Language / Polish online slang phrases? [12]

Sometimes I meet ZTCW (z tego co wiem) which means AFAIK.
But most common are acronyms from English like BTW, LOL, ROTFL, IMO, WTF etc.

This is on forums. In instant messaging popular are e.g. z/w (zaraz wracam - brb), ocb (o co biega? - meaning something like: what do you want from me?). And some ones from English too - like thx.

It's easier to meet something taken from English than the Polish one :-)

Law / Can you drive after passing exam or do you have to wait for your license to come ? [3]

No, we have to wait for a document.

Study / Opinion required on teaching standards of Polands technology universities [11]


I can't say much having no comparison to other universities, but in £ódź the TUL (£ódź University of Technology, they are still using this obsolete abbreviation) the "international" departament (IFE) is considered very high level compared to the programmes taught in Polish. It's usually chosen by school students of highest marks from matura. So comparing the unis you shouldn't take into account only the rankings concerning whole universities. Rather try to find something concerning only programs taught in English (however, I've no idea if it's possible to find something like this).


On TUL campus I can see quite often people with the university scarfs. But they are usually... foreigners :) It's just not a feature of Polish students' culture.

Life / Where can I buy a used car / bike in Lodz? [2]

Car exchange every Sunday on Puszkina street, between Przybyszewskiego and Dąbrowskiego. There are used bikes there too.

But I think the cheapest would be to find an offer on the Internet, and buy the car from its owner.

About this cautiousness - you are right. Best would be to have a mechanic you could trust and check the car at him - but I suppose you don't have such opportunities. And check if the car hasn't been stolen (I think the police should be able to check it for you if you give them the VIN number).

Look for cars which didn't have any accidents ("bezwypadkowy") - and neccessarily ask the seller if the car really had no accidents.

What is better - bike or car - it depends. On bike you don't wait in traffic jams, it's fastest for short distances (especially in the centre), but it's hard to use it in winter.

In a car you will probably meet some congestion problems (especially because of big road works in the city centre now - Mickiewicza and Piłsudskiego street is closed for cars) and you will have to pay for parking in the centre, but it's much more comfortable. And it's more difficult to steal it.

Travel / Suggestions for what i should do or see in Lodz? [16]

Be aware that a segment of Piotrkowska Street is now in renovation, so you won't see the Walk of Fame and (on a short segment) you are going to walk between working excavators :) Nevertheless it's still definitely worth to visit.

The suggested online guide looks very good, I can recommend it.

Language / What computer keyboards are in use in Poland? [34]


All Poland uses it. A different situation was in case of typewriters, where we used a layout based on the German one (QWERTZ). Yet in Windows XP Polish-language edition this "typewriter" layout was installed by default apart from the standard one having Polish letters under key combinations with Alt (and if I remember well, in Windows 98 this QWERTZ layout was a default setting!). I think it may be still used by people who've learnt touch typing on typewriter - but usually it's a reason of funny situations if someone switches the layout incidentally (Ctrl+Shift keyboard shortcut in Windows).

If in your country you are using a standard US keyboard, just change the keboard layout into Polish (not Polish 214! - it's this typewriter's one; in older Windows versions the proper one was called "programmer's") . Then you have Polish letters under combinations with right Alt. For example Alt+A -> Ą. The exception is -, where you use Alt+X, as Alt+Z is for Ż. All the Latin alphabet is available normally from the Polish keyboard layout.

Travel / Best mode of transportation from Warsaw to Katowice? [7]

From the airport you may chatch a train or bus (line 175) to the station Warszawa Centralna (main train station in Warsaw).

All the train timetables you will find at: rozklad.sitkol.pl

5:00 PM is not late and there is many trains on this route, I think you will find something for sure.

You can buy ticket on the station without any problem (or even enter the train without ticket, then you just pay 10 PLN more). The cheapest trains are IR and TLK. EIC are more expensive, but also of higher comfort level.

And remember to buy a proper ticket for specific train category, especially in case of IR, which is run by a different company than TLK and EIC.

Language / What computer keyboards are in use in Poland? [34]

Hm... It seems that it's easier to buy one abroad than here in Poland :) I have never seen such one in supermarkets. And I don't know anyone who would use this layout.

The speed of writing is just a matter of experience. For me pressing two keys together doesn't make typing slower, anyway so is also in case of capital letters and it's not a problem.

