Bratislava will soon be full of aliens, at least if the plan of the foreigners department of the police for Bratislava Region goes ahead, because it has decided on the official English name of Aliens Police Department, reveals an article in daily Pravda.
The name was obviously derived from an inept translation, but the police department in question wants to keep the name, arguing with the formal entry of the word alien from the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary denoting a foreigner. The police clearly didn’t consult with any native speakers, who would surely have come up with a better name.
EXPAT – Of course they are busy! Did you see the news on JOJ last night?
Remember the two police who had their patrol car “stolen” by the suspect they were “chasing” a month or two ago? – turns out those two clowns had so much spare time, when they were supposed to be working, they could run a brothel!
No doubt your delay was a result of having to count the daily take!
Technology? They haven’t a clue: police, hospitals,doctors, everywhere, if they haven’t a mountain of paper to shuffle about and religiously rubber stamp, they are lost.
I like to think of myself as quite widely travelled and I can say with all honesty that I have never come across such a backward country as this one.
I know you are American, so I presume the rules are different for you, but I am an EU citizen and I have decided to take no more crap from any Slovak institution and if they can not fulfill the basic requirements of the treaties they have signed then the SK ombudsman, EU commissioners, my own Embassy and Government will be getting earache.
Dave,
HAHAHA…..well put! I would more like it to be called – “Sit and wait, enter room, give documents, get documents back, asked to produce more documents not in posession, find the place to get new documents, have notor see you sign all documents for fee, translate all documents not in Slovak, go back to sit and wait, watch 10+ colleagues enter and leave offcie while you sit and wait, watch another 10+ colleagues enter and exit while you still are sitting and waiting, enter and hand over new documents, get told you will have to return for more steps as they can only do one step at a time with the lack of staff, beg and plead to get on to the next step today (ie. finger printing), get told they must consult with another colleague, then sit and wait, they say fine we will do it but it is not guarenteed that the information collected will still be in the system by the time they process the papers (so no SAVE on the computer), show them how the machine works for fingerprnting because they are not use to being behin a computer, assure them that interpol will appreciate the upload, then you are told you will recieve an answer within 90 days, because they are just so busy!!!!
OK, in America it too a total of 3 months to process all paperwork, not in duplicate, and after all processing the green card was issued and that was that!
My lord, get caught up with technology! I personally am scared if the building would catch fire they would loose me! One file with my name on it…that is how they keep track of the immigrants to this country! Nice, suppose the pussing papers actually still exists in this world! Funny thing is, they are the only responsible party for all of the immigration! What a JOKE!
Non-User Friendly Foreign Visitors Enbuggerment Department ( Confusion and Misinformation Section) would be a more apt title.
No suprise the Sk is 30 or 40 years behind the times, almost everything they do is a step backwards.
It doesn’t really matter what it is called – it will still be a fine example of a relatively simple task made as difficult and convoluted as possible. Still hassling EU citizens is far easier than patrolling the borders for the “aliens” in transit across the country.
Using the word ‘alien’ may be technically correct, but it is politically about as incorrect as you can get. The US stopped using the word to refer to foreigners more than 30 years ago for exactly that reason. On the other hand, as the bureaucracy gets worse and requirements get longer and more ridiculous with each passing year, and as there is no effort on the part of the Foreign Police to help us understand and meet those requirements, it is increasingly clear that not only are we indeed aliens in the eyes of the Slovak Republic, we are not wanted here. When my current temporary residence expires, I’m going home.
It is “Aliens Police Department” -or- “Alien’s Police Department” opposed to the “Foreign Police Department”??? doesn’t change the people in the office unfortunately!
I just hope my Unlimeted Permanent Residency goes through as the past week siting in their office I felt like and ALIEN!!! Their new policies and procedures as well as necessary paperwork seems to change ever week, and no one in this office is fluent with the changes, or any foreign tongue to explain the changes! I love the highlighted and pen noted changes on what is supposed to be the official document for residency in Slovakia. This is the 21st centure and the offices still look like something out of a 1960’s communist block movie! I understand why they are alway in a bad mood, if I had to sit on a wooden chair all day with one computer for every 5 people and all the paperwork being thrown at me in all directions to sort through, I would be be very unpleasant as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_%28law%29
I dont understand why is so much fuss about it. “Alien” seems like correct translation too. Also I think that in Japan it is translated like this too. How do you know that police did not consult it with native speakers? Also the fact that someone is native speaker does not mean that his English is as good as the English linguist.