How many English native speakers in Poland?

Does anyone know how many natvie speakers of Polish are currently residing in Poland? Even a rough estimate would be appreciated? Has the number grown significantly over the past two decades? It there a steady increase or has it levelled off or even begun to recede?

English native speakers approx 45,000
number has grown significantly over the last 5 years
still increasing

Without doubt.


Based on this forum alone, I would say " increasing"

45,000 sounds plausible countrywide. Few years ago I heard there were 10,000 or so in Warsaw alone. That probably figures because the ratio is undoubtedfly much lower in Jelenia Góra, £omża or Sanok, innit?

Lots more Brits and Irish have moved over with wives since the big Polish immigration. Guessing that growth might start to drop off.

It's hard to believe these numbers, 21000 Americans in Warsaw? 18000 in Cracow?

overseasdigest.com/amcit_nu2.htm

Any explanations? Just work? Family connections?


Why that? Back in UK it's also not that nice, to be polite... ;-)

Fewer wives available to go there with more likely : )

I think you need to distinguish between people sent for a couple of months or years by some multi-national (and who don't interact much with the local population except to order people around), those for other kinds of short term goals and long term residents who actually live in normal Polish reality.

Especially once the marriages start breaking up - especially the ones who have gone to rural areas. I've already heard of several marriages having broken up in a rather nasty way.

Why are the marriages breaking up? The Brits "are Slavs" just like the Poles (anyway according to this forum), so the mentality shouldn't be a problem. What is it then?

Oh, many reasons. One big problem is that the average Brit can't find himself too well here - the language isn't easy, there's not much call for them and the winters are much harsher - as well as much warmer summers.

One couple I know broke up after the Polish mother-in-law kept interfering to the point of driving the Brit mad. And don't forget - it's not exactly easy to go from earning (for instance) 500 euro a week to earning 750 euro a month.

The problem very often is that the Brit is only going because the wife wants to. It's not a good recipe for success, at all.

So you can't even depend on the Slavic blood connection anymore, that's sad.

What Slavic blood connection?

Brits are Germanic, Celtic or Nordic.

Well, Crow and few others here have provided some "facts" on PF about the Slavic blood connection, practically allover Europe. Hey, I don't know, I'm just "learning" here.

Do you think that the Chinese might have some Slavic blood in them too?

I would say the people here with multinationals are actually much more welcome - they provide jobs, expertise, informal language training and spend lots in the bars and restaurants they frequent.

The people who have moved over since 2004 to be with the wives they met working as chambermaids and farmhands in the UK are quite different - mostly unqualified with little prospects apart from teaching TEFL, generally poor at Polish language, no spare cash and very naive about Poland.

Indeed, it's actually a point that I don't know any TEFL teachers who are actually actively taking Polish lessons. I was talking about this to my Polish teacher just on Friday - that many foreigners just don't have the will to actually learn.

I notice quite a few people on here are posting about moving to Eastern Poland and building a house with their wife - these are such obvious candidates for divorce down the line, and I think many of them have little idea of what they're getting into.

Surely that can't be a very big problem(:

Some will fail, and some will succeed, was always thus and thus will be.

Migrating to any country isn't easy, even if it is English speaking.

Oh it is ;) It leaves you absolutely lifeless in summer!


Without a doubt. Moving to a big city is easy enough - like from Poznan, you're about 70 minutes by train away from Germany. But moving to a village in Eastern Poland - nice places to visit, but I can imagine the feeling of being trapped could happen very quickly.

I understand the only way to recoup is to sit on the main square, hide behind your shades, drink a cold one and watch the local talent strut their stuff in front of you. In fact I know of one American in Warsaw that refuses to go on vacation during the months of June to September. He parks himself on Nowy Swiat and the rest is history.

Summer weekends are one of my favourite times in Warsaw. The city empties out as tens of thousands of people try to kill each other on the roads to the sea and the lakes.

I think the numbers simply come from the regional Immigration Offices; one in Warsaw, one in Krakow. I have no idea whether there are other such government offices in, say, TriCity or Wroclaw, but I imagine a Brit finding himself in Swidnik or Zamosc will have to submit papers to an office which forwards them to Krakow to be processed, and in that way, it looks like there are 18,000 foreigners in that city, when they are in fact spread over the whole of Galicia.

No. That number of 18,000 Americans in Krakow comes from the US embassy in Warsaw (and may well explain why they maintain a consulate in Krakow). Also, a Brit in Zamosc or Swidnik would have his papers processed in Lublin.

Can anyone more or less reliably (?) guesstimate the breakdown of Americans in Poland: students, businessmen, professionals, diplomats, OAPs, others?

No: the figures for that wouldn't exist (other than the number of diplomats).

That is the way i would describe the weather here in Australia, 2-3 days straight of 40/Celsius is not all that unusual. At least the humidity is not that bad where I live, it is mostly associated with dry heat. I guess in Poland the humidity would be more of a problem.

They're from the people that voluntarily registered with the US embassy/consulate, 10 years ago. Most people don't bother.

The last few years have been quite hot in Poland, with the temperature somewhere around 35 Celsius, and coupled with the humidity that must be quite a bad combination. But i guess that was the case for a lot of other European countries.