The version with "oversized" Enter is most popular in Poland, although I meet ones with Enter of "single" height too. There are also differences in Backspace size, sometimes it's of normal "single" width, sometimes it's double (the \| key goes then into different weird places, sometimes it's next to right Shift, which is then smaller) and they are equally common here.

I meant this one:



Because the "oversized" Enter can be also in two versions. This one is most popular in Poland. Which doesn't mean that one cannot meet other British or American ones here.

Travel / Best mode of transportation from Warsaw to Katowice? [7]


For sure it is so in Regio, InterRegio and 2nd class TLK. I am not sure about 1st class of TLK.

Travel / Can anyone tell me how to get to Lwów from Zamość? [3]

As I can see in the Polish part of the Internet - there is no direct bus connection from Zamość to Lwów. The buses from Warsaw and Lublin to Lwów go through Zamość, but they have no stop there. So, going in an opposite direction you may try asking the driver of such a bus if you could leave in Zamość, but in a journey to Lwów it's practically no way to make use of them.

Another option is to get from Zamość to Tomaszów Lubelski and from there to Lwów. There is no problem with the first part, there is plenty of buses on this route. But there may be problems with connection from Tomaszów to Lwów.

Here: they write that a bus from Tomaszów to Lwów goes from Tomaszów at 6:35 a.m. 11:00 a.m. and 1:40 p.m., but I don't know if this info is still valid (this news is from a year before now) - and it is not clear, it might be understood also as 11 a.m. and 1.40 p.m. are departures from Lublin. You may try to call the bus terminal in Tomaszów - 502-371-407 - but I am not sure if they speak English. And it's never certain that the bus to Lwów will go, it must return from Lwów first.

They return bus Lublin - Lviv . Since January abolished exchange carriers were Polish and Ukrainian . Companies do not have the required permits .
After completing the formalities have already returned connection Lublin - Lviv Nikolaev by . Bus leaves from Lublin after 16.00 .
From Saturday to Lviv will be able to go from Tomaszow Lubelski , departure at 6.35 .
Probably the weekend will also ride buses from Lublin to Lviv at 11.00 and 13.40 - Zdzislaw Stelmach announces Tomaszów bus - u.
With bus connections between Lublin and Lviv are mainly used by Ukrainian and Polish students . Since January the only direct connection was through bus from Lodz, Lublin, which was before midnight.

Quite a popular option to get to Lwów from Poland is through Przemyśl, but from Zamość it's a very round way.

From Przemyśl to Lwów there are a few options:

- by train - rarely, expensive (international prices), and long time because the train have to change wheels (in Ukraine they have different track gauge)

- by direct bus - here are some timetables: pks-przemysl.pl/rozklad-jazdy-miedzynarodowy.html - two different on a website of the same company, so I have no idea which one is valid (however, I know that they also sometimes do not go because the bus haven't returned from Lwów yet), but it seems to be the most reasonable way

- by a local bus to the border crossing, then cross the border on foot and catch a Ukrainian local bus to Lwów - they go quite often so it seems to be the most reliable, and the fastest because you don't wait so long on the border crossing

Connections from Zamość to Przemyśl you may find at e-podroznik.pl. Some of them are with a change in Jarosław, maybe there are some connections to Lwów from there...

I have also read about some buses from Tomaszów Lubelski to Rawa Ruska, which are used mainly by smugglers (which go officialy from the coach terminal in Tomaszów, but they are not easy to find them there) - but it was forum posts from 2009 - so this info might be outdated. However, from Rawa Ruska there is plenty of buses to Lwów.

Life / Exam for Drivers License in Poland; English? [99]

The "written" (which is in fact not written, but solved on computer) part of Polish driving exam has an English version, so you don't need an interpreter.

I cannot find any English-language publications on Polish highway code. The Polish version is here:
isap.sejm.gov.pl/DetailsServlet?id=WDU19970980602+2011%2405%2421&min=1 (choose the lower link - D19970602Lj.pdf - it's a consolidated text, so it's fully up to date), you may try to translate it with translators and dictionaries.

Some driving schools have courses in English, you may try contacting them, for example:
kursant.wroclaw.pl/oferta-wiecej-prawo-jazdy-b-po-angielsku.htm (this one is in Wrocław, you should find something in other cities too).

Till 2012 the driving licence theoretical test was based on a constant set of few hundreds of questions, which were available to everyone. Now it's different, there are few thousands of questions and they are secret (and in a vast part connected with short videos), but basing on the old questions' set you may prepare to the new test quite well. So if you found the translation of the old questions' set, it would be also very useful for you. Especially because the test contains also some questions on practical aspects of driving, for which you won't find answers in the highway code.

