Originally written by Liliana Boladz-Nekipelov on May 5, 2009 3:24 PM Which dictionaries did you mean

Various kinds, both monolinguals and bilinguals.

Do they have any good legal dictionaries, Polish-English

I didn`t look for legal, so I can`t tell you, I`m afraid...

The dictionaries are cheap, because the Polish zloty is low right now, I think.

No, I wouldn`t say so. You see, I bought some fiction, too, and I compared the prices.

So, you went on a trip to Poland. Did you enjoy it? Any good books there, fiction? I hope you had a nice time.

Originally written by Liliana Boladz-Nekipelov on May 5, 2009 3:41 PM So, you went on a trip to Poland. Did you enjoy it? Any good books there, fiction? I hope you had a nice time.

Thanks!

I did, hunting for books. I did enjoy it (the books, first and foremost) and I did not, because - drat it! - my spoken Polish seems to get worse with every visit, not better! And yes, there are books worth reading, dictionaries included. I didn`t find everything I wanted, but I hope I shall, sometime. Right now, I`m at the pile I have brought home and I don`t know which one is to be read first...

And none of the dictionaries I bought today would yeld the word I need...

Don't worry, my Polish sounds strange too when I talk to my cousine who is only ten years younger but has always lived in Poland, although I consider it absolutely perfect.

I am saying: wysylam ci e-mail i clips, a on mowi dziekuje za meile i filmiki.

Well, doesn`t really matter, I suppose. What matters is How and Oh My How can dictionaries be cheap!?!

Hi, Dodo,

I am glad your second book hunting trip to Poland was not bad! Liliana gave you one answer: Polish zloty is low. To the point that they are now talking about delaying Poland's entry into the euro zone, originally scheduled for 2012. But with markets you often have to say the opposite of what you are going to do to stave off speculators' attacks...

Anyway, I am looking at the best Polish<>English dictionary on the market: http://ksiegarnia.pwn.pl/?module=lista&widok=full&co=polish-english+dictionary&kategoria=73&.x=22&.y=10. Bearing in mind that the average gross monthly salary in Poland is PLN 3,300 (EUR 730) and assuming, just for the sake of comparison, that an analogous salary in Western Europe is EUR 3,300, would you say that it is, oh, so cheap for two big hard cover dictionary volumes to cost 330-380 (of whichever currency, 100-119 for soft cover) and one of them 169-189? I don't think so. I said "of whichever currency" because it is logical that with a monthly salary equal to 3,300 of whichever currency, a dictionary will cost 330-380 of that currency. I don't think PLN 330-380 is cheap for a Pole, just as I don't think EUR 330-380 is cheap for a Western European. It is only when foreigners come to Poland and for each euro they get as many as 4.5 zlotys that their purchasing power is suddenly 4.5 times higher here, considering that nominally price tags may be similar.

As for Markowski's monolingual http://alejka.pl/wielki-slownik-poprawnej-polszczyzny-pwn-cd.html, I don't know why that volume costs less than a half of the abovementioned Polish<>English dictionary (PLN 70). Maybe because it's more costly to produce 500,000 bilingual entries than 30,000 monolingual ones?

Hi Jacek,

and thanks for the explanation. But matter is, I paid 30 zlotych for the Markowsky monolingual, 2 volumes, and even less for a 100000 entries of a bilingual (hard cover and all that)... Is that normal or have I just been lucky?

Please, Jacek! This might be serious. Should I go back to Sejny and ask the salesgirls to check the prices anew?

Originally written by Dodo Kaipdodo on May 5, 2009 11:22 PM I paid 30 zlotych for the Markowsky monolingual, 2 volumes

The 2008 hard cover Markowski I linked to is a single volume with the range of market prices displayed there. I don't know what edition you bought. It is also possible that Poland, referred to by a US politician as the 51st State, has indeed become like America in the meantime, where a pricelist is a pricelist and the market is the market. If you shop around, you can buy books (and other stuff) for peanuts in the States, while regular prices are higher. I was not aware that something like that could be going on in Poland... Maybe I should invest a couple hundred zlotys in a trip to Sejny and do my shopping there too? Mind you, the average salary in Sejny is far from the national average. It's half of that.

Is Poland really under such a big influence of America, apart from the military alliance? I would notice more of the European influence there, but of course I have not been to Poland for a long time, so this is based mostly on conversations and internet.