Can most people in Poland speak Russian?

I have a Belarusian grandmother and all poles think she is polish. only when she says we're she is from some might suspect she is Belarusian but nearly all think she is polish from Belarus

du ju hæv ɛni ajdiə wət fənɛtɪk trænskrɪpʃən ɪz?

I guess you ment to spell it in a way that english speaker can read it, cause if so then it's quite a fail cause my English girlfriend has no idea how to read it.

according to me and her "DAWHH" it would be pronaunced like "dope" with no "p" at the end which is wrong and we have no clue how would be pronounced this "SKAWHH" regardless the fact there is duble "H" at the end of both cases for some strange reason.

the right pronunciation would be doh-skoh-nah-leh


I heard it's more common in eastern Poland.


All that means your grandmother looks like Polish, people often take my brother for Italian due to his curly hair and facial features.

I've been to Belarus and she looks Belarusian but could also pass for Ukrainian or Russian

Is this supposed to support your crazy theory of all slavic people looking the same or what?

no, very few speak russian. considerably more people in the 20-40 year old range speak german than russian. the only age group that might know more russian is my parents generation (50+ yr olds). mind you have to define what knowing a language means in poland. from my experience in poland, people tend to say they can speak a particular language yet when push comes to shove and they have to speak that language, they are unable to get anywhere.

not surprisingly one knows better the language that they use more often - my mum was taught Russian at school a good couple of years - then very late in her adulthood she went to work in Germany as a care giver - she simply had to learn German to be able to work there - and she did - she had to use German extensively - now compare that to the Russian language which she most probably never used in practice and guess what language is she able to communicate in

Not quite. In the cities - yes. But in rural areas? In those areas, they tended to keep Russian because - frequently - it was difficult/impossible to find good other language teachers. Hence - the knowledge among the mid 20's isn't as poor as you might think it to be.


It probably is - it would be incredibly difficult to find a good foreign language teacher there (especially as in the early 90's - anyone with language skills would go make their fortune rather than staying in a rural area) - and so Russian was kept. No bad thing, really - I know at least two cases where children who have been pathetic at English have turned out to be quite good in Russian.

When I use Russian words here and there during conversation Poles understand.

Ukrainians and some Czechs tend to understand my Polish, Russians typically don't:-)

well there is evidently less similarity between Polish and Russian then between Polish and Czech or even Ukrainian...

Indeed. Common greetings, certain words etc... are quite similar. Pronunciation though is very different between Polish and Ukrainian. The former there is more similar to Czech, however NOT mutually intelligible:-) Forget searching for affinities between Polish and South Slavic tongues! They are relatively few.

So Russian was awful for me to learn :)

I was born in 1979 and have had Russian in the secondary school. You right, the older people should have been taught Russian, which is part of similar to the Polish (both are Slavic languages).