Lots of questions

And again it was Paweł who asked a lot of questions. This is what he wanted:
1) a trench digger,
2) a potato washer or a mechanical washer,
3) pomiculture = sadownictwo

History of Debates

We had one or two e-mail exchanges before I set up the blog, so here's the summery for future reference:

1. Two ways of saying "usypywacz pryzm": a store loader and a bin piler.
2. The overrun brake explained here.
3. What connects a trailer (or any otehr load) with a vehicle is called a drawbaw.

Slow down, you're fertilizing too fast

Since we talked about braking systems today, let me recommend this site on regenerative braking for you. There's plenty more on braking on HowStuffWorks, which is in my opinion one of the best websites that explain and popularize technology.

Pawcio couldn't find English words for "wrzucać na bieg jałowy", and neither could I in the lesson, but I ran it through Google tonight. I think the best answer is "to shift to neutral gear", but you may disagree. Another expression I found is "to idle your car", but you have to verify it for me. Two articles on idling your car are here and here.

Other things you may want to remember:
1. Styrofoam is good for thermal insulation.
2. Pottery can be made of clay.
3. Bricks are fired in a kiln (piec przemysłowy), metals are smelted in a blast furnace.
4. There are wooden planks and wooden beams.

When a tyre is old

It wasn't even 5 minutes into the lesson about the properties of different engineering materials, like rubber or timber, when you started asking about technical terms I could hardly understand in Polish.

Marcin asked about "bieżnikowanie", which can extend the service life of a tyre by coating an old, worn tyre with new rubber and, of course, I couldn't answer that. I know now, after a quick run through Google, it's retreading, recapping or remoulding (in the UK). Here's a useful FAQ site on the basics of retreaded tyres, like their durability and reliability.

Another thing a lot of people wanted to talk about was oxidation, a process often confused with corrosion. From what I read here, corrosion is a more general process and oxidation can actually be seen as only a part of it. Am I right?

There was also some doubt about what "chassis" really means. We can argue about the best translation, but this is what Google Images returns for this search.

And finally, somebody wanted to know how to say "koks" in English. It's here, together with "węgiel kamienny", known as black coal.