boiled eggs and horseradish.

mmm, I like this too.
A Polish friend made it for me. Hard boiled eggs in a soup is, not a common dish in Ireland, so it was novel.
HAL9009   
24 Oct 2007
Off-Topic / PF - The Omnibus Edition [1502]

Cool, we don't need to read through the forums at all now to get the important stuff.
Dzięki bardzo - keep it up.
HAL9009   
23 Oct 2007
Language / Polish Language Learning Links [40]

Here's another good link - a polish test - Thanks to Vincent for finding this

Polish tests, quite a lot of them: goethe-verlag.com/tests/EO/EO.HTM

Beware however, there are some errors in spelling. But in general it's good practice material. and there is a button at the bottom to show all the answers.

and of course we shouldn't forget our own Polish Forums topic, Polish Lessons Units: polishforums.com/language/lessons-units-10526/
HAL9009   
22 Oct 2007
Language / Having a really hard time with Polish cases [59]

Try these two grammar books, both free downloads. You may find them useful:

Small grammar book about the Polish language:

polish.slavic.pitt.edu/firstyear/nutshell.pdf

and

big grammar book

polish.slavic.pitt.edu/grammar.pdf

The larger book goes through the cases in some detail.

The remainder of the material on the web site is also well worth a look.

...oop, forgot the website url: polish.slavic.pitt.edu/sitemap.html
HAL9009   
25 Sep 2007
Language / English-Polish tests [23]

A very nice find - just downloading it now.
All those languages, hey, it's got finnish too - I'm in language heaven :D
HAL9009   
19 Sep 2007
Food / Types of CHEESE in Poland [150]

No exotic Polish cheeses in Ireland (some spreadable cheeses though) - any plans to supply Oscypek & Bryndza to Ireland?
Interestingly "brânză" is the Romanian word for cheese, pronounced as one would say bryndza in Polish... probably a good background story there somewhere!
HAL9009   
19 Sep 2007
Food / What exactly is Polish Bread? [67]

We're getting lots of Polish Breads in the shops here in Ireland now, even in small towns. It's baked in the Polish bakery in Dublin. Really yummy.

My favourite (so far) is Żytni Okrągły Chleb z Ziarnami - Round Rye Bread with seeds. The (carroway) seeds are very subtle. It is grey brownish and reminds me of the bread in Romania, which was also very good. A lot of these breads include rye, which isn't really used in Ireland and the UK. Many Finnish breads are rye based also. So I think that maybe there isn't a "Polish" bread exactly, but a "Central-East European" bread which is firmly based on rye+yeast manufacture.

Many Irish breads are good also. They tend to be based on soda+buttermilk. Completely different from the Polish breads.
HAL9009   
19 Sep 2007
Food / What is your favorite Polish Vodka? [653]

Yaay! Żubrówka is finally widely available in Ireland :)
I bought my first bottle in the supermarket yesterday (for considerably more than it would cost in Poland!).
Before now I had to ask my Polish friends nicely to bring back a bottle from Poland...

Żubrówka is simply the best. Pycha - can you say that for booze?
HAL9009   
12 Sep 2007
Language / Przypadki (Polish language cases) [59]

Try Finnish - 15 cases - and tougher than Polish to learn (I think), but both are such a richly rewarding experience :) - I still haven't got the hang of Polish cases though, but getting there.
HAL9009   
14 Aug 2007
Polonia / Ever been to Sweden? [185]

Sweden, yes, but only on my way to Finland......
HAL9009   
14 Aug 2007
Language / Instruction how to install Polish diacritic letters on your computer [30]

On a MAC you can find the polish characters through the Character Palette, which can be turned on in the International control panel. The Palette displays all of the characters available in a given font. You can save frequently used ones to the Favourites Pane.
HAL9009   
18 Jul 2007
Language / Polish Lessons Units [189]

These are great fun, keep em comming :)
And soon some more difficult ones...
HAL9009   
20 Jun 2007
Language / A good place to start learning Polish? [29]

Yes, go with Rosetta Stone. It'll get you started.

Also, have a look through this for some stuff available online, much of it free to download: polishforums.com/language-17/learning-links-8328/
HAL9009   
17 May 2007
Language / Polish Language Learning Links [40]

Here's a website I just found. It features 1000 simple questions (tick the box answers) which will help the user to go over Polish grammar. You will need some basic knowledge of Polish to do them.

polish grammar
HAL9009   
10 May 2007
Language / Is it too late for me to learn Polish..? [65]

It's never too late to start learing a language. And Polish is far from dead.
For dead languages try Livonian (A Finnic language, very few speakers if any left, and much more difficult than Polish to learn), or Manx (easier than Polish, but zero speakers left, though I think they've revived it.)

