How do Poles feel about foreigners learning their language?

That doesn't change the fact that I have an advantage when the conversation is in my default language, English. Especially, under acoustically hostile conditions.

Ah, but would THEY, your Polish interlocutors, necessarily understand YOU,...acoustically hostile conditions or not? Far too often, any number of European nationals imagine their English to be so "fluent", they figure any and all misunderstandings on the American's part, must be the latter's fault instead of maybe, just maybe, the former didn't quite get the idiomatic gist of the conversation.

Heck, happens here at PF on a regular, ok semi-regular, basis:-)

Good point. That is why I would switch to English only out of desperation after the first attempt in Polish has failed. Contrary to some of the trolls here, I didn't go to Poland after a 50-year absence to show off my English. To my great relief, many spoke just as well. It was my Polish listening that was failing me with the railroad loudspeakers blasting away or because of their high rate of delivery.

Thats what I do. Ill trying speaking in Polish until I get that "look" and quickly switch back to English. lol


Spot on Lyzko!

Especially, the ones that got suckered into learning from a UK teacher then come to American and haven't a clue.

Have you experienced the " Its no good, everything is better in Poland" guy yet? I met one that refused use a microwave or clothes dryer because its a no good American invention. He had a clothesline running through his living room. Im sure his undies were a bit scratchyyyy lol

There is good thing about being American and trying to speak Polish!

Women think its really cute when you mispronounce words and we have an AmPol accent, you can really use this to your benefit:):)

More than that, I've found that being an English native speaker gives one that ineffable advantage of acting as standard bearer whenever questions concerning usage come up, moreover, when Poles think I don't understand them in Polish when I do and then can catch them in either a lie or an English error.

Normally, I couldn't give a rat's ass if Poles speak English instead of Polish or not. They only end up embarrassing themselves when they fall flat on their faces, linguistically speaking, that is:-)

ha,ha....UK teachers teach proper English in USA you just speak post colonial twang.


O,Yes we know that you like to patronise people. The problem is that I have seen samples of you polish and it is not as astounding as you think but rather poor so picking on others is rather petty. TOO BIG FOR YOUR BOOTS

Iwonka, while I have never once here on PF pretended to know Polish with the proficiency of a native-born and educated Pole, conversely, Poles too need English correction, often badly, yet are often typically too proud to admit it.

In Poland, I spoke exclusively Polish. Figuring most wouldn't know German, Russian, and only minimally proficient English, I decided to play it safe, as the saying goes, and I didn't regret it:-)

The laugh's on you! English in England is actually the old style twang, the American english is the new , better and improved english. Learn some history before you post nonsense like this.

Well actually according to the 'experts' it's the complete opposite. The pronunication of American English is pretty close to that spoken in the England of the 1700s whereas in England accents have evolved and changed greatly in that time.

That's interesting, Atch. I've looked it up:

bbc.com/culture/story/20180207-how-americans-preserved-british-english

Wonder what they would say about Strine. "How the Australians preserved 18th century inmate English?" ;)

Bang on, Atch!

People these days forget that the so-called "elitist" British accent of Public School England, with its broad "a" etc. was in fact the effort of the common folk to mimic the artificial pronunciation of the royalty, GERMANS from Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg, who could barely speak English without a heavy German accent:-)

The closest to "real" English pronunciation in our time is the flat a-sound of the Devonshire accent, complete with closed vs.silent final "r".

A *small part* of bumpkin England.

No, not at all. There was a huge variety in pronuncation amongst educated people at the beginning of the 18th century.

There was what you might call, a lobbying element, including Lord Chesterfield who were keen to see a standard pronunciation by which it would be impossible to determine the place of a 'gentleman's' birth. This resulted in the spread of elocution lessons and the publication of dictionaries of pronunciation.

Oddly enough it was a Scot and an Irishman who lead the way in that respect. They were contemporaries of Dr Johnson, so the whole thing makes sense. One sees the first dictionary, the first pronouncing dictionary and the first elocutionists all emerging simultaneously. It was agreed that the model should be the speech of the Royal Court but Sheridan, the Irish elocutionist was the first to draw attention to the habit of dropping the 'aitches' amongst Londoners and expressed concern that the habit was found even amongst the elite of London :)

During the early nineteenth century standard pronuncation began to be taught in the public schools and as instruction was 'received' by the students, it became known as received pronunciation, now known as RP. Of course RP itself has been somewhat corrupted and twisted into various hideous forms such as the 'ok ya' vibe of the Hooray Henry Sarah Ferguson types with their odious, constricted vowel sounds which is basically yet another dialect. But to my ears the purest RP - I would cite for example Ian McKellen (yet still with that tiny hint of Lancashire, lovely), Derek Jacobi, Jeremy Irons - is beautiful to listen to.

Both the English and Spanish of the new world were based on low prestige dialects from poor areas because it was mostly people who were from poor areas with no prospects who emigrated, IIRC North England and Ireland for English and Andalusia and Extremadura (the name means 'extremely difficult' which should be a clue) for Spanish.

I'm not so sure about French or Portuguese....

Apropos Lord Chesterfield, legend has it that Voltaire allegedly wished to visit the great man on a visit to England, whereupon a close friend of the French satirist is supposed to have suggested that he learn English in order to make the voyage, at which point Voltaire is said to have shot back, "But my dear ('Mon pauvre', though not literally), what is English anyway, but merely French spoken badly!"

In the light of the relations between the Saxons and the French, this comment seems especially apt, don't you?