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

Polish people enjoy Polish being the HARDEST MOST ILLOGICAL AND WEIRDEST LANGUAGE in the whole wide world...

They enjoy having to learn 16 years Polish language (wasting their time and efforts actually)
and having an average of 56 out of 100 in Polish at their Matura exam...
while in English they get an average of 88 out of 100 ;)

That really is biased it works both ways:

US - UK
zipper - zip
undershirt - vest
traffic circle - roundabout
potato chips - crisps
pocket book - hand bag
intermission - interval

I could go on.

You're right, the truth is always somewhere in between.


wǒ yī or I agree - mandarin is pretty tough. I'm picking up as much Mandarin as can but the pronunciation is tough. Also the dialects are very diverse. Cantonese (Hong Kong area) and Mandarin (most of China) are basically different languages. However even Beijing (Peking?) and Shanghai dialects are pretty different even though it's all Mandarin Chinese.

By the way you meant to say "Polski is not the hardest language to learn." ;)

Zai jain (good bye) :)

So most polish people create their OWN language, because the polish language is just to hard
to learn for 99% of polish people even! So nice ! :)


That is a very strong argument ;)

We use check as in lets "check the contents" but prefer to differentiate from the cheque as in (paper money).

...but why, after all the stuff you check for in your bag was paid for with a check (ok, credit card) :)

joland
They say that the grammar in Finnish is difficult too. I very much doubt if Polish is anywhere near the hardest language to learn.

Joland - I agree with you, I think it all depends on a person's background. For a Slovak Polish isn't that hard, for a German and an American it's pretty darn hard and for a Chinese and Korean it's almost impossible. Of course the reverse applies too.

So it's all very relative.

As far as Finnish - Long time ago when I lived in Sweden I lived with a Finnish girlfriend so I took Finnish classes; wanted to be able to talk to her folks in Finland (Suomi). The hardest things for me were all the double a's, etc and the fact the prepositions were "backward" - you wouldn't say something is "on the table" - instead the translation would be something like "tableon" - makes for loong words... lol. Makes for pretty sound though (and women ;)

yes there was one - but not very extensive - in the 30's - it made Jakub of Jakób for example can't remember any other examples

Jakub is a counterpart of James or Jacob in English (King James II Stewart is król Jakub II (drugi) Stewart in Polish)

I'm still sad that I can't have abstract conversations about a variety of subjects rather than just the very day to day Polish I've learned so far but every day brings a new word (or a new varient of a word I know for the various reasons), I will crack the nut with this, I bloody well will if it takes me the rest of my life I will!!!

Patience, practice and much banging your head on the wall!

;))) I really like your attitude :)

Im learning to speak polish and I love it! Poland should never speak any other language! Anything worth learning is a challenge and Polish is worth learning!!! Sometimes the sounds mix me up but once I learn them I never forget them. Maybe if more people spoke Polish in different countries around the world then there would be more help in understanding it. For example, at the universities or schools or tutors available, like with the Spanish language. I find most people learning Polish have to learn it on their own. In USA, at University of Florida in Gainesville offers Polish classes and is dedicated to it. I am currently using the book:

Cześć, jak się masz? A Polish Language Textbook Introduction to Polish A1. ISBN: 83-242-0633-7

They have two more levels and it comes with CD so the learner can here the pronunciation.
Any other ideas, I would be happy to hear about them.

A strong language for a strong people
A strong people for a strong Country!

Happy Polish learning!

"Poland should never speak any other language..."

Don't you worry, Violin75, it won't (....and it doesn't, believe me!)

LOL

Polish - 7 cases. Finnish 13! My father assured me that of the two, Polish was significantly easier to learn and he spoke both; amongst others; fluently.

Don't know whether I agree with difficult pronunciation, in point of fact I would say it is relieved of the inconsistencies that English enjoys. Once one has learnt the non changing value of a letter it becomes reasonably straightforward with the obvious exception of extremely unfamiliar letter groupings.

Completely agree, Andy.

I started learning Hungarian years ago and found, like with Finnish, the case system daunting. Polish though, has it's hair-raising issues with numbers etc...

Having spent a couple of weeks in Hungary in the 90's, I found it a completely unfathomable language. We were reduced to making noises like the animal to get the meat we required at the butchers shop. Laughable but effective. On the other hand when we reached Yugoslavia; we toured Europe for three months; the similarities allowed at least some vestige of speech.

