Alex Callinicos/SWP vs Laurie Penny/New Statesman Facebook handbags

[Trealover]

TBF, if Owen Jones thinks Slug O'Neill is "one of the worst people on earth", he's shockingly fucking naive. O'Neill is a cunt, but he's hardly up there with the Assad dynasty, for example!

I think he probably didn't mean it literally.

Anyway, he's right. At least the Assad dynasty gets things done and isn't just a waffling talking shop.

 

[_angel_]

Whatever anybody says, it seems strange to be teaching English to Poles in Poland and yet you can't even ask for a pint of milk in a Polish shop (or sklep, as they say over there.)

I'd want to know a bit of the language if I was going to be living there.

I have heard Polish is insanely difficult to learn.

Don't the Polish learn English at school anyway? They all seem very fluent.

 

[love detective]

I've been learning Polish the last few years, it's difficult but not as hard as it looks once you've got a foot in the door so to speak

 

[Trealover]

I'd want to know a bit of the language if I was going to be living there.

I have heard Polish is insanely difficult to learn.

Don't the Polish learn English at school anyway? They all seem very fluent.

They didn't twenty years ago. Not on a widespread scale. Russian instead but few wanted to use it.

Polish is a difficult language to learn, yes.

 

[Trealover]

I've been learning Polish the last few years, it's difficult but not as hard as it looks once you've got a foot in the door so to speak

The grammar's horrific.

 

[love detective]

it is, but even that isn't as bad as you think once you get going with it, frustrating as fuck initially though

 

[Frances Lengel]

Whatever anybody says, it seems strange to be teaching English to Poles in Poland and yet you can't even ask for a pint of milk in a Polish shop (or sklep, as they say over there.)

I've seen loads of Polski skleps, but there's a Polski Slonko not far from me. What's a slonko?

 

[Trealover]

I've seen loads of Polski skleps, but there's a Polski Slonko not far from me. What's a slonko?

Don't remember but it sounds fucking horrible.

 

[Trealover]

it is, but even that isn't as bad as you think once you get going with it, frustrating as fuck initially though

I'm a feckless twat though.

 

[chilango]

I've been learning Polish the last few years, it's difficult but not as hard as it looks once you've got a foot in the door so to speak

I learnt Russian for a bit a few years back and once you'd go your head around Cyrillic it was pretty logical. Related enough to Polish for me to pick up enough words to be polite at my local Polish bakery.

 

[J Ed]

TBF, if Owen Jones thinks Slug O'Neill is "one of the worst people on earth", he's shockingly fucking naive. O'Neill is a cunt, but he's hardly up there with the Assad dynasty, for example!

Sure, although I think you could make an argument that if O'Neill was in power implementing his ideas then he might be even worse...

I'm also unconvinced of the unique evilness of the Assad dynasty as awful as it is, Syria is just doing what Anglo-US ally Bahrain did but Bahrain doesn't need to murder and rape on quite the same scale because their rebels aren't being backed by a superpower and the superpower's proxies.

 

[Trealover]

I learnt Russian for a bit a few years back and once you'd go your head around Cyrillic it was pretty logical. Related enough to Polish for me to pick up enough words to be polite at my local Polish bakery.

Kurva! That's all you need.

 

[love detective]

I've seen loads of Polski skleps, but there's a Polski Slonko not far from me. What's a slonko?

Słonko is a diminutive form of the polish word for sun (słońce) so something like little sun - it's usually used as a term of endearment

 

[_angel_]

it is, but even that isn't as bad as you think once you get going with it, frustrating as fuck initially though

I'd have to be under imminent visit there to even bother trying. I'm so lazy.

 

[Frances Lengel]

Ta.

E2a - That was to LD btw.

 

[love detective]

I learnt Russian for a bit a few years back and once you'd go your head around Cyrillic it was pretty logical. Related enough to Polish for me to pick up enough words to be polite at my local Polish bakery.

yeah, it's surprising how often they are the same once you've 'translated' the cyrillic word into latin letters - the russian and polish are quite similar

 

[Trealover]

Słonko is a diminutive form of the polish word for sun (słońce) so something like little sun - it's usually used as a term of endearment

How did you get the l with a line through it?

The very thing that makes everybody call it Lodz instead of woodzh (approx.)

 

[love detective]

How did you get the l with a line through it?

The very thing that makes everybody call it Lodz instead of woodzh (approx.)

Łódź is wooj!

i've got all the letters here (just flip the keyboard setup from english to polish pro)

 

[Trealover]

Łódź is wooj!

i've got all the letters here (just flip the keyboard setup from english to polish pro)

I'm not that much of a technical wizard. I can just about manage to boot the computer up.

 

[goldenecitrone]

I know Slovak, pretty similar to Polish. Jeden, dva, tri, schtiri, petch, shest, sedyem, osem, etc...

Ist do picy, stary kokot. Always learn the swear words first.

 

[Trealover]

I know Slovak, pretty similar to Polish. Jeden, dva, tri, schtiri, petch, shest, sedyem, osem, etc...

Ist do picy, stary kokot. Always learn the swear words first.

All the Slav languages are, to one degree or another, similar, with loads of words in common.

 

[fractionMan]

I think you have to rely on the pupils knowing almost as much English as you, but try to fool them into believing that you know what you're talking about.

I took several classes from almost zero english to simple conversation within a year and never spoke a word of the native tongue. It's better if you don't tbh, I banned it in the classroom.

 

[_angel_]

I'm not that much of a technical wizard. I can just about manage to boot the computer up.

And yet you're here!!!

 

[fractionMan]

Whatever anybody says, it seems strange to be teaching English to Poles in Poland and yet you can't even ask for a pint of milk in a Polish shop (or sklep, as they say over there.)

using the language outside the classroom is different, obv.

 

[love detective]

I know Slovak, pretty similar to Polish. Jeden, dva, tri, schtiri, petch, shest, sedyem, osem, etc...

yep, although some of them are spelt quite differently (schtiri in slovak, cztery in polish for example) phonetically they are pretty much exactly the same

 

[Trealover]

I took several classes from almost zero english to simple conversation within a year and never spoke a word of the native tongue. It's better if you don't tbh, I banned it in the classroom.

I suppose it rules out having beginners in the class then?

 

[love detective]

And yet you're here!!!

you can't keep a good man down indeed

 

[fractionMan]

I suppose it rules out having beginners in the class then?

They were absolute beginners. Some of them knew things like 'hello' and that was it.

 

[Trealover]

yep, although some of them are spelt quite differently (schtiri in slovak, cztery in polish for example) phonetically they are pretty much exactly the same

As it happened, there was a Polish couple sat quite close to me in the pub on Friday night. I listened in for a bit and then thought, 'Well, I've had a go, I didn't understand any of it, but I'm really up for getting pissed.'

 

[Belushi]

They didn't twenty years ago. Not on a widespread scale. Russian instead but few wanted to use it.

Yes, I remember a Polish friend telling me that it had been a point of pride at school to be really crap at Russian.

German was the other language they were taught iirc.