(no subject)

[Haraldur]

30% below povery line in Poland? Sounds about right. Considering you are a former communist state.

Everything to do with state should be secular, it is more fair. That is one of the maoin things I hate about the UK.

[Cesque]

Pardon! We weren't communistic STATE! We weren't part of USSR! We were a free country, altrough ruled by communistic leaders in alliance of USSR, which makes our country better the Belorussia, Ukraine and such. Same was for Czechoslovakia, for example.

During communist, people WERE poor, but they weren't presenting the DEN they now present! Now, the "poor" are drinking alcoholics from pathologic families, some time ago being poor wasn't bad, as no one really had money, and those alcoholics were living happy lives working physically... now they are considered a lower class, they fell from their laborer grace, became workless and lost their reputation of people who "build our country". They are human sh*** now, and I must say I understand them.

[Haraldur]

Poland was ruled by a communist party, therefore a communist state. Member of Warsaw pact.Communist does not mean: part of the USSR. It means a state which is totalitarian and things are supposedly shared out equally. Do you mean to say that China is not communist, or are you saying it was part of the USSR?

You were, theoretically, a free country, but it did not seem to make any difference to the USSR. Look at Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic and Slovakia) and the Prague spring. The USSR goes: Hey, this is dangerous. Send in the Tanks!

Notice I said former communist state. All the former communist states are not doing too well. Russia: not good, Ukraine: not good, Belarus: not good, Germany: still has problems woith its eastern half, Romania: not good.

Can you tell me of any former communist countries that are doing well? The only possible one in my opinion is Czech Republic, and that is because yopu never hear about it...

[Cesque]

Wha wha wha? I've never heard about Czech Republic? Czech Republic, yeah, it's doing really well, I love this country. Far better than Poland. At least they build nuclear reactors.

No difference from USSR? Well, pardon, again. We were USSR pawns but it all depends on what president we had. There were actually good presidents during communism (Gomulka, Gierek) but they were later dismissed from the party by the USSR supporting politics. We haven't got public executions, mass-murders, gulags or absolute fight with religion which was better than USSR.

Hmm, sorry, I just thought about the word "state" as in "united states", for example...

Hmmm... Doing well? Cuba? At least it's not as poor as Ukraine. Litve (is that the english word for this country?) also it not worst (compared to others).

Doing well, yeah. This also depends. Who is doing better... Man which has home, work, enough money to survive a cheap car and safety, or a man which has troubles with finances, hates the work which he can lose anytime because cold rules of stock exchange are more powerful than living people, and every moment can get attacked or robbed by bandits?

[Haraldur]

I meant that the USSR treated eastern Europe as part of itself. After Yogoslavia left the Warsaw pact there were more propaganda posters from the USSR critiscising Tito than the USA. Yugoslavia had gone out of line.

When I talked about the Czech republic I think you misunderstood me, I apologise.
I should not use too many English coloquialisms. The "you" meant "one", as in "one never hears about it." Which means that, in the UK at least, you never hear about anything bad or controversial happening in the Czech Republic, whereas we hear quite few things about Poland and Slovakia and Serbia etc.

Cuba, as a communist state, has almost failed. They use more US$s than Pesos.

Litve? I think I can guess what that is, possibly. Is that Lithouania?

[Cesque]

The only thing reminding me after "Lithouana" is "Litania" in Polish which means, well, "litany", a prayer.

It's... let me check... Yeah, Lithouania. What a stupid name, muahahaha!

Several polish country names:

Poland - Polska
Germany - Niemcy
England - Anglia
Spain - Hiszpania
Lithouania - Litwa
Belarus - Bialorus (translated, "white russia")
Russia - Rosja ("rus" in older times)
Latvia - Lotwa
Hungary - Wegry
Switzerland - Szwajcaria
Italy - Wlochy (or "Italia")
Croatia - Chorwacja

(in polish, "w" reads like "v" and "ch" like "h")

[Haraldur]

Thankyou! You have helped me understand a bit of Napoleonic history! I read a book and it said that Napoleons men were frozen to death the most in "white Russia" I now know what it means!

Rus I think was an early Russian word for "Scandinavian" because of the Vikings which settled there.

[Cesque]

Not at all. "Rus" was just a word for early russian tribes, which came from Scandinavians.

It's not Rus but Ruś but you propably can't see the specific polish letters Wink It's a really soft "s".  Laughing

[Haraldur]

I hardly ever see Polish letters. Actually, what type of Alphabet do you use? Russian/Greek type of Latin type?

[Cesque]

We use the regular latin alphabet but have several additional letters (same is for Germans with their U with 2 dots above etc), but in pure polish there are no letters Q, X and V (they exist in non-translated words but there is no pure polish word with these). Q is replaced by "kw" or "ku", X is replaced by "ks" and V is replaced by "w" so there is no need for them...

So where's the W, you ask? Well, for W as it is read in english (like in words Word or World) we have a letter Ł (crossed L).

[Haraldur]

The Icelandic alphabet has no c, q or w, i am not sure about the x.

In addition it has Á Ð É Í Ó Ú Ý Ö Æ Þ.