Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D

I answered someone who asked which language seems (or is) more difficult - Czech or Polish. It seems to me that I, as a bilingual Czech / Polish speaker, brought up with both languages since birth, am at least somewhat qualified to try and answer this question. Why do I have problems with Czech grammar and spelling when I have no problems, and never have had any, with Polish grammar and spelling? Always considering that I had grown up in a fully bilingual household, with daily exposure to both languages, spoken and written.

It is Hard but if you have the motivation you'll learn fast :)

I am only beginning to learn Polish - good lord! "Szcz" - what?! Letters with angry marks over them or tails or spears through them, as in the "ł" (in złoty, for instance).

I am an American (is it obvious?) - and I just noticed the Polish letters above this dialogue box (well done, Polish Forums! Dzięki!).

I have not started formally learning Polish, but I can talk to the dog. The spelling for some of the words I have learned is like... some crazy surprise. It is both delightful and frightening.

My friends are learning about silent letters in English (mostly correcting them on pronouncing the "ed" at the end of verbs, such as "pronounced." It is not "pro-noun-ced."). They are supposed to be teaching me Polish! Hahaha. And when they do toss me a word here and there, it's something I will hardly ever (if never) use, such as dżdżownica. What? I just asked Google Translate for the spelling, and I am bamboozled!)

I am very grateful for my friends' abilities and willingness to speak English, but I really need to crack open the book I brought and listen to the lessons on MP3.

Hi, I'm new to the Forums. Dipping my toes in here. Will be at the meeting tomorrow night at the Sky Tower. (Smiley face.)

P.S. I have a bunch of topics open, so I did not read this entire thread. I will say that I've shown my Polish friends the language book for learning Polish, and they shook their heads in sympathy (a couple of them laughed... sympathetically) and said that Polish was very, very difficult. Sigh.

Hi.

If you can say Welsh church, then you can also say barszcz, Szczecin and Bydgoszcz.

or pushchair?

Welsh church is slightly difficult, but that is very helpful. Thank you. I also have to slow down and enunciate when I say "south," especially in such combinations as "south san" (as in South San Francisco).

Pushchair is also helpful. Thanks to you, too!

So it's sh ch, two sounds. Sh ch. Szcz is sh-ch. Sh ch. Sh ch. (I'm laughing.) Now it makes sense.

Sorry, this was a bit nasty from me. I would not be surprissed if for example an English or German speaker can't learn Polish, but a speaker of another slavic language has a big advantage and all slaves I have met told me that they would have no problems with Polish and undestand much of it despite they haven't learned it.

you mean this?

Wulkan, he's translating from the German, old man! See the problems when folks start flying off with the keyboard and don't apologize in advance for their misunderstandable errors??

He meant probably, "That was UNFAIR of me." (Jan literally translated "Das war ja ekelig von mir.") By "slaves", he was clearly translating "Slaven".

A clearer instance of first language interference would be hard to match:-)

@rozumiemic,

Considering that perhaps you are indeed a sixty-something former Oxford professor, I'd be more than happy to concede your academic superiority......maybe! You don't appreciate my slicing wit, do you? You really should bone up on "The Man Who Came To DInner" by Kaufman & Hart and deny that I don't remind you of Sheridan WhitesideLOL

Sorry to correct you yet again, Wlodzimierz, but you cannot use the word 'ekelig' (commonly spelled 'eklig', by the way) like that. What Jan had in mind was "Das war ein bißchen (bisschen) gemein von mir".

Glad I could help... ;)

Aha! Nice to know that a fellow native speaker's on hand. Indeed, "der Ekel" has many (dis-)guises and can indeed be "gemein" (common):-)

We both then freely admit that JanMovie merely mistranslated from his native tongue and therefore gave a less than felicitous rendering into English.

"Eklig", of course. Another typo, I fear.

Cheers, brother!

The latter statement is only semi-correct; I am in fact a bilingual, native US-born English-German speaker. As concerns various posts in this regard, merely because certain of you haven't heard of various collocations by no means signifies that they don't exist. Lack of familiarity oughtn't be occasion to pronounce the other person defective:-)

Language use has grown unconscionably sloppy over the past decades, in almost every language with which I'm familiar. It's not only English which bears the sole brunt of this decline. Germans growing up today can't spell their own to save their lives either, many of them, so don't expect their English to be much better!

The Finns and Icelanders are the exception in this respect. Interestingly too, their mother tongues are hardly world-class competitors compared with English, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish, even German.

