Work / Job at HP in Wroclaw, what salary should I expect and Is It negotiable? [29]


I taught English for years inside that corporate office as well as having them come to my schools for lessons. Every single one of those employees seemed unhappy with their salaries and general work assignments. Every one of them had a minimum of a Master's degree, spoke Polish + English + 1 additional language, and their take home pay was a pittance. The 3K gross per month you referenced to in your OP sounds about right because I don't think these people even cleared 2K.

We all hated teaching there because it was full of miserable workers.

Now....Google in Wroclaw, THAT was fun. What an amazing difference in corporate culture and employee moral. I'd shoot for Google instead.

Language / Is Polish an easy language to learn and is there a way of learning it easily? [105]


interesting.....because i've yet to meet someone who wants to learn a language difficultly.

Language / Is Polish an easy language to learn and is there a way of learning it easily? [105]


in most cases, it is due to not knowing Polish cases. if the constant declinations and conversions and gender differences don't start to sound natural to you, you're always going to struggle with comprehension.

the single best way to learn Polish is to hammer.....and I mean hammer the grammar. don't start going through the dictionary learning random verbs you'll never use on the regular if you can't even use basic words and conjugate them accordingly so you can have a conversation with them. "knowing" a word in Polish takes on a different meaning than most languages. who cares if you know how to say "car" or "building" or "house" in Polish....do you know how to use them in all their forms, including being able to quantify 1, 2, and 5+ of them? that's the difference.

additionally, you will forever sound like an amateur in Polish if your grammar is not solid. accent is one thing but if every other word out of your mouth is spoken incorrectly, nobody wants to listen to you.

Polish is in a class of its own and if you want to really learn it, you're years away from being even decent at it.

Being able to turn on the TV in Poland and understand everything on a news station? A decade or more, in country + constant studying. this isn't to discourage, simply to tell it like it is. Polish is like one big monster that takes what will feel like forever to finally slay.

Language / Is Polish an easy language to learn and is there a way of learning it easily? [105]


yes.

i've lost a little vocab since i moved back to the states but my wife is polish so i still have constant exposure. my grammar is my strongest suit. it's pretty much all i studied during my first 2 years in country because i quickly recognized how crucial it is to having meaningful conversation. my vocab is probably my weakest suit because like i said, i concentrated far more on grammar. i fish for words, not conjugations.

when i sit down with a 20 something and talk about my day, i can do it comfortably but i have limitations like any language learner. my polish will improve exponentially in the near future because my wife and I (she's Polish...and no, not PolAm, she's born and raised in Poland) will be raising our children with polish so i expect to learn most of what i lack through osmosis in the coming years. i really look forward to it because i've put SO much work into learning this language and it will be nice to finally have the finished product.

Language / Is Polish an easy language to learn and is there a way of learning it easily? [105]


as if i wasn't doing that simultaneously? i lived in Poland for 4 years and during that time, i had plenty of immersion. i watched polish movies, watched the news, spoke with polish friends, translated texts, read polish news websites....i did it all, man. i just chose to study grammar hard to make sure that as i learned more phrases and vocab, i didn't get caught butchering said phrases and vocab with sloppy, really "foreigner" sounding grammar. it's not how I roll :)

you always have a better, longer lasting home with a solid foundation underneath you. i look at language learning similarly.

Language / Is Polish an easy language to learn and is there a way of learning it easily? [105]


hey thanks :)


absolutely. i don't see how anyone could effectively argue that this is untrue. polish is a language that fights you the whole way, as if its main objective is to keep you saying things incorrectly, like a carnival game. english has no declinations, no gender, and regarding verbs, hell once you learn I, they, he/she/it, we, you're pretty much done. throw a new polish verb even at an intermediate polish learner and they literally have to "study" it in order to get comfortable using it in all its forms.

Language / Is Polish an easy language to learn and is there a way of learning it easily? [105]

"Well, Mandarin Chinese is an 'easy' language to your standards then, given that its grammar is even simpler than in English. "

I knew an American that lived in China for about 7-8 months and thought Chinese was quite easy to learn to speak. He moved to Poland right after and completely gave up on Polish almost immediately. Sucked for him because his wife was Polish and he thought once they moved from China to Poland he'd pick it up just the same but like most people, it was an epic fail. He used to tell me all the time how much easier Chinese was and although i've never studied Chinese, i believe him.

