News / Polish MP lives as a migrant in London earning £100 [21]


Yet you totally disregard the net benefits these low wage workers have on the economy and on keeping the costs below their market value...


So it appears that the inhabitants native to the Americas are reclaiming they lands back...


And EVERY Mexican migrant I know in the US has a job and works very hard without being on welfare.

News / Poland to withdraw from Visegrad defence radar project [10]


More beating in the war drum? I wonder who benefits more from this anti-Russian hysteria other than the military-industrial complex...

Genealogy / My Grandfather was born in Poland and migrated abroad - Can I get a Polish Passport? [68]


I think you are barking at the wrong tree here. (BTW: Were the first settlers ever 'legal'?) And how exactly are you paying for them? You do realise that the illegal workforce's wages are only a fraction of the costs the American society would otherwise have to shell out for legitimate wages and their derivatives? Really, you should be thankful to all those hard working mostly Latinos doing the backbreaking work in the fields, slaughterhouses, etc - thanks to their exploitation YOUR EXPENSES basically on EVERYTHING related are only say 50% of what they otherwise would have been. And if a fraction of them happens to be drug/human trafficking gangsters? Well, remember the simple laws of supply-demand, ie where are the users of those illegal drugs/prostitutes?

Life / Not possible to find a Hardware/DIY store near Mokotów, Warszawa? (Warsaw district) [10]

Seems like you enjoy creating work for yourself... Have you tried asking your neighbour/local store/etc in the first place? Some local places would be too small/old fashion to pay to advertise on google.

Life / Children's pocket money rate in Poland. [10]

Not more than 5PLN

UK, Ireland / British products in Warsaw [32]


Which section are they to be found in?

Food / Where is the best place to buy cheap wine in Poland? [5]

Try any large supermarket chain such as: Biedronka/Lidl/Aldi/Auchan, etc

History / Whom do the people in Poland hate more: Germans or Russians? [869]


Times are always a changing - time to move on folks instead of dwelling on the past needlessly. Even the title of this post is disturbing, to say the least...

To Mod: I say it's time to close this thread - don't you agree?

Genealogy / Do I look Polish? (my picture) [375]

If you said you were from Russia, Hungary, Romania I'd also believe you...

Travel / Best/Cheap Transportation from Gdansk to Vilnius? [9]

That's a great site, Monitor!
So if you took the 16:45 coach to Suwałki (note there's also another coach in the AM at 6:40), it gets you there 0:20, then at 1:15 you've got the connection to Vilnus (4:45).

Travel / Best/Cheap Transportation from Gdansk to Vilnius? [9]

Not the easiest of routes; perhaps PKS to Suwałki pkssuwalki.pl/0,1,848.html?locale=pl_PL

, spend the night there, and and there should be daily connections from Suwałki to Wilno - can't find it at the moment. Other than that I suggest going via Warsaw.

Life / Why are Polish so conservative and religious? [240]


And I'd say you're guilty of stereotyping and pigeon-holing. Believe me, boondocks in the western parts (post-German & former PGR lands) are today probably worse that those in Lubelskie, Rzeszowskie, Podlaskie... I'd say the most underprivileged/conservative areas today are in the south, in the mountains...

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

Those are quite good - hopefully it isn't long before the equivalents are aired in PL.

Intoxication, alcohol or other (let's not forget other substances both legal and illicit), is obviously a big problem. Still, drink driving accounts for "only" 8% of all road fatalities - thus the remainder of road murderers must be sober. Quite shocking if you pause here for a few seconds, isn't it? Speeding drivers have been the single worst killer for years and account for ~30% of the fatalities. I think this important statistic is somehow missed in the media coverage, as all of the attention is given exclusively to drunk killers, whereas the fact of the matter is that drunk drivers are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

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

And a massive problem it remains, no one sane will deny that and I only wish there was more done to both make drivers/general public aware of the magnitude of this national tragedy and to eradicate idiot road behaviour. On a positive note, there has been a promising decrease in 2011-12, let's wait for the 2013 stats to come out - I'd expect that trend to continue over the coming years.

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


It is certainly up there, but not not the highest any longer - do your homework and look up latest stats before posting: now 3rd worst for 2012 (with a 15% decrease year to year)

https://polishforums.com/news/poland-dangerous-roads-europe-69248/

Work / Teaching at a Polish University - PHD required? or being a foreigner enough ;) [45]

And that's the biggest gripe in PL - no tax free allowance, therefore even minimum pay is taxed.

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

smurf, thanks for sharing these facts... btw my critical (not abusive) post was also removed.

Work / Job offer from IT Giant in Katowice, Poland (UNIX specialist). Information on tax and rental costs needed. [65]

I don't want to dwell on this topic longer that necessary, but is it just me or is Dom's view overly pessimistic? Here's why I think so:

- First of all, it's not as if the OP has got any of those offers from 'richer' WEU countries, so until he has that problem, saying that he could make 'x' more elsewhere remains strictly a hypothetical exercise. The salary on offer here seems well above both the national average and the industry in PL, no questions about that. He can move on to greener pastures form there whenever he wishes.

- Despite all the shortcomings, technical education in PL, and especially in IT, still does carry positive connotation in EU, so Polish IT alumni do tend have a good reputation among those 'in the know' wherever. I've recently spoken to an Indian IT and economics alumni who studied in both India and PL and it was his strong conviction that the quality/level was definitely higher in PL. I can also speak for alumni of the medical programmes (taught both in English and Polish) who are now successfully practising medicine in the US, Canada, UK.