Language / Word usage - differences between: dowolny / jakikolwiek / żadnych [3]

Dowolny is more formal than jakikolwiek.

:Press any key to continue" as a message on the computer would be translated as "Naciśnij dowolny klawisz aby kontynuować". To another person I would say "Naciśnij jakiś klawisz" ("jakiś" is shorter and consequently more popular, but also less precise). If they then asked "Jaki?", I would answer "Jakikolwiek".

"Żaden" ("żadnych" is a plural genitive) means "none".

Life / MAY 1st - Party time in Poland? What are the traditions? [9]

May 1st and May 3rd are two officially free days in a short period of time, so in connection with a normal weekend they create a "long weekend". The beginning of May is also time when there is already warm and there is often nice weather, so people tend to relax on fresh air. It's just the case.

Another similiar period is in June and it's connected with a church holiday called in Poland Boże Ciało (God's Body - I am not sure if in English the name is the same), which is always on Thursday (specific number of days after the Easter) and it's here also a public holiday.

Travel / Best way to get from Lodz to Warsaw? [48]

In case of trains be careful, because some trains in Warsaw use now Warszawa Gdańska instead Warszawa Centralna station, due to construction works. Check timetables in all cases (Warszawa Śródm. which means Warszawa Śródmieście is practically the same station as Warszawa Centralna).

From the airport to Warszawa Centralna you can get also with the bus 175 (beware of pickpockets).

Travel / Best way to get from Lodz to Warsaw? [48]

A map of the airport is here:
lotnisko-chopina.pl/pl/pasazer/dojazd-i-parkingi/parkingi/lokalizacja-miejsc-parkingowych/mapa-parkingi
As you can see, the bus terminal and the train station are nearby each other.

If you are looking for the timetable
modlinbus.pl/_var/images/rozklad/Lodz_rozklad_jazdy_20140416-0630_v5.pdf

For you important is the green box. "Lotnisko Okęcie" is the Chopin ariport in Warsaw. It's just an alternative name. "o." means odjazd - departure, "p." - przyjazd (arrival). So you need to look at the lower green box.

Unfortunately the bus is at 9:30 a.m., so you will rather not manage to catch it. The next one is 1:20 p.m., so you would have to wait for almost 4 hours. In this time you can be in £ódź by train.

I don't know what day you are flying but for example this Monday there are trains from the airport at 9:47 and 10:35 in the direction of Sulejówek. For you it would be best to leave at Warszawa Zachodnia station and then change into a train to £ódź. The search engine shows IR trains to £ódź fitting (in terms of departure time) to these from the airport. There are also some called TLK. Remember that a ticket for TLK is not valid in IR and vice versa.

It seems that you may use Warszawa Centralna (and Warszawa Śródmieście) station to change the train, but in this case you have less time or even you have to take a later train to £ódź. The best is to see the timetable for the day you need because it is sometimes different for different days.

If you want to use Warszawa Centralna (the advantage is that it is the initial station for some trains to £ódź) and the train from airport stops at Warszawa Śródmieście - these two stations are connected with an underground tunnel. There are very close to each other - one is just designed for local trains, the other one for long-distance ones.

Travel / Driving in Poland, are there any rules at all? [149]


I would say that mostly the latter. In Poland a device called CB radio is quite popular among drivers - not only the professional ones, but in private cars too. It is not dificult for drivers to warn each other about roadside inspections. And not only roadsite, cops do use more sophisticated method too, like following the driver in an unmarked car and registering its speed with a special video camera - but they are still not a problem for the crazy drivers who just MUST overpass everybody. They are still able to recognize even unmarked police cars.

I suppose all these might be because of quite low traffic fines in Poland. And just because it's Poland.

Travel / Driving in Poland, are there any rules at all? [149]


With hairdryers :) Apart from teddy-bears, there are crocodiles too. Generally the drivers' slang is practically a different language. However the cops understand it without any problems for sure.

There are still some enthusiasts of radio connectivity here, but undoubtedly the drivers are the main CB user in Poland. Or rather of one channel - 19.

What is interesting - in Poland it is illegal to use a phone which (or whose receiver) needs to be hold in hand while talking - but using the CB radio, holding the microphone and driving at the same time is fully legal, since CB radio is not considered as a telephone.