Language / Is Polish an easy language to learn and is there a way of learning it easily? [105]


and here's the facts: if you had a French husband and lived in France, an Italian husband and lived in Italy, a Spanish husband and lived in Spain, Portuguese, German, on and on.....you'd be fluent. Poland? Yeah, 11 years and you're not even intermediate? Expected, because Polish is WAY harder. Period.

Language / Is Polish an easy language to learn and is there a way of learning it easily? [105]


another point worth making.

i'd venture to say that a lot of those that say "Polish isn't any harder than any other language" or "it's all relative" or whatever else, it's because they don't know how complex the language really is. if you knew polish, meaning all the in's and out's of the grammar and all its complexities, and spoke it without butchering it, you'd have a different perspective. most polish language learners go through a similar experience. in the beginning, they think it's like any other language just with really funny sounding words with lots of sh's and ch's, and then 4 weeks later when the teacher starts throwing kogo/czego and kim/czym into the lesson, they give up soon after.

just to list some examples:

you only use infinitive forms when making future tense, such as "bede isc", "bedziemy brac", etc.

your numerical conjugations are all wrong. for example: "dwa kobiety", "dwa mezczyzni", "nie mam jeden samochod", etc.

no concept of komu/czemu. for example, "powiedzialem moj przyjaciol".

if that's your Polish, you don't speak Polish and have no concept of the language and how difficult it really is.

USA, Canada / Only one county in the USA has more Polish-Americans than any other group! [38]


Polish cannot be learned passively, hence why you have expats living in Poland for 10 years and can't speak a lick.

USA, Canada / Would like to move back to Poland from New York after living in USA for 20 years. [155]


you want facts? here are your facts: city-data.com/city/Madison-New-Jersey.html

scroll down to "detached houses", which is the cost of a house. not a condo, not a townhouse, a HOUSE. $799,228.


doubt all you want.


people with $800,000 homes in towns with sky high property taxes, I assure you, are far from "average professional couples".

have a look at this: trulia.com/property/3133600296-115-Woodland-Rd-Madison-NJ-07940

That's a 63 year old house for sale in Madison, NJ, a little above the average house value. 1/2 acre of land. Taxes per year? $13,606. For those that struggle with math, that's over $1,000/month, just for your property taxes. Now try and pay the mortgage. Oh, and try and convince anyone that's for the "average couple".

One more thing.....anyone on here ever heard of The Mall at Short Hills? It's in a number of Hollywood movies and is well known throughout the USA for being one of the swankiest and nicest malls in the country.....which just so happens to be RIGHT down the road from the center of Madison, NJ.

Just for gits and shiggles, I Google Mapped it.....8 minutes. hop on Route 124 from Main St., 8 minutes and you're parked right outside Saks Fifth Avenue.

Law / The right to own guns: would you support such legislation in Poland? [2860]


In the case of the USA, that's not really accurate, because "control" is on a state by state basis. Take a look at Illinois. Chicago is rife with homicides by firearm. Illinois has some of the strictest gun laws and regs in the country but some of the worst gun violence in the country. If you're a criminal living in Chicago, the solution is simple: go to another state where you can easily obtain one. And then there are the gun shows. No federal regulation requiring them to run background checks. This means that a raging homicidal maniac can walk into a gun show, point to an AK-47 and walk out with it.....legally. If you want "control", the control needs to be nationwide, not just in the state you live in. The police can keep catching criminals and seizing their weapons but it's like a fish tank with a hole in the bottom, placed underneath a running faucet...as the water runs out the bottom, more water keeps on coming in from the top.

Take a look at this article:

mikebloomberg.com/index.cfm?objectid=975E20E2-C29C-7CA2-FD7C85222E4A4A14

"According to the most recent available gun trace data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the percentage of out-of-state guns used in crimes in New York City has been increasing in recent years. In 2009, 85 percent of crime guns came from out-of-state. In 2010, that proportion was 86 percent, and in 2011, 90 percent of crime guns came from outside the State of New York."

New York has very strict gun regulations, on par with Illinois, yet, as the article states, 90 percent of crime guns in 2011 came from outside the state of new york.