Yes, I was wondering why a native speaker of a slavic language couldn't learn Polish. As for me, I may have a talent for learning languages, but I am heavilly disadvantaged compared to a native slavic speaker and can also learn Polish without much troubles. I meant it was nasty/unfair from me, that I wrote "It shouldn't be a Problem for you too, this is emberassing for you etc...". And yes, with slaves I mean "Slaven" (slavic People).

But I have also met native English speakers who can't learn German while for example many Hungarians can.

"I have a talent for learning languages.."

?? How modest of you, JanMovie:-) Do you in fact speak/write your other languages the same way you do English?
LOL

He was answering to my post not yours, so pay attention and why you didn't play my game? I thought you was a foreign languages enthusiast, too bad I was wrong.

polishforums.com/off-topic-lounge-47/great-language-game-69402

A foreign language enthusiast I definitely am. I merely wished to slow JanMovie down a little. While his English is generally quite fluent, he still makes umpteen interference errors to which I merely wanted to draw his attention:-) Like yourself Wulkan, Ironside, Paulina, Patrycia and many other members on PF, Jan was practicing his English, much as I enjoy posting in Polish to practice my language skills. Likewise, I was under the impression that he too would appreciate some correction. I take it I'm right!

But you didn't quote him correctly in the first place.
What he said was


Which is not the same as

The assertion is not the issue, Pam, but rather the direction of his comment. I think it's great that he enjoys learning languages, just like the rest of us. I simply wished to gently caution him that while he has stated other times that he considers himself solid in English, having been learning it since the age of ten, his English still has plenty of gaps of which he should be aware before going ahead with Polish, Spanish or what have you.

In applying the "brakes" so to speak, my intention was scarcely to dampen his enthusiasm:-)

LOL just sounds spiteful old man, there was nothing constructive about your criticism

Oh, but there was! I specifically stated that my aim was to "slow Jan down", not deflect the focus of his interests.
Indeed, he seems as interested in improving his English as well as his Polish, Spanish and who knows which other language skills.

Since when is forty old? I think of myself as middle-aged:-)

" I specifically stated that my aim was to "slow Jan down"

ummmm no what you actually said was

My point entirely. How is the lad to progress if he isn't corrected? I was being a tad sarky in the sentence you quoted, it's true. I only meant that how he's unwittingly mangling the English language, hopefully he isn't doing to the other languages he's learning as well.

My college profs could be snide as all hell on my papers. Didn't bother me a bit, 'cause I was thankful for the help!

you are not his college prof you are a randomer on the internet

Same thing, dude! Just a different stand. All of us appreciate correction, so long as it's done constructively.

for f'ucks sake there was nothing constructive in what you said , nothing whatsoever.

And what would YOU have preferred, pray tell?? So far, JanMovie hasn't commented.

His English is pretty good if you ask me considering he didn't start learning it until he was 10, and at no point has he said he is 'solid' in English as you stated earlier.

He said that he couldn't really say if English was difficult or easy to learn, because what he has learned, has been over many years.

What I really don't understand is that you don't cut anyone any slack whatsoever. Do you expect him to speak English like a native? I doubt there are many people unless they grew up bilingual, that can speak a second language as fluently as their own.

If I remember rightly, you are English/German bilingual, and yet TheOther has pointed out your mistakes in German, so maybe you're not as fluent as you'd like to think you are?

What you also have to remember, is that although people pointing out your mistakes may be water off a Duck's back to you, it could be very disheartening for others who are learning, to be told they are ' mangling the English Language '

If my Polish was half as good as JanMovie's English, I'd be pretty happy.

I only ask the same standards be applied to me as to any other on this forum. Can you honestly say that my paultry errors in German are any "less" egregious than Jan's occasionally off sentence structure??

Let's just keep things on a more or less equal footing. If Jan and others here are ready,willing and able to admit their errors, then I am certainly as glad to admit mine:-)

"egregious" - surely the most pretentious word ever invented.

Considering you're supposedly fluent in German, I wouldn't be expecting you to make any errors at all.
JanMovie however, has never professed to be fluent in English.

Wlodzimierz, I don't think the sarcastic comment you wrote to JanMovie was justified.
Pam is right - he didn't claim his English is perfect.


I didn't see TheOther being so sarcastic towards you as you were towards JanMovie...
If you wanted to draw JanMovie's attention to his errors, you could do it in a nice way. There was no reason to be nasty.

That's my opinion.