As far as this radio brought from France is concerned - in Poland the AM modulation is used on CB, while in the western Europe - as far as I know - it is FM. Maybe it's the case.

Travel / ISIC and travel in Poland [8]

It is not exactly so. The regulations on the discounts in public transport in Poland are inconsistent. The legal act of higher order (an act stated by the parliament) says that all the university students up to 26 years old are entitled to 51% discount. It is not specified that foreign students are excluded from this right. On the other hand, an act of lower order, stated by the Ministry, whose purpose is to specify documents confirming the entitlement to these discounts, specifies as such documents:

* for students in general - a student ID issued by a Polish higher school
* for Polish students studying abroad - a student ID issued by a Polish higher school or the ISIC card with an identity document allowing to confirm the identity and the age

So it in fact limits the rights given by an act of higher order.

I am not a lawyer, but for sure something is wrong with this.

Travel / Best way to get from Lodz to Warsaw? [48]

Yes, you can. Both bus and train. You have choice.

Even at night you have a night bus, which goes every 30 minutes, but the number is different. According to JakDojade.pl - it is the line N32.

Travel / Can i charge my laptop in a Poland's cafe with no charge? [7]


Czy jest tutaj darmowe wifi?

Where wifi pronounced in a Polish way - something like vee-fee.

Travel / Cables on facades of krakow buildings [7]

As for me, they should be somewhere inside the building, for example in the staircase - but maybe it would be problematic to pull them somehow onto the roof. So they are on the facade. And again it is not easy to attatch this cable, since it's quite high. They would need a special crew which can work on heights, or at least they would have to rent a scaffolding.

Travel / DRIVING - CB RADIOS AND THE "PSY" aka - COPS - in Poland [12]

A channel designed for road traffic is 19.

It is used not only to warn about cops (on CB called "miśki", not "psy"), but for example to ask about how to get somewhere, or to ask generally about interruptions on the road, not only cops, but also for example traffic jams.

Be aware that language on CB traffic channel may be not necessarily understandable to a person who don't use it, not to mention a foreigner :) They use words in totally different meaning.

Language / How many tenses can be used for "pojechac" [24]

After this correction it's the best one possible.

News / China-Poland railway - but why Łódź? [8]

£ódź - maybe because of a huge railway cargo terminal, £ódź Olechów - one of the biggests in Poland: goo.gl/maps/UNn2M

And because of a central location of £ódź in Poland.

A track gauge in Russia and in Poland is different (apart from one one-track cargo line in southern Poland, so called LHS, which lays hundreds of kilometers south from £ódź: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PKP_rail_line_65). The train must change it on the Russia-Poland border. As far as I remember, in Russia it is 1520 mm, while in Poland (and in western Europe) 1435 mm.

Speaking about Polish-Russia border, I meant of course the border between Poland and countries of former Soviet Union, in this case probably Belarus. Sorry for this simplification.

And answering the question what is carried - I may mention this article: kurierkolejowy.eu/aktualnosci/18856/Pierwszy-pociag-z-Lodzi-do-Chin-ruszy-w-kwietniu.html


In short - form £ódź to China: mainly paper from somewhere out of Poland and safety razors produced in £ódź (Gilette factory). From China to Poland - car parts, clothes, electronics, commercial materials and shoes. 80% of incoming goods stays in Poland, the other part goes mainly to Germany, France and Czech Republic, but also to Slovakia and Hungary.

And I don't suppose it to be able to change the economy of the £ódź region in the following years. Nowadays the city of £ódź suffers from big social problems caused by the collapse of the textille industry in 1990s, which dominated in this city (in fact, thanks to this industry the city appeared and grew up in 19. century). And being a terminal of one train from China, while still most of goods comes by sea, won't change it.

On the other hand even without this train from China the region of £ódź (especially the area nearby the Stryków town) is alredy becoming an important logistics centre due to the location in the centre of Poland, nearby the newly-built intersection of the main highways in Poland: north-south (A1) and west-east (A2).

Sorry for so many posts, but after some time I cannot edit the previous posts any more even if I come up with something more.

Language / How can I understand when the instrumental or the accusative case should be used? [5]


First of all, "ja" is definitely not needed and sounds strange in this place. It can and should be omitted.

And after "kładę" there should be a name of something which is being put, otherwise the sentence is still very strange :)

For example "Kładę torbę między przednim a tylnym siedzeniem". "Kładę torbę między przednie a tylne siedzenie" means exactly the same, and it even sounds more natural (although in official language I would rather see the first version). So it seems that you are right.