Whether you're arguing that guns are good or bad or whatever, laws and regulations on guns must be universal in the USA before we can truly see if gun restrictions have any effect. Common sense might say that it most certainly would have an effect but as long as criminals have planes, trains, and automobiles and can cross state lines at will to obtain firearms, we really don't have any statistics yet to make such a claim.

Work / Is 6500 PLN salary gross enough to live on for a small family in Wroclaw? [20]

that's like.....6 times the national average. i'd say not bad.

Work / Is salary of 3000 Euros gross enough to live decently in Lodz, Poland? [53]

it's moot, but one must be careful calculating in such a way, especially because you're quoting salaries in a socialized country.

IF, and that's a big if, the national average was, for argument's sake, 3,834 gross, because of the social structure of the country, once you cut that number down with ZUS and other taxes, how much is left? 2500? idk to be honest, but it's probably not far from that. ZUS alone is around 900zl/month from what I remember.

so by trying to calculate "how many times" more or less, that number drastically changes when you take a small number (salary) and cut it down 35% due to deductions whereas the large number (salary) only gets cut down maybe 20%. what was once a calculation of 3,834 vs 18,000 is now a comparison of 2,500 vs. say 14,000......5.6 times more.

i don't know how the tax brackets currently are in Poland but you see my point.

Language / Speaking with wrong Polish case endings? [94]


i can't really say with confidence one way or the other because I'm not a native, therefore I don't speak like a native and natives simply speak completely different. BUT, as far as I can tell, American English does seem more idiomatic/slang based. Polish, in general, seems to be a more formal language. people speak more literally and properly whereas Americans try and use a slang term for every word they want to say, regardless of the age of the person they're speaking to. it's actually one of the things I've always appreciated about Polish, I like the formal aspects of it....maybe because it's quite different from my native language.

on paper, American English would seem to have the blueprints for a larger variety of slang and idioms. we have hundreds of years of immigration, each contributing their own flavors and brands of speaking languages, all lumped into one big country speaking one main language. Polish is simply far more isolated, with 99% of Poland being a native Polish speaker and very few "outsiders" adding spice to the pot.

Love / Help me plan my wedding - in church in Poland, with a 2 day wedding party - Zabrze [24]

lots of good advice here.

i had a 2 day wedding, it was fantastic.

something i didn't read on here that I did.....get a pig. yep, a big giant slow cooked pig. have it delivered around 01:00, by then everyone's drunk and ready to eat lots of greasy pork. it was a huge hit.


we didn't bother with any other spirit but vodka. you're in Poland, do as they do. Our wedding was vodka, red/white wine, and a couple kinds of beer.


yeah, we looked into doing it in Poland and quickly realized it's a total a$$ ache and just did it a few months later during a visit to the states. in the meantime, we planned our big bash in Poland to be a couple months after that.

as far as where the wedding is, assuming it's inside, the location shouldn't matter too much assuming the venue is a good one, everyone's completely hammered within the first hour anyhow. i guess any outside wedding photos will be left with much to be desired.....but like the OP said, he doesn't seem to have much of a choice as far as what city to do this in.

Love / Help me plan my wedding - in church in Poland, with a 2 day wedding party - Zabrze [24]


after the ceremony, dude. it's a 2 day wedding, the one hour at the church doesn't even count.


gotta translate stuff, no way around it.

Love / Help me plan my wedding - in church in Poland, with a 2 day wedding party - Zabrze [24]


I'm sorry to hear that. No worries, you still got time.

Love / Help me plan my wedding - in church in Poland, with a 2 day wedding party - Zabrze [24]

HAHA, "not that kind of people." aaaaahhh yes.

Language / Speaking with wrong Polish case endings? [94]


it's true. conditionals, or just past participle usage in general is pretty bad in the states.


part of that is because of the case system. english doesn't have to follow a pattern like polish, nor do we have to deal with gender. we can take a word, make it into whatever we want, and regardless of what preposition we put in front of it, the gender of the person, the tense, none of it matters. you just cut and paste and make your silly sentence and it all works out. Polish simply doesn't give you that freedom, it's too structured.

i always wondered how rap music in polish worked out.....it seems terribly complicated. if you want the words to rhyme, you always have to consider how the word is going to conjugate before you say it, otherwise, you don't have a rhyme. in english, the word is the word. use it however you want, it's still going to rhyme because case endings, or gender for that matter, don't exist. way more freedom.

