News / POLAND RATED TOP 10 MOST UNDERRATED COUNTRY [13]


Oh now it's up to sixth in the survey. My joke is looking a bit stale!

History / Which countries are Polands friends, which are Polands enemies? [75]

It's obviously true that had Poland not fallen under Soviet domination, her living standards would have been higher, and fewer people would have emigrated to find jobs. However, I am interested in why you think the British in particular, "handed Poland to the Russians on a plate".

Both Roosevelt and Churchill failed to understand the threat that Stalin posed, but from what I have read, Roosevelt was considerably more naïve than Churchill.

History / Which countries are Polands friends, which are Polands enemies? [75]


Was anyone forcibly sent back? On the whole the Brits were very grateful for the Polish contribution during the war and treated well those who remained. My father was one of them.

History / Which countries are Polands friends, which are Polands enemies? [75]

MarcinD -thanks for the detailed reply. I completely agree that the UK was complicit in the betrayal of Poland but I am still not convinced that the US under Roosevelt was not more responsible. Also, as far as I know, the UK was exhausted in terms of both blood and treasure in 1945 and it would have been hard to enforce anything without the cooperation of the US.

From

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalta_Conference:

Churchill alone pushed for free elections in Poland.[8] The British leader pointed out that the UK "could never be content with any solution that did not leave Poland a free and independent state". Stalin pledged to permit free elections in Poland, but forestalled ever honoring his promise.

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Roosevelt, however, maintained his confidence in Stalin, reasoning that Stalin's early priesthood training had "entered into his nature of the way in which a Christian gentleman should behave."

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I just have a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of a man. ... and I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask for nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he won't try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace."

-Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1943

I'm by no means an historian - I get most of my history from Wikipedia as you can tell - but, speaking as Brit, it does seem that Churchill sometimes gets more than his far share of opprobrium.

Travel / Question about the Rynek and City of Wroclaw [15]

Top right - North East corner of rynek, near Starbucks.
The other three are a bit harder!

Life / Recommended ISPs (moving to Gdańsk) [12]

Thanks. Their offer does look good but sadly they don't supply my street. I don't suppose there are any tools for checking who supplies which areas, are there?

Life / Recommended ISPs (moving to Gdańsk) [12]

24 hours? Last time I had a new Sky installation in London, it took 12 weeks!!! It's nice to be moving to the developed world!

Life / Recommended ISPs (moving to Gdańsk) [12]

Thanks for the answers so far. I'm certainly keen to avoid a contract and Plus LTE sounds ideal. I've found the coverage map but it doesn't go down to street level detail. Is there any way of finding out if it's available at my address without buying a dongle and testing it?

Life / Recommended ISPs (moving to Gdańsk) [12]

Wawa_marek: That's a great tool, thanks. It seems like I'm in the LTE zone by about 10 metres! I thinking i'll give it a try.

Travel / What's good to do in Wroclaw Poland? [34]


I'm sooooo tempted ...

Life / Polish dentistry cost - 230 zl for one tooth cavity filling [99]


It's nice of you to say so, but it's not true! I think I just have bad genes in the dental area and spend an awful lot of time at the dentist!

But as far as I know, if you have an abscess, i.e. infection, they do it in two appointments over the course of a week. In the first they do all the drilling and pack the root canal with

antiseptics to kill the remaining bacteria. Then in the second appointment they insert the permanent filling. If it's an elective procedure and there is no infection, I think you can have it done in

one visit, or maybe two over two days.

As far as price is concerned, I think it's very roughly 300 PLN per canal (there can be several per tooth), a bit extra for a specialist endodontist. By way of comparison an endo specialist in London charged me twice that for a five minute consultation, and wanted another 850 quid for the actual treatment.

UK, Ireland / Transfer Money from UK to Poland [36]

Are you converting pounds to zlotys? If so, and you have a bank account in Poland to which you can send the money, you will get a better exchange rate

with an specialist FX broker. Worldfirst.com is the best I've found so far - their rates were the best and there is no transfer fee. (Let me know if you find a better one).