Polish has a long way to go before it's endangered, in fact it's spreading faster than Irish in Ireland...!
HAL9009   
2 May 2007
Life / Is the word "Polack"rascist? [185]

An Irish-American relative once sent me a printout of "polak" jokes, which interestingly were exactly the same as the "paddy" jokes that the english tell about the Irish.

I lived in England for a while (I'm Irish) and we referred to ourselves as "paddy" or "mick" - this devalues the cultural nastiness of the term. I don't find tem offensive, and especially not when they're meant to be offensive. We call the British "brits", which they use themselves also. Some English people regard it as offensive. We Irish also have the word "tans" which refers to the English in a more derrogatory manner, but this is a word the English wouldn't understand, so it's not really an offensive noun!

Generally speaking English culture looks down on the Irish (a fromer colony) and this occasionally surfaces even at the highest levels of government. Which we Irish cheerfully ignore :)

Paddy, Polak, Mick... People who use these terms as an offensive weapon are generally the less intelligent ones themselves. The trick is to recapture the word, so it's offensiveness is devalued...

...course then they'll find some other word to use!
HAL9009   
17 Apr 2007
Language / Polish Language Learning Links [40]

That sounds like fun - I find translations are great for building vocabulary. And translationg polish to english is a lot earier than english to ploish, unless you are polish of course! :)
HAL9009   
17 Apr 2007
Language / Polish Language Learning Links [40]

I have been hanging around Polishforums for a month or so now (found it while I was searching for Polish grammar resources), and I have noticed that many people are making posts looking for links and info on Polish language learning resources on the web and these links then get buried again within the threads, so I thought I'd start a thread dedicated to links.

Listed below are the most useful of what I have found so far. I'm sure some of you will know of lots of other sources which you can add in.

Enjoy :) and when learning Polish, odwagi! (courage!)
Groups 1.-4. are FREE Polish resources:

All of these exist as of today 17.04.07, and most have been around for years.
Everyting in 1-3 can be downloaded to your own computer for offline use.

1. Serious Courses

A comprehensive first year University course. Lots of goodies - includes a good polish-english dictionary and a reference grammar. All in pdf format, free to download. This is the best and most useful resource i have yet found. I use it all the time.

polish.slavic.pitt.edu/

Here you will find a serious look at polish grammar, bilingual in polish and english.
Sections are still under construction, but a very useful resource for us polish junkiez :)

free.of.pl/g/grzegorj/

...a course that he's starting to develop:

free.of.pl/g/grzegorj/kurs/index.html

...and his links page:

free.of.pl/g/grzegorj/links/links09.html#pl

2. Some smaller courses

A short course in polish:

golem.umcs.lublin.pl/users/ppikuta/lessons/lessidx.htm

Elementary Poolish - A short on line course for beginners:

slavic.uiuc.edu/gladney/Elementary_Polish/Start.html

3. Some basic information resources

Some basic Polish vocabulary here:

zem.co.uk/polish/basicvoc.htm

There's some paralell polish and english texts here

let.rug.nl/%7Ehoutzage/polish.html

and sounds recordings of the texts in polish here, though the speaker speaks very fast...

odur.let.rug.nl/~houtzage/poldownloadsmp3.html

Another bit of paralell text in english and polish:

lonweb.org/daisy/ds-polish-lorna.htm

A summary of the polish cases:

lsa.umich.edu/slavic/dept/WebBasedLanguage/Polish/Grammar/CaseSummar y/Index.htm

There's a little summary of some Polish grammar here:

polish-translators.com/grammar.html

A children's book in Polish: Wakacje Mikołajka - exists also in its original french - Les Vacances du Petit Nicolas - not sure about english.

The level of language is sufficient for learner's reading practice - this is the book I am currently translating into english as an exercise! And it's a good read too.

Polish only I'm afraid, but relatively easy, and we all have our słownik don't we :)

eko-fan.waw.pl/mikolajek.htm

4. One of the best online dictionaries I have yet found:

portalwiedzy.onet.pl/tlumacz.html?qs=generous&tr=ang-auto

5. These sites offer useful Polish courses, but not for free:

transparent.com/languagepages/polish/polish.htm
byki.com/fls/poli/polish
rosettastone.com/en/individuals/languages/polish/?a=b
pimsleurapproach.com/learn-polish.asp