- Let's take a hypothetical situation: you are a potential WEU employer in the IT sector who has two candidates with nearly identical qualifications, except one is living and working in India, and the other one is in the EU. Which one would they rather make an offer? And which one would you say has more leverage when it came down to negotiating a higher salary?

Just some points to consider. Obviously PL has a long way ahead in order to catch up to the salary levels of WEU (the average is currently at about... 2/3 of EU?), and there exist greener pastures elsewhere, but to automatically discard such offer in the absence of any others would be a bit harsh to say the least.

Work / Job offer from IT Giant in Katowice, Poland (UNIX specialist). Information on tax and rental costs needed. [65]


OK, but you are still comparing apples to oranges... for such comparison to make sense, you need to factor in your expenses...

Life / Being a Jew in modern-day Poland; Israeli Jew who is of Polish descent [269]


Well, unlike people of your sort, I have the courage to face up to the problem instead of looking away or pretending there's no problem.


It sure does. I also see very little real tolerance for other religions. Too often it is along the lines: we (the RCC) are the only one true and real church, we own the monopoly on being always right in moral and religions matters, while everyone else, while 'tolerated' (i.e. not openly criticised), is by default assumed to be morally less important and less right... I never quite understood why, but such condescendingness is not only irritating, it is plain wrong.


Yet you would be surprised how many of the religious zealots/anti-Semites do not know that Jesus was a Jew himself...

Life / Being a Jew in modern-day Poland; Israeli Jew who is of Polish descent [269]

If I can speak from my experiences with Polish-Americans here, especially of the 50+ group, unfortunately, while not actively anti-Semitic, many do harbour anti-Jewish sentiment and subscribe to the


. What's also worrying is that, very often, these same people are at the same time very religious and supporter the RCC's involvement in the public sphere.

Life / Being a Jew in modern-day Poland; Israeli Jew who is of Polish descent [269]

I think that in PL a much bigger challenge than racism and anti-Semitism is RCC's omnipotent influence and dominance in the public sphere - no separation of Church and State in practice...

Life / Social Progress Index - Poland scores better than USA in few points. [4]

Another encouraging fact: in a recent freedom of the press ranking, Poland [19] has been ranked ahead of both the UK [33] and US [46], and just below Canada [18], and Ireland [16]:

USA, Canada / Moving from United Kingdom to USA. Is it worth it? [136]

There remain valid reasons why, despite


you do not find hordes of Germans, French, Danes, Finns, Swedes etc. immigrating to the US....

Life / Being a Jew in modern-day Poland; Israeli Jew who is of Polish descent [269]


Judging from a western perspective, Poland still remains under very heavy RCC's (Roman Catholic Church) spell not only in personal lives, but also in politics/government (should be secular by law). This is especially noticeable in smaller cities/towns, not to mention villages, and RCC is most often the 'one and only righteous' moral voice, and other views or religions (even Christian) are not well digested...

Language / Polish regional accents? [141]

not quite; hint: it's in the word "WYPORZYCZALNIA"

USA, Canada / Employment prospects in Poland and USA with a Computer Science Degree from a Polish university? [18]

Agreed. As for job prospects in IT, I think it would be very tough to beat the US.


Not necessarily so, at least not in my field with experience in both countries, where there are many foreign graduates from all over the world.


Agreed. In the US especially, it is more along the lines of what you have to offer rather than where you've graduated from...


How long since you graduated? Believe me, times have changed...

There's a Polish IT alumnus with a series of videos on youtube who currently studies/work at a US university, and although he answers a lot of the questions about Poles wanting to study in the US, I think that you may still find it useful (it's in Polish):

Language / Polish regional accents? [141]

You are correct - that is the Wielkopolski variation

Language / Polish regional accents? [141]


I quite like that feature, actually... sounds more polite than the norm (Co Panu podaaać?)


You do not really find it a lot in the cities - not nearly as much as in smallish towns and proper villages for sure. And I think that would be more of a Belarusian influence there rather than Russian, and in the NE corner (Suwalszczyzna) there's more of a Lithuanian influence. In the SE (Lubelskie, Podkarpackie) it is more of a Ukrainian influence, and this 'Russian sounding' slant is also very common in Warmia & Mazury (see Mazurzenie)...

I don't really mind the regional accents, but I find the use of 'Russian sounding' sentence structure awkward in Polish (Dokąd jedzie? v Dokąd jedziesz/pan jedzie? Daj dla Radka v Daj Radkowi.)


Unfortunately, the level of Polish in Greenpoint (but also other parts of NYC and probably the whole of the country) is abysmal in general. Many people sound as if they are either utterly lacking basic learning or taken straight out of deep villages circa 1964... I think one would actually struggle to find many speaking such poor Polish in Poland today. I recently took a picture of a 'Polish agency' in Queens with a blatant misspelling on the overhead sign banner in the store front (also a good challenge to those learning Polish, see if you can spot it):

• 
  Polska Agencja, Queens, NYC
  

Language / Polish regional accents? [141]

In the Wielkopolski variation, the most striking features are the singing-like tone increase, typically at the end of the sentence, combined with elongated last syllable (Dokąd pójdziemyyy?), substituting 'cz' for 'trz' as in 3 (czy), 30 (czydzieści), 300 (czysta), and of of course using 'tej' for ty, 'pyra' for potato, and many more...