Travel / Has anyone used OLT Express yet? [8]

Yes - they're pretty good. I flew with them from Gdańsk to Wrocław a couple of weeks ago. You get to choose your seat at check-in (which when I flew was at the airport, but I think that was because there was something wrong with their system), pleasant staff, free food and drink and you're not bombarded with continual exhortations to "chillax"

Language / Zjadać Wypijać - I'm confused [7]

Boletus - thanks. I was thinking that the frequentative was a kind of superimperfective, emphasising the both the repetitive and unfinished nature of the action, but it seems from what you are saying

repetition and completion can be separated so that we can have a frequentative perfective for actions that are both repeated and completed?

Language / How similar is the Italian accent to the Polish accent (when speaking English)? [34]

So what do English people speaking Polish sound like to Poles?

Language / Zjadać Wypijać - I'm confused [7]

boletus - that was quite a reading list. I was already aware of Młynarczyk's thesis, and as you say, frequentative forms are outside her scope.

Bacz's paper pretty much turned everything I thought I knew on its head. It entirely escapes me how one can say, for example

"Często po obiedzie usiądziep sobie w fotelu, zapalip fajkę i porozmawiap z wnukami."

I realise this is kind of the point of the paper, but I think I'm a bit out of my depth! Thanks anyway for taking the time to answer my questions - it's much appreciated.

Language / Zjadać Wypijać - I'm confused [7]


Indeed. Proving that the third part of the cut 'n' paste trilogy is ... check!

Travel / Warsaw transport mobile phones app - iPhone/iPad/Nokia and travel apps [15]

This is quite good if you need maps and don't want to pay roaming data charges

itunes.apple.com/gb/app/poland-ukraine-offline-maps/id532061209

History / Interactive map of Poland 960-2004 [43]


The caption titled "1939 III" has

"Przyłączenie Zaolzia i Jaworzyny do Polski"

"Addition of Zaolzie and Jaworzyna to Poland"

Is that what you mean?

History / Interactive map of Poland 960-2004 [43]

But it's not "lying about the opportunistic land grab in Teschen", is it?

History / Interactive map of Poland 960-2004 [43]

Are you saying I should have used "annexation" or that the map maker should have used "aneksja"?

History / Interactive map of Poland 960-2004 [43]

Harry


a) 1939 III is only the title of the caption and presumably represents the state of affairs, not the actual events,
in (March?) 1939. The caption itself reads

"1938 Aneksja Austrii i Sudetów przez Niemcy. Przyłączenie Zaolzia i Jaworzyny do Polski"

b) If you flick between that and the previous map, there is a definite enlargement of Polish territory
where I understand Zaolzie to be. If it's not that, what is it?

Language / "bibshite" Is this is an actual polish phrase and if so what does it mean? [25]

Maybe „witaj/witajcie", roughly pronounced "VEE tie/vee TIE che", which mean the same as "vitam" in InWroclaw's first post. Just a thought.

Language / "bibshite" Is this is an actual polish phrase and if so what does it mean? [25]


Well, joking apart, V and B are easy to confuse. Not really sure about the T sound at the end, that's why I included witajcie as an option.

And it might be the kid, not the teacher who is getting confused.

Food / Jacket potatoes - do Polish people like them? [22]

There's a restaurant in Gdańsk that specialises in them:

barpodryba.pl

Language / Polish Grammar quiz/puzzles: [47]

Ziemowit


I agree. Transitive is as transitive does: it takes a direct object so it is transitive. No amount of irregularity in the verb itself can change that.

However, not all transitive verbs in Polish form passive participles, for example
mieć and woleć, and obejść falls into this category. What is weird is that, as far as I can tell (maybe Emiwis could confirm)
obchodzony, from the imperfective form, seems to exist. Another weirdness is that unikać, uniknąć, to avoid, which take the genitive, and are therefore
intransitive, form the passive participles unikany, uniknięty. See Swan, p. 302: polish.slavic.pitt.edu/grammar.pdf

Classifieds / Language exchange group, Tricity [60]

Could you register on the forum so we could communicate by private message? I don't want to make my phone number public.