Is it common for Polish people to speak English in Poland?

For a start it has to also involve a work-place element, for another thing it's more specific than either harassment or bullying.

There's no word for it in English (that English speakers actually use). Workplace harassment maybe.

One problem is that mobbing doesn't sound... very threatening or unpleasant (maybe it sounds terrifying to wimpy Swedes).

well that is quite a stupid thing for a teacher of English to say (who only got that job because English is an international language!) Sadly ELT does attract more than its fair share of feckwits.

But who on earth gave her a job if "nobody could understand her"? What is this thick Dover accent of which you speak?

"mobbing " sounds quite fun....

oh and btw Scottie, practically every student I taught in Poland told me they wanted 'British English'. I suspect they are quite adept at saying what they think people want to hear..:)

Anyway it is pretty much by the by as the vast majority of learners would be hard pushed to distinguish one accent of 'English' from another.

Ah, yes, those Americans created this monster with the z's. Since you are self-taught, try reading the Oxford English Dictionary:
"In fact, the '-ize' forms have been in use in English spelling since the 15th century: they didn't originate in American use, even though they are now standard in US English. The first example for the verb organize in the Oxford English Dictionary is from around 1425, ...

The OED's earliest example for realize dates from 1611...
The first recorded use of the verb with an '-ise' spelling in the OED is not until 1755 - over a century later!"
blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/03/ize-or-ise/

As originally published, Shakespeare wrote, " 'Loves Labors Lost', not 'Loves Labours Lost'." (Although it was changed by some later to add the French spelling with "our".) However, try doing a search of Oxford University Press's 1915 "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare" for how often the Bard wrote "I learnt" (and not "I have learnt") vs "I learned" or the shortened "I learn'd" and tell us again how the the Americans changed the language:

oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1612

If British English is more popular in Poland, it is likely because many Poles want to work in the U.K. British English has evolved more than American English. That makes it more complex, but not more authentic. (It is good to know phrasal verbs, but better for clarity to avoid them.) Some Poles may prefer what is more complex, and Poland has been flooded with British English teachers, but few modern Brits were taught basic grammar in schools. Very few recognize the ellipsis in their speech, and are thus ignorant of linguistic structure. To learn proper formal English for communication, a discriminating student would do well to find an older American or South African who know those rules rather than insisting "We talk like that", even if they shouldn't.

Feel free to tell PF what an ellipsis does sound like.

I just love it when I've met Poles who believe they are the next Joseph Conrad and think they know English better than a native speaker aka myselfLOL Rather than become visibly annoyed, as in the case of other Europeans, I find the whole farce terribly funny and start chortling instead of fuming:-))

what on earth does that mean?

and what on earth does " That makes it more complex, but not more authentic. " mean anyway?

All versions of English are "authentic" surely?

I think we should spend less time arguing about tiny differences in spellling and usage and just sit down in a big circle, light a big dooby and all sing 'Kumbahyah' together...:)

oohh ellipses. like 'let's' instead of 'let us'? or don't instead of do not? It is not only Brit speakers of English that do that is it?

I would say that mmmm, about 99 per cent of English speakers are quite aware of that.
The other one per cent are illiterate.

Agreed, folks! We should then simply rename our terms "Internatlish" vs. "English", declare the former a SEPARATE language from the standard (therefore as such, a SUB-standard form, by defintion), and I'll be satisfied:-)

LOL

No, they contractions, not ellipses.


merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ellipsis


All languages evolve over time. By "more authentic", I mean least changed over time from "the common tongue" from which they all descended. No serious student of the English language would dispute that American English is closer to Shakespeare's usage, (and spelling) than British English. (Likely because the egalitarian Americans did a better job of educating the poor masses than the aristocratic British Empire, and the decreased influence of the French language in spelling and usage.) Knowing what changed in British English can make the language itself easier to understand.

Ellipsis is, IME, a more American than British feature. American speech is frequently characterized by starting and not finishing sentences or starting a sentence, not finishing it but starting the next sentence as if the first had been completed. It makes spontaneous American conversation very difficult for non-natives to follow.

I once transcribed a three minute conversation between educated Americans that was full of incomplete sentences. Polish students couldn't make heads or tails of it, even with the transcription in front of them.

personally I don't have a problem understanding English.....of any variety.
Now Polish on the other hand,,,,,,,what a beast of a language to learn!
yes you are right maf, all native speakers do that (of all varieties) More or less unintelligible!

@Legal Eagle, quite true!

During WWII, the US - Army proved the single greatest aka most effective literacy trainer in history, teaching almost a half-million G.I.s to read and write:-)

Apropos something different, the American "accent" is positively Elizabethan with her flat "a's" sounded final "r's". The phony King's/Queen's English of Lizzy girl Windsor's but a construct, quite apart from how the average Brit speaks or ever even spoke.

Which is not to say that an American (especially an older American) is not cognizant of what has been omitted in colloquial speech. Most were taught that written language (formal English) should not mimic the colloquial. Modern British usage is that the two are interchangeable. I had to read a text book from a British author for a course. I frequently had to reread passages frequently because it was written as if transcribed from a lecture and necessary words were frequently omitted. I can only imagine how difficult that text was for those for whom English was a second language.

yes that is true now, but not long ago people did actually talk in a much 'posher' and more clipped way. Accents change so fast, even since I was a child the London accent has changed.