I sincerely believe that no foreigner who is sane, will ever fill his brain with so much unuseful seven cases, hundreds of possible terminations for each simple word, hundreds of declinations for all three genders

Statistics show that less then 2% of Polish people can even write correctly in this criminal polish language. Why bother? You have English, it is 45006070 times more easier than Polish

;)

oh... really?

...and precisely, Georgiana dear, because you "have" English, as you put it, everyone considers it their personal property (the Poles being no exception!) and tend to use it badly. What's really the difference between putting up with the average Pole's poor English and the average foreigner's poor Polish?

Since many assume they can switch to English, the switching mechanism frequently malfunctions from misuse, thereby miscommunicating the message. But since it's 'only English' (ha-ha!!), noone seems to care much.

Pity.

Georgina, Do the rest of the world a favor and stay in your own country and don't inflict your ignorance on the rest of the world.

Polish is not that difficult to learn. If a South-african can learn the language in 3 years just from dictionaries and people he worked with then it must be quite easy......

polish is easy to pronounce.Here are some words that mite come hard to you...

Ręka=hand pronounced Reuka Kind of like the word realm ecept eu not eal
Głosy=voices pronounced gwosy polish w=ł sound
Kawa=koffe polish w=v sound

-=zj sound
Ż=zjr sound
j=y sound example:the name Janina or jane in polish Janina=yanina
Ó=ooh like boo
Ą=oh sound
Ś=sh sound
Ć=ch sound
Ń= nah kind of hard to write like nia

That is a pronunciation key :} Polish is not verry hard it's actually easy if you look at the pronunciation key.

Yep that is easy. Exept:
Ę - another oh sound
Sz - another sh sound
Cz - another ch sound

And few other. :-)

Prosię bardzo!

Probably statistics are wrong. Everybody in Warszawa says that only polish grammar teachers are the only ones who can write "correctly" in their own language Polish

A Real reform of this language must be done fast, or soon there will be no more foreign investments because of the impossible language...

"There are lies, damned lies and then there are statistics.", attributed to either Benjamin Disraeli or Sir Winston Churchill:-)

By the way, the native language of certain 'English-speaking' countries is in fact broken English or patois, such as Jamaica along with various other islands.

Should Broken English the become the world standard, anymore than Broken French or the like???

I mistyped. "Should Broken English then become...."

Please, don’t tell me that you’re smart enough to run a successful business but can’t learn Polish language. It’s only a language like any other; if we can learn English surely you can do the same. You always have an option to hire someone that can do whatever you have to do to be successful in Poland, otherwise I’ll take it as I can’t do it it’s too hard for me (I’m not smart enough!) get it?


Who’s everyone? You and your alter ego, please.

Funny, 40 million plus people don't seem to have any problem with it... if even the lowlife kurwa boys can manage, it can't be that difficult ;)

The native language (as in everyday spoken language) of Jamaica is Jamaican Creole, which is no more 'broken English' than Polish is 'broken Russian'. Unfortunately, the local administrative language in Jamaica is called English which guarantees that most of the local population will have minimal chance at social advancement as that requires mastery of a foreign language (without the recognition that it in fact is a foreign language).

Jamaican Creole is a lively, interesting and expressive language suppressed in favor of a pariticularly lifeless and boring interpretation of British English which is perceived as being more in line with the ruling classes ambitions (roughly : keep the rest of the population in their places).

Fine, Mafketis. Locutions like "Hey man, when you was tellin' me 'bout dat, man? No make me no never mind, so much things I got to say, man......." are acceptable in rap lyrics, street talk, private palaver etc.., scarcely as a replacement for standard English, not as boring, monotonous or lifeless, as many a pseudo liberal might think! For that matter, the Beatles are 'cooler' than Bach, Beethoven or the whole classical canon, because the Goldberg Variations, for instance, sound to some unenlightened souls as dry and mechanical, for that matter Gilbert & Sullivan as too dated, prissy or mundane etc. NONSENSE!!! And incidentally, only the finest of the Rock idiom had the discipline of melody, harmony and organization, like the Beatlers, whose ilk will most probably ne'er return in our lifetime.

I'm tired of cultural relativism which states that standards don't matter. Standards do indeed matter, not only in language, but in every facet of our lives, from medicine, to teaching to engineeing, you name it.

Sorry to disagree so unpopularly and so bluntly!!

I would not think of telling that to a Pole.However russian is much more difficult predominantly due to cyrillic alphabet because the roots of the words are the same.