Do British partners of Polish people in the UK speak their (Polish) language?

Hello,are there any British guys here with Polish wives or girlfriends who actually speak the language?I was lucky enough to meet a Polish model girl who is also a dentist.Just because we very cheekily expect the rest of the world to understand us we should make exceptions for our new partners.

so ' British partners of Polish people in the UK' boils down to men with Polish girlfriends does it?
Good to know.
Yes my partner was Polish and ofc I spoke his language. A bit.

Answer to your question. If they don't, then they ought to in most cases.

Typically, the Polish interlocutor will hardly expect your average Brit to be comfortably fluent in any language other than English. Frequently too, many Poles, I've found, estimate their English to be far better than it is, thus making it doubly beneficial for the British partner to know as much of their Polish colleague's language as they can.

To answer your question,

I think it's rare to find one that does but there certainly are some who do. Generally being a Brit with a Polish wife and speaking the language, I am yet to come across someone like me. I am sure there are thousands though. It is well worth learning a little Polish though as people will not expect it, and when you start to speak it they will be incredibly surprised and interested. Also, most will assume you speak no Polish whatsoever and I have often heard people talking about me at parties in Polish and nothing gives me more pleasure than to comment on what they just said about me in Polish.

HAve a go at learning it

Good Luck

I have loads of fun with this one, it can be a real laugh, especially when you get a ultra nationalist who starts moaning about foreigners in Poland, their faces go white to red in seconds once I tick them off in Polish, everyone else laughs at them..

Tak rozumium.To jest dobri humour

What do these clowns usually say and whom do they typically complain of?

The first thing I get asked is am I a Catholic which I am not,but neither is my girlfriend.This goes down very well lol.

This is quite strange from my point of view. I guess you both live in a small town rather than a big city. In Warsaw and its vicinity there are of course communities who are devout Catholics, but I can hardly imagine anyone of such a community here making an issue of the fact of you being Catholic or not. They will typically ask you what country you are from. But Warsaw is specific where religion increasingly tends to be a strictly private matter.

I myself would never ask any foreign person if they are Catholic or if they are of other religion. Personally, I would only be interested in meeting at a party someone who is neo-pagan and decided to worships our old Slavic gods who were mercilessly rooted out by Christianity about 800-1000 years ago. All other religions would have been typical and rather boring.

Agree. I've never been asked about my religion though that's probably because I'm Irish so maybe people take it for granted I'm Catholic. They might be curious about the OP because he's British. They do ask me if I can speak Irish though and they sometimes comment on what good English I speak!!

I once did some informal interpreting at a function with guests where I work (translating some short speeches in Polish into English for some non-Polish guests). During the cake and coffee, a Polish guest tracked me down to tell me (in Polish) how well I spoke English. My answer (in Polish) was along the lines of "I should hope so, I am American, after all"

"Still" they countered "your English is really good!".

Something similar happened to me once in France!

Guess my Parisian "accent" impressed my neighbors at the apartment complex where we were staying as a teen. They too thought I was not American, but French.

When I had to confess that I wasn't French, but in fact from the States, one gentleman who was a cultural critic and who'd apparently had lived for a number of years in Chicago remarked, "Mais votre americain est tres splendide!"

:-)

I can relate to this. I've not personally met anyone British who can speak Polish, but I'm sure there are plenty who do. Would love to meet someone else who does! Unfortunately I'll never be fluent though :-(

Well i am not in Uk but my wife's 1st language is English so it's the same thing. None of my family even know 1 Polish word. I didn't teach them any.

Really Lyzko? I have invariably found that Poles have an endearing trait of significantly understating their abilities - as I have often found to my cost on the tennis court :)

More often than not, the new learner brings along their A2 course book, and within 2 minutes we move up a level. To answer the OP, I'm forever stuck at the aforementioned rough and ready functional and (wholly inadequate) social A2 level - never did like the perceived non musicality of the Polish language, as opposed to Russian for example.

You're right in so far as most English-speaking Poles whom I've encountered at least will allow for some polite "recast" of their faulty speech, unlike the

Germans who turn into characters when made aware of their mistakes in English. The former do appear to be somewhat grateful, as do I, for instance, when I make

errors in Polish and am corrected, I have to admit:-)

It's all a question of attitude really and the willingness to learn.

Polish I find though to be quite musical, somewhat more chirpy and upbeat sounding than Russian, as I've often observed on this forum.