z0ltan
13 Dec 2014
Language / What has been the hardest language for you to learn? [81]
LOL at all the Poles who think that they know English well, and that it's an easy language for them to learn. I have never met a Pole in my life (who didn't learn to speak it as a child) who could speak good/proper English. The initial ease and abundance of speaking opportunities lulls them into thinking that English is an easy tongue, whereas most native English speakers are just too polite to tell them that their English is well below par.
Wulkan, I'd like to see how good your English is, heh.
@Wulkan
Come down here to Australia, and you'll see whether you can actually speak English. Heh. And I'm not talking just about the pronunciation. There are tons of Poles in here who have lived here their whole lives (and still speak Polish at home), and their accents are horrendous. I shudder to imagine how accents of Poles in Poland must be like. On top of that, what is commonly used online is a rather unrealistic version of what is actually used in real life. I bet you wouldn't figure out 50% of what was being spoken about in a cafe down here in casual conversation.
Lyzko is right - most native speakers of English don't worry about the mistakes of non-natives, are more accommodating about it, and actually compliment people on their skills rather than people from Europe who are rabidly maniacal about their spelling and pronunciation. Lastly, the most important point is that for native English speakers, learning foreign languages is a purely personal hobby rather than a genuine need, unlike for most Poles who have had to learn English. Now tomorrow, god forbid, Polish were to become the de facto language of the world, as English is today, I guarantee you people would have no problem learning better Polish than native Polish speakers. Case systems are hard in Polish? Yeah well, tenses are a nightmare in English for foreign speakers. And in fact, that is a harder system to master than cases. Cases are a breeze along with verb conjugations mostly because they are regular and simply have to be memorised.
z0ltan STOP insulting other PF posters or you will receive suspension
LOL at all the Poles who think that they know English well, and that it's an easy language for them to learn. I have never met a Pole in my life (who didn't learn to speak it as a child) who could speak good/proper English. The initial ease and abundance of speaking opportunities lulls them into thinking that English is an easy tongue, whereas most native English speakers are just too polite to tell them that their English is well below par.
Wulkan, I'd like to see how good your English is, heh.
@Wulkan
Come down here to Australia, and you'll see whether you can actually speak English. Heh. And I'm not talking just about the pronunciation. There are tons of Poles in here who have lived here their whole lives (and still speak Polish at home), and their accents are horrendous. I shudder to imagine how accents of Poles in Poland must be like. On top of that, what is commonly used online is a rather unrealistic version of what is actually used in real life. I bet you wouldn't figure out 50% of what was being spoken about in a cafe down here in casual conversation.
Lyzko is right - most native speakers of English don't worry about the mistakes of non-natives, are more accommodating about it, and actually compliment people on their skills rather than people from Europe who are rabidly maniacal about their spelling and pronunciation. Lastly, the most important point is that for native English speakers, learning foreign languages is a purely personal hobby rather than a genuine need, unlike for most Poles who have had to learn English. Now tomorrow, god forbid, Polish were to become the de facto language of the world, as English is today, I guarantee you people would have no problem learning better Polish than native Polish speakers. Case systems are hard in Polish? Yeah well, tenses are a nightmare in English for foreign speakers. And in fact, that is a harder system to master than cases. Cases are a breeze along with verb conjugations mostly because they are regular and simply have to be memorised.
z0ltan STOP insulting other PF posters or you will receive suspension