3Undone, I grew up with German and English at home, later I learned the Scandinavian languages more or less for business purposes. I found most Danes as well as Swedes claimed to speak/write/know excellent English; the reality though, was far different:-) Polish came later as a result of travels between Germany and Poland. Most of my Polsh interlocutors spoke REALLY fluent German, but almost no English!
F-stop, I take it your answer was meant to be sarky, am I correct in assuming so?? lol
Don't therefore expect Poles or others to speak it well if we ourselves have such an abysmal command of it:-)
I have to agree with most of your comments about culture and language and stuff but if you're implying that Americans do not have a handle on the English language...well you're dead wrong. I'm on a number of forums and websites and one thing I've noticed is that Americans, regardless of economic background are able to express themselves in writing the English language very well. You rarely see misspelled words, run on sentences or poor grammar. Actually I find it quite surprising as I'm constantly peppered with comments about how bad our educational system is.
Lyzko,I think that my command of the English language is quite well.I have to agree with Meathead that most Americans have command of the English language,both written and spoken.Most of us choose to use slang,but I do know what you mean in the sense of words that have become part of the American vernacular.English has constantly evolved as a language and will continue to do so;it will be quite a while before it becomes unrecognizable from the language we use today.Is Polish a language that has changed a lot over the years or has it remained mainly in tact?
My experience has been that frequently, the British, i.e. the English, use our language with greater precision, witness several days ago, a re-broadcast interview between Simon Cowell and Katie Couric, whereupon Katie asked Simon about his "last" book, at which point Simon 'gently' corrected her, saying, "Katie dear, I think you mean my LATEST..!" Indeed, a somewhat (typicallyLOL) sheepish Couric quickly turned slightly red, flushed nervously, and seemlessly apologized for her poor word choice:-) Sure, we all knew what she meant, yet, without standing here too much on ceremony, "Simon Legree" Cowell was technically right!
This, but one of many such examples.
Minor errata there, 3Undone. You mean "My command of English is quite GOOD..." (adjective), not "well" (adverb), while we're on the subject of proper English:-)
Just for the record, Polish certainly has not remained intact, in the sense that it has changed little over the centuries. It has, in fact, probably changed almost as much as English, I'd hazard to guess.
Lyzko,I remember my grandparents spoke it all the time and they taught me some words,Of the few words I know,I've been told that my pronunciation is very good.I think the language has a very smooth sound to it and I would love to learn it.The main reason is because I would like to visit Poland and be able to speak to the Polish in their own language.
wow that's a year already! I almost forgot this thread
So after this very controversial thread, I attended to a language center near my neighbourhood. I started with beginner A, then move to B, and it was fun at first. The language was indeed fascinating and I and my classmates (there're about 15 of us) enjoyed it a lot...until...the CASES. It was crazy to learn all of them. I though German cases were bad but Polish cases are just amazingly worse. So after the fun time with "hello" and "my name is...", we were knocked off the ground by the unbelievably complicated grammar. I couldn't tell the difference between some similar sounds like ć and ci and cz ... my mind was just blowing when I listened to my teacher and the video tape.
So after spending 4 months in classes and 500 usd and countless advils, I finally decided that the language wasn't invented for me, so I gave up. Now I can merely recall the basic stuff like greetings, numbers, days, months...but I still remember the Polish dance we learned and the sausage and the "pyzy" my teacher bought us. That was just so nice to get to know the culture, but unfortunately I just couldn't handle the language.
The cases in Polish appear more quixotic and irregular in their application than German, but at least Polish has no separable vs. inseparable prefixed verbs as German has, each verb's meaning being altered depending upon whether the identical verb prefix is separable or not (plus not always knowing which ones can be used as such!!!)
Sheer torture, even for us bilingual native speakers:-)
I typically ask for reasons about things which DON'T make sense, Farouk, but perhaps that's only me:-)
I guess in the end there's never any one right reason to learn a (foreign) language. Surely, being curious and amazed as well as enjoying the entire process are all important, more practical concerns of truly effective communication with native speakers of languages other than one's own will probably take precedence the more travel, both real and virtual, determines the course of our lives. We've begun to learn that often English remains the easiest remedy to cross-cultural language barriers, it is clearly not the most efficient.
Ah yes! The unsung heroes (and heroines) of Polish cabaret comedy:-) I too find Polish humor hilarious on occasion, yet, as with all humor, so intertwined with the culture, I frequently have to listen to the CD more than once. Even then, I'm not always sure I got the punchline.
I've been collaborating with the Illuminati and at our meetings it was decided that Polish would be the official world language. Anyone not speaking Polish will be given second citizen status.
Ironic still that it was, of all people, a Polish Jew, Dr. Ludwik Zamenhof, who thought up that universal flop, Esperanto, as the proposed international language long before "Globish" was even a gleem in to-be PM Churchill's mind:-)
Today, listening to some of the Republican chat prattled throughout this country, anyone caught thinking would be granted second-class statusLOL
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!
UczeSiePolskieg I'm impressed I understood everything you wrote, my first language was Polish but I only used it up until the age of ten, my problem now is that sometimes my sentences are structured in English and then spoken in polish , which comes out back to front, some poles can be very funny about it, some pretend they don't understand what i an saying (Idiot kids in shops) most older people have no problems speaking to me, but I guess my polish probably dates back to the 20's when my parents lived in the sticks in eastern Poland.
Nowadays I sometimes go out and only speak English when I am shopping of paying bills, they soon scurry around and get things sorted,it saves on the smart ar$ed remarks and makes them work for my money, instead of them taking the P$ss out of me.
UczeSiePolskieg Great respect to you for learning Polish good luck.
It might be an idea to set up a mixed Polish English language thread. to help those learning
Cool. All genuine reasons and motives of yours clearly indicate you can and will be successful. I too think Polish is a beautiful language although I may be a little biased in that :) About younger Poles speaking English. Amazing isn't it? Few decades ago we weren't allowed to even cross western border. Now IMHO young Poles know English better than lets say Germans. Maybe it's exactly the complexity of our own language allowing us to understand and adapt to rules and other aspects of foreign tongues. Just thinking :)
some pretend they don't understand what i an saying (Idiot kids in shops)
Some for sure but if you construct sentences in Polish like in English it really is hard to understand for a Pole that don't speak the latter. I can easily understand what UczeSiePolskieg wrote in his 1st post simply because I can literally, word to word translate it to English. :)
About younger Poles speaking English. Amazing isn't it?
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.