Check out Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter....:)

My FAVORITE English, indeed British, film! Right on, rozumiemnic:-)

If I even compare Diana and Charles with William and Kate, it's almost like comparing the sublime (D & C) with the ridiculous (W & K)LOL

If anything, Russel Crowe's become the sort of "New Received" Pronunciation, today's answer to Stepney & Bow. What a far cry indeed from Alan Corduner and Jim Broadbent in "Topsey-Turvy".

Of course Celia is really speaking RADA trained Standard English or received pronunciation. However if you look at footage of Londoners taken during WWII for example or even in the 1950s or 1960s, you'll see huge differences between their speech and the modern vernacular That's also the case with Standard English. There was a study done I think about ten or fifteen yeas ago where the accents of students at Eton, that bastion of English public schools, were compared with the Eton accents of twenty or thirty years previously and considerable differences were observed.

Please back to the topic

When in Poland, learn to speak Polish. As simple as that. Obviously, at the beginning you'll have to communicate in English more or less - unless you began learning Polish beforehand, which would be a smart move - but later on you would be expected to speak Polish. When I go to Britain or New Zealand, for example, I don't expect natives to speak Polish just because it suits me. I made an effort to learn English simply because I like to travel and English, because of a history of British colonization is a global language. However, Poland wasn't a British colony and we've got our own language. Poland should take example from France or Germany when it comes to protecting our language.

I must be mixing in the wrong circles then because the majority of Poles I've spoken to are either loathe to speak English at all, or are learning English and are often apologetic for what they perceive ( often wrongly ), as being their 'bad' English.

I haven't come across a single Pole who thinks their English is better than that of a native speaker!

I wouldn't put it quite that way either, there are many however who are loathe to take the word of a university educated native speaker over what their high school teacher told them 20 or more years ago regarding usage.

Also I stopped getting editing work from one translation company (correcting translations into English by Poles) because I used forms that were too American (forms like "the government are" simply do not exist for me) and I usually think "to not do" sounds better (more euphonic) than "not to do". They hadn't specified they wanted British forms (or I wouldn't have accepted any assignments from them - I always make that clear) but they implied that some of my corrections were wrong which they were not.

Do you say, "the police is looking into..."?
If an agency wants British English, that's what I give them; if they want the United States variant, that's what they get. The customer is king.


That's what I won't accept.

No, in my dialect the word police is always plural, like people. If a single police officer shows up looking for someone I'd say "the police are here". The words that go back and forth don't exist for me (except maybe 'family' in some very informal usage where it's synonymous with 'people' meaning 'family' if that makes any sense).


I'm not much interested in British usage and have not done the work necessary for me to produce a fascimile. I can make it less.... specifically American but that doesn't make it British.

While volumes have been written about the differences between American and British versions of the English language (and I won't say that the clue is in the name), the original question is....whether Polish people speak English (whatever variety) in Poland. This would be of interest to the original asker, and not whether the 'police is' or 'police are' is correct.

I go for 'police are here' - EVERY TIME whether it is one single male or female officer or an army of 200 police officers. They represent the 'establishment' and whole legal system when they come into my house with a warrant to do a search.

Short answer is that the great majority of people aren't especially comfortable speaking English and that for many people the level of knowledge they have has little to do with how comfortable they are. Give an extrovert a hundred words and they'll talk your ear off give an introvert 10,000 and they'll sit an mumble something about not understanding.

Also, Polish people in general are kind of .... of two minds on foreign languages in general. On the one hand they profess to admire knowledge of foreign language and many spend a lot of time and effort learning one or more, on the other speakers of larger langauges (German and Russian) have a long history of trying marginalize or eliminate the language and telling Polish people to not speak Polish is a very sure way to get their back up.

How frequently do they come to search your house?

...someone has to organise 'the luncheon club'......

How bizarre! I hadn't actually considered this but maybe it accounts for Lyzko's earlier comments.

It's not unique to Poland I should add. I've found it among many Europeans from many different countries. There's also an idea that "who cares how it sounds? it's just English". Polish or German or French? Those are languages where how you say something is extremely important, with rich traditions of elegant usage and users are expected to conform to stylistic conventions in given situations. It somehow never occurs to many non-native speakers that English also has such conventions above and beyond what can be learned in four years of highschool (or a few at a university).

For a neutral international language it doens't make much sense to have a lot of register specific vocabulary (for bureaucratic or academic purposes or even politeness purposes) but English as a national language needs them (and they need to be different in different countries).

this is so true. I have in the past, actually walked out of a class of Swiss Germans (twice, two different classes, different schools) , once with a class who were 'advanced' yet when I corrected one of them for saying 'mens' as the plural of men, just shrugged and said 'it doesn't matter!!'. The attitude on both occasions was 'dont give a toss, it is only English'

oh, you don't know a lot of Poles then!
I had a "pleasure" of working with one- he bloody loved to correct everyones "should off" to "should have" etc, he passed FCE and was full of an extrementum (to put it mildly). He shut up when I've told him I've passed the English GCSE.

:D really? I would have thought FCE was a fair bit harder than that. Still it does depend on grade..:)