Life / Do expats living in Poland speak Polish? [233]

I've been slowly trying to learn Polish for over a year and its fair to say I'm crap!!

Its true that you get a heightened sense of how good you are as I often get comments from Poles about how good I am if I manage to comprehend something then string a few words together which almost resemble a sentence!

Not knowing any other languages I do struggle to imagine that I could ever get to a level where I could feel fluent -that someone could blurt something out in Polish at speed and I would fully understand it and respond accordingly.. equally to be able to join in a conversation where there are a few people chatting together in Polish - I'd find it impossible to keep up!?

Anyway.. will keep plodding away! Secretly hoping that one day it will just click and all fall into place, but I'm not holding my breath!!

Love / How to convince English boyfriend to learn Polish? [39]

I agree with some of the other previous replies; to not at least learn the basics of a language from a country you have a connection with is rude and ignorant. I would personally feel this if I was on a holiday in a country and couldn't at least say the basics of hello/goodbye, please/thank you, yes/no, beer!

I'd be intrigued to understand more about how his overall approach to the relationship i.e do you feel an equal in most circumstances and that he treats you fairly? To have that attitude would imply a lack of empathy with you, and a generally selfish personality..

If this is out of character from him, then its could be that he really struggles with the language - men don't like to admit they're not good at stuff and can often pretend indifference to cover this. Luckily I'm good at everything so I personally don't have this issue :-)

If this is in character for him, then it raises deeper questions about whether this is the sort of person you want to be with.

Keep pushing - softly!