Work / Moving to Wroclaw: entry level salary at Google / how much money to survive? [18]

HP salaries are awful as well, my students there used to talk about it all the time.

History / Polish Easter Tradition is also pagan! [47]

we've named several things that are pagan, or from some other origin....i guess the right question to ask now is.....what traditions are exclusively "Christian"?

History / Polish Easter Tradition is also pagan! [47]


i don't think you can count a tradition as being "christian" if the symbol itself, that being the eggs, is not exclusively christian. neither is blessing food, so blessing eggs cannot possibly be a "christian" tradition in and of itself. i'm not a historian nor do i have the bible memorized cover to cover, but i'm pretty sure there's no mentioning of colored eggs anywhere in there. and let's be honest, the majority of what christians do on christian holidays is not mentioned anywhere in the bible.

History / Polish Easter Tradition is also pagan! [47]

Peter59 wrote:

"It seems to have held very true this year, we had frost again this morning and only 32 degrees."

I guess that all depends where u live in the US.

News / Polish Pope, John Paul II has been canonized today [with John 23rd] [85]

admittedly, if anything due to his charisma, even coming from a non-believer, it's hard to not like JP2 on the surface, but at the end of the day, because I'm not a religious person (at all) I look at everyone on an even playing field. the facts are laid out for us all, there was plenty of child abuse running rampant through catholic churches throughout the world, child abuse JP2 knew about and did nothing about, and that CANNOT be overlooked, I don't care how much Jesus you got in your life.

If you're someone that doesn't believe in a religion, or a "God" for that matter, you tend to look at everyone, even the pope, in the same way as anyone else. because of that, I'd like to present a comparison:

imagine a large world wide corporation, say 10,000 employees, and because of the size of the company, they offer day care for employees, right on site. this isn't a new idea, I know of several large companies that offer just this. they grow large enough and the facility is big enough to hire on site child care employees and the parents have their children right on site at the company campus. now imagine that at these child day cares, some of the children are being sexually abused, and it's more prevalent in certain locations compared to others. while all this is going on, the CEO of the company is FULLY aware of all that is going on, and instead of calling the police, having them fired, and giving the parents of these children the opportunity to prosecute these unspeakable crimes against their children, they have these child abusers transferred to different branches or have them work in different capacities, but nonetheless, they still work for the company.

sound crazy? it should. but it's exactly what The Vatican has been doing for as long as any of us can remember, yet people swarm the churches, week after week, and umpteem million poles flooded The Vatican to see a man get "sainted" that was fully aware of children getting treated in unthinkable and unmentionable ways. imagine a man being called a saint that did little to nothing to members of his organization that were molesting children.

if you're OK with that, well.....I guess the right thing to say would be "join the club", because the rest of the world seemingly is as well.

News / Polish Pope, John Paul II has been canonized today [with John 23rd] [85]


people either accept that it happened (and continues to happen) or they deny it. we all know what side you're on. it's cool. i'm not singling you out, you're simply part of the millions of others that think and act the same way.

I once watched an HBO documentary about the children in Ireland years ago that were abused by the hundreds by priests. They interviewed them in the documentary, they're full grown now, and their lives are completely ruined because of sexual abuse from catholic priests. It made my stomach hurt just watching it, thinking about how sick someone must be to do such things to innocent children.

Oh, just a quick cut and paste from wikipedia:
Roman Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal in Ireland

The Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Ireland is a major chapter in the worldwide Catholic sexual abuse scandal. Unlike the Catholic sexual abuse scandal in the United States, the scandal in Ireland included cases of high-profile Catholic clerics involved in illicit heterosexual relations as well as widespread physical abuse of children in the Catholic-run childcare network. Starting in the 1990s, a series of criminal cases and Irish government enquiries established that hundreds of priests had abused thousands of children in previous decades. In many cases, the abusing priests were moved to other parishes to avoid embarrassment or a scandal, assisted by senior clergy. By 2010 a number of in-depth judicial reports had been published, but with relatively few prosecutions.

In March 2010, Pope Benedict XVI wrote a pastoral letter of apology to address all of the abuse that was carried out by Catholic clergy.[1]

Hey, thanks for the apology, Benedict.

