Polish Thoughts on Britain and the British

Hello to eveyone on this forum. I see loads of topics have been covered but wanted to know what everyone thought about this:

A project is being started by a British organisation to get the thoughts of Polish people about their experiences in Britain and how they feel they are treated by the British people.
General opinion seems to be that the migration of Poles to the UK has been positive for both countries. What the study wants to understand is whether the increased knowledge of and interaction with British society will lead to Polish people having a changed view of the British (whether it is more positive or negative) and have your stereotypes been confirmed. Is Britain conservative, dull, unwelcoming and traditional or exciting, multicultural, modern and dynamic? If you decide to go back to Poland, do you think you will take back any British values with you?
I'd be really interested in getting everyones opinions about this. Be as negative or as kind as possible, all i want to hear is the truth.
Thanks so much

Hi,

I can only say sth form the teacher of Polish as a second language in Warsaw.
All of my British students are ambitious, hard-working and smart.
My favourite students are from Scotland.
Maybe I was just lucky, but they were great so far.
Open-minded, with a great sense of humour, not thinking stereotypicaly about Poles.
Willing to mix with Polish folks here in Warsaw.
English students are more reserved. I don't know why (?)
Irish students are funny and very ambitious as well.

from the perspective of the teacher etc.- you know what i mean...

My thoughts are positive. After being in Britain I dont think that english are phlegmatic, drink tee at 5 pm and so.... But for me British too much underline that their are english, welsch, irish and so... If they sent foodball team to World Cup it is english team, why not british? Might be I am not able to understand their thoughts like they cannot understand ours.

They are English since, Ireland, Scotland and Wales would send a team, the United Kindom is made up of England Ireland Scotland and Wales, we all have our own identities yet as a collective we are British - Great Britain, United Kingdom etc. - I hope this helps and Im glad that you dont think we drink tea at 5pm since we are in the pub

thats an interesting observation... i find that there are fundamental differences between me and my polish friends in the way we think... this can be on a very superficial level... and also much deeper... i would be interested to hear your thoughts as a pole in the uk...

thanks very much maati, that's a great starting point and excellent to get the perspective of thoughts on the British in Poland.
Lots of people think that people from abroad are not able to make distinctions between English, Welsh, Scottish etc but it is very interesting that this is what you immediately notice. do you think most British people have a set idea of Poles that they find difficult to overcome? I've always thought that Polish people would have much more detailed ideas about Britain than perhaps we would of Poland. What are the Polish stereotypes of British people. I have always wondered if people abroad have different ideas about British people in the UK and the British when on holiday? I have always found that Spanish, Greek thoughts about the British are often negative because of people's behaviour in their countries (get drunk, fight etc)
Do you have friends who have moved to Britain and do you think they would say the same sort of things to you?

If being in Britain has taught you about what the British are not - i.e. eating cucumber sandwiches then do you have an idea what being British now is? I think what you mention is really interesting as all the recent reports in Britain are saying that young people in Britain see themselves as English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland because they don't know what British means!
It is something that politicians seem to be very worried about. That is why I am interested in Polish thoughts, as your views may help draw the picture for us a bit better.

When I was in Britain they were suprised when I told their that Poland is also divided, we have Kaszuby, Mazury, ślązk and so on.... and all of them say that their are polish, not Mazovian, Silesian and so on... Poland is more solid. And maybe because they were united not taken by force. So we are different.

good point but the uk is divided in different ways... england, scotland, wales are all seperate countries which are then sub-divided like the example you have given for poland... england has many counties for example...

yes!! It is complicated!!

I think that Poland is much less divided than Uk.

I also noticed it that English, Welsh, Scottish.....are a bit like 3 different nations.

My experience in Uk is positive , people are in general friendly but I agree with Maati that English seem to be more reserved that Scottish or Irish. I don't know why maybe it is culture thing.

There are some differences in in our cultures referring to : religion....family relation ...even our attitude to death is different.

We are three different nationalities English, Welsh and Scottish, yes we all have British Passports but we are in no way alike, three separate countries on one Island

Hence the division, in Wales they speak Welsh and in Scottland well they have their own language Scottland have their own Parliament separate from the English one.

We also have regions

Lancashire
Yorkshire
North East
Cumbria
ect..

What about the Cornish, Kernow has it's own language as well

If you are going to talk about language. Think about this. Northumberland existed as a kingdom before England. What is thought by many to be a dialect is in fact a language. Original English. The first word in the first dictionary is Keel, a Geordie word for boat. You can all check these facts if you so wish. The English should be speaking Geordie.

More strange but true from Wroclaw.

i agree to an extent but only about 20% of the Welsh are actually able to speak it as a language and turnout for referndums on devolution was extremely low.

I wonder how much the points of difference between the countries are mainly saved for big sporting occasions to wind each other up. I think that we are very much alike and i wouldn't be able to mention many things that are significantly different culturally between us.

iwona, how are our attitudes to death different and is it linked to religious beliefs?

it seems people have multiple identities that comfortably co-exist. Are POles for example beginning to see themselves as Polish-European?

Tell one of your tribes to stop wearing femel clothes and everything should be OK.

No idea what you are talking about, maybe you mean tartan

The point I made about the difference countries - is we are not divided as a nation the simple fact is we are three countries living on one island and we do have our differences

As follows:-

Difference languages / dioletcs

Difference attitutes

Difference in culture - food etc.

And yes the sport thing is probably correct, but also Scottish and Welsh people want to keep their own identities - they are proud of who they are and are mighty offended if called English....trust I know...

Polish are European since they come from Europe, so I dont really understand what you mean by that....

England is a strange place with many difference diolects...

As Mr W pointed out the Geordie was one of the first diolects...

Check the threads. There is in fact a Polish Tartan. Red, white and blue.

the Cornish language known as as Kernewek, is a brythonic Celtic language and not a dialect. don't ever go to Cornwall and tell them they're English. Cornwall has it's own National Anthem, as well as it's own language

Yeah, sorry Amathyst, think i could have phrased it much more clearly. I meant to imply that now Poland is a member of the EU if people are starting to integrate this new level of "Europeanness" into their "Polishness". The reason i ask is that i am just reading a report saying that 34% of Poles see themselves as exclusively Polish, 23% as very much more Polish than European and 23% see themselves as equally Polish and European.

The British are now European too, but our affiliation to it remains minimal.

In Poland it seems that amongst young people this dual sense of identity is emerging rather than something purely national.

Hope this is a bit clearer

eh, Ireland is in two parts, Northern (british & irish passports) and the Republic of Ireland (south) nothing to do with the United Kingdom.

Considering over 700 years trying to gain independance from tyrannical rule seems only fair to keep the distinction. Today i say, go EU!!!

I hope that the idea of being european citizens is a growing one! though we are all incredibly different on cultural levels, we do share alot of idealogys....my impression anyway

I saw up mainly views only british people. Where do you come from guys? Not from Poland !



A. in Poland we have different:
dioletcs (even languages i.g. Kaszubski - I am nopt able to understand this language)

attitues (look at polish highlanders)

culture - different folk clothes, food (oscypek only in mountains, pyzy wielkopolska and so on)

diffrences are not barrier for as to be united

I have good opinion about british people. I spent there one great year. I didn't like only one english man who thought that he was better than god, or sth. But he was only one who I did't like.
stereotypes are only stereotypes, and usually are wrong.

It depends on the cause.

What do you mean??

Political issues etc.

Don't get me wrong. I see a great deal of national pride when it comes to, for example, our sports stars when they do well.