Language / Give me some reasons to learn Polish [126]


It's pretty mind blowing - for me, when I'm speaking Polish, I have to remember that, for instance, the word order within the sentence doesn't matter too much, but, moreso that the subject/adjective/verb order changes, too. That people with a good handle on English are able to do this so naturally is something I very much aspire to. Having that level of bi/multilingualism is admirable.

Language / Give me some reasons to learn Polish [126]

Of course. I've visited Poland quite regularly over the last couple of years, and love the country as a whole. There's still so much to see, though. Visiting places which are a bit... less touristy, it's entirely understandable that people don't necessarily know English that well. Younger people do, of course, but those a little older it's to be expected that this isn't the case. Walking into a hotel for the first time and saying "Um, can I check in?" and being given a blank stare made me feel helpless.

From a personal stance, I also feel that it's... embarrassing for me not to be able to hold a basic conversation in a language for a country I'm visiting so often. As an English person, I think it's shocking that Polish people have such polished English skills compared to the woeful foreign language teaching that we have in this country - so taking the effort to gain those skills is something I consider to be quite important. There's also the point, too, that learning Polish gives you access to a decent chunk of the other Slavic languages. I think it's incredibly interesting the number of words and so on, even from the few that I know, that are shared with languages such as Serbian. I also find Polish to be beautiful to listen to. I like just having RMF on in the background and listening to the sound of the language, gaining small amounts of knowledge from the presenters. I think the phone in segments are the best for this - not sure why.

Is it torture? In some ways, yes! I know I'll never be perfect. But I like a challenge, too!