News / Polish Pope, John Paul II has been canonized today [with John 23rd] [85]

at the risk of sounding completely condescending, i feel terribly sorry for you. we (and when I say "we", I mean everyone sound in mind) are not going to question whether or not these things happened, because they did. we are not going to question whether or not the guilty ones went to prison, because they didn't. we are not going to question fact, fact that YOUR pope has fully and publicly recognized (and apologized for) because that would be psychotic.

if we can't recognize fact, what can we possibly base our discussion on. with that said, I cannot further this conversation if that's going to be the format. disregard for things we know to be true. the true definition of "denial". far beyond naivety.

i will also go on to say that you should be ashamed of yourself for your failure to recognize such awful things those despicable people did.

News / Polish Pope, John Paul II has been canonized today [with John 23rd] [85]

Lolek wrote:

"Given this opportunity I say that you should take interest in gruops where such things are happening on a daily basis like teachers, gays, politicians, military and such. Don't bother your head with an organisation you have no connection to."

But sure, I should concentrate more on "gays" and how we can all help them "pray it outta them" because thousands and thousands of children being molested, an act that in many parts of the world carries the death penalty, is far less of an issue.

Your defense in all this is that because I'm not catholic, because I'm not "connected" to this "organization", I should disregard their actions, no matter how despicable they might be. On the other hand, you're no longer denying it, you're now just telling me,"it's none of your business."

If you ever come across a non catholic parent that has a child that was molested by a priest, I can only hope you say something similar to them. Maybe the inevitable a$$ whoopin' you would soon after receive would knock some sense into you.

People like you contribute to the problem. The ongoing denial of millions allows it to continue to go unpunished.

News / Polish Pope, John Paul II has been canonized today [with John 23rd] [85]


it's reasonable to say, but religion is in a class of its own and most assuredly gets a "pass" like no other.

with all this said, the attack isn't specifically on PJP2, it's a cover up that's been going on longer than any of us have been alive, it's just that we're talking about PJP2, and this was part of his life. being an intricate player in the covering up of thousands and thousands of crimes unspeakable and unthinkable to most. when you think of the catholic faith, it's par for the course, really. think of the old testament and the genocide that "occurred" during those times. imagine an all powerful god that creates a world and a civilization, entirely his design, and then at some point he gets disappointed in everyone's actions......so he murders them all. mothers clutching their children in their homes as the walls catch on fire and they both get baked alive inside a burning inferno. fathers trying to collect his children and save his wife by bringing them to the top of a mountain to save them from drowning, only to then see a 500 foot wave crash down on all of them, his family gets ripped out of his hands, and he, along with his wife and young children, drown to death.

all excusable. in fact, regardless of how terrible of an event that occurred then, or occurs now, it's always chalked up to "god's will", and when something great happens....yeah, he gets the credit for that too. it must be nice to play both sides of the court. kinda like living in the Vatican, waving your hand and "blessing" sick people, being worshiped by millions, only to simultaneously sit idle while thousands upon thousands of children fall victim to what is quite possibly the worst, most disgusting crime of all....sexual child abuse.

i'm not picking on JP2 because so many before him, and now after him have done the same....i'm simply saying that to call him a saint is....well.....i can't think of the word.

News / Polish Pope, John Paul II has been canonized today [with John 23rd] [85]


this statement......man, I don't even know where to begin, man. you're right on par with holocaust deniers.

first and foremost, he wasn't born on a monday and tuesday he became "The Pope". he moved up the ranks like everyone else. the man was 26 years old when he was ordained and after 32 years in the business, he became pope. 32 years. i'd say that's plenty of time to figure out that child abuse is a problem within the RCC. who woulda thunk it....tens of thousands of men, all sworn to never ever touch a woman for the rest of their lives, many of them living together, wearing dresses and funny hats.


yes....please do. pray that he "figures it out" that Jesus Christ, and only Jesus Christ, is "the right way" and if and only if he accepts Jesus Christ as his savior, he will be accepted into heaven. if he could only be more like you and the millions of other Christians that pray to the "right" god and give themselves an opportunity for a life that will go on forever in heaven. as for the jews, muslims, buddhists, or anyone else really for that matter.....well.....sucks for them.