Where do you have all this stuff from? It seems to be not a very good source of knowledge.


Again - what is this "ja" for, and kładę what? What's more, it's rather hard to put something under somebody's feet, unless this person is leviatating :) There is an idiom "kłaść komuś kłody pod nogi" - literally "to put logs under somebody's legs/feet", meaning something like "to make problems to somebody intending to prevent this person from succeeding in what he does". Maybe it's the case.

OK would be e.g. "Kładę torbę przed twoimi stopami". "Twoimi" (and similiar words) is capitalised only in letters, only for the person to which the letter is going to be sent, and this sentence is rather unlikely to appear in a letter :) In this case "Kładę torbę przed twoje stopy" sounds rather rude (but all this sentence is still strange and a bit rude, in what a situation could it be used?). And I think it might be difficult a bit for foreigner to feel it, so maybe in this case narzędnik is just safer.


Not towards the space above Vistula river ("nad Wisłę" would be OK only in that case), but just above the river, in one place, so there is no motion.


It means exactly: "When I am walking in front of my ex-husband.". As you can see, it's not a whole sentence :) And "Idę przed swojego byłego" would mean "I am going towards the place in front of my ex-husband", however strange it sounds (the original sentence is also very strange, I can't see any point in walking in front of your ex-husband).


Is it from a computer translator? If "praca" is the building where somebody works/is employed there (I can't invent any other rational meaning of this sentence), it means "I am walking in front of this building" (I am there). "Idę przed pracę" - "I am walking to the place in front of this building" (I'm not there yet).

I hope it could you understand this difference :) And I think you had better change the materials for learning Polish :)

Law / Is it safe and legal to use torrents / downloads in Poland? [29]

Torrent works in such a way that you have to share to other downloaders (and it's done automatically) all the part of the file that you have already downloaded. Therefore downloading copyright-protected files via torrent is illegal in Poland.

Language / What are the correct terms for "flower girl" and "ring bearer" in Polish? [8]

"Nosiciel obrączki" would be a person who has a ring on their finger.

Travel / Fastest way to get from Warsaw Airport to Lodz central on Monday at noon. [42]

Maybe more convenient interface has: rozklad.sitkol.pl/bin/query.exe/en?

Tip: You have to type the name of the city of £ódź correctly, with diacritics. You may copy it from here and paste there.

The best connection by trains would be:



On the "Koleje Mazowieckie" bus you buy one ticket for the bus and the train to Warsaw for 15 PLN. Both trains stop on the three main stations in Warsaw, but in Warszawa Centralna (the very main station in Warsaw) the train to £ódź (which goes in fact to Jelenia Góra through £ódź) stays for 40 minutes, so you can buy a ticket to £ódź there in ticket office without any hurry and you can quickly board the train without waiting on the platform for a long time.

The most convenient means of transport would be this bus: modlinbus.com (100% direct from the airport to £ódź) - but the webpage says that the tickets for Tuesday 22:15 are sold out (the message "Brak miejsc" displayed in Polish).

Life / Watching a movie in cinema (Łodź), without Polish dubbing? [9]

Practically each bigger cinema gives such an opportunity, or rather was giving it when the movie had just come out. Now it's rather impossible, it's seems to be played by only one cinema in £ódź, only in a dubbed version (which is IMO quite sensible in case of this picture, which is also watched by children that cannot read yet). As the film was new, it was possible to watch it in diffrent version: with dubbing and subtitles; 2D, 3D and IMAX. Now there's only 3D (not IMAX) dubbed available.

Either wait for DVD edition and watch it on DVD (where you can choose the version that you want), or watch another movie in cinema. No other options in £ódź.

According to here: cojestgrane.pl/polska/lodzkie/lodz/wydarzenie/2jb6/straznicy-galaktyki/bylo the subtitles version was played by Cinema City (IMAX) till September 18th, by Bałtyk till September 4th and by Silver Screen till September 11th (2D version). You're late by 1 month.

Life / Watching a movie in cinema (Łodź), without Polish dubbing? [9]

Yes, you're right, but in this case this period has finished.

After few months films sometimes appear in small town cinemas. But not many of these cinemas still exist. And this rule worked till, I think, 2 years ago. Most of such (still existing) cinemas has been modernised to digital distribution (since many of new films don't appear in analog version for cinemas) and now they get films together with big ones (they no longer use second-hand film tapes, but digital copies).