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Is Polish hard to learn?

daithiolabhrai

I'm studying Business, Economic and Social Studies (BESS) in Trinity College this year, and as part of my course I have to do a language module. I chose Polish (because my Leaving Cert language, Italian, wasn't availible).

Is Polish a difficult language in the beginning? I know all languages can be difficult, but some are definitely more difficult than others. For example, I would find Spanish and Italian quite easy in the beginning, but Irish and English a good bit more difficult.

I will only be studying up to an intermediate level, whereby I could just about hold a conversation. Does a difficult challenge lie ahead, or should I cruise through?

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spurious

At the beginning the different sounds and letter combinations can be difficult, especially when the teacher is saying things like 'zheh and zheh, very different' (?).:)

It's difficult to speak or write correctly because we're not used to having to deal with the three genders and all the cases (and the exceptions).

It's not too difficult to make yourself understood, if the listener is patient.

I think maybe Polish people are not as used to hearing their language spoken badly as we are in English. Pronunciation is really important and if you make the wrong sound, I think they genuinely do not know what you are saying. Sign language and good humour help a lot.

I have taken Trinity's evening classes for the past two years (heading into the third) and the teachers are excellent. It helps tremendously if you have a Polish bf/gf or group of friends to practise with, or even just to hear speaking. If you get the chance to go on the Polish government scholarship in the summer to Poland, go.

Owen

My other half is Polish, as are a lot of my friends, so speaking Polish was something I wanted to get to grips with. There are dozens of tools out there to help you speed things along with your course. If you have an iPhone, there's a great app called Accelastudy which is flash card based, but also includes audio clips of all the pronounciations. I've heard great things about the Rosetta Stone software too.

As the first responder said, there is some peculiarities when you encounter the language first, for example Ł is pronounced as a W, but your instinct is to pronounce it as an L, and of course lots of different little additions to words such as an f sound at the start of some which makes no sense until you hear native speakers doing it too. And the most confusing of all? No means yes - which is a great excuse if you get a polish girlfriend and you ask her for something, she says no, and you do it anyway

paul_k1

Gramma is hard .But if you wanna only talk you should be fine

I have 2-3 Irish friends talking fluent Polish.

herya

Agree, grammar is difficult with all those verb and noun endings, but if you just want to chat you'll be grand. Polish is easy to read though, there is always one way to pronounce a word or letter combination unlike in English where bear is different from beard and clean from cleanse. So you can pick up words from reading and pronounce them correctly straightaway once you know basic rules.

paul_k1

If any one need some help with Polish language I will help :pac: No problemo

syklops

PaintDoctor wrote: »

And the most confusing of all? No means yes - which is a great excuse if you get a polish girlfriend and you ask her for something, she says no, and you do it anyway

Errr....

Yes in Polish is Tak and No is Nie(pronounced nyeah).

Are you thinking of Czech where Ano means Yes, and czechs often drop the "a" when speaking quickly, or in informal situations?

Owen

syklops wrote: »

Yes in Polish is Tak and No is Nie(pronounced nyeah).

I'd a fair idea of those two seeing as I wrote the guide in the sticky in this forum. There is a third word Polish people use for yes, it's more of an acknowledegement. Every polish person I know uses it. It's pronounced No, and if you're chatting with someone and they're agreeing with you, they'll be nodding their head saying things like 'No, No spoko' agreeing with you.

spurious

No, no, tak.

syklops

PaintDoctor wrote: »

I'd a fair idea of those two seeing as I wrote the guide in the sticky in this forum. There is a third word Polish people use for yes, it's more of an acknowledegement. Every polish person I know uses it. It's pronounced No, and if you're chatting with someone and they're agreeing with you, they'll be nodding their head saying things like 'No, No spoko' agreeing with you.

My apologies. I asked my OH about it before I posted(the first time) and it now turns out she misunderstood my question.

Sorry again.

beazee

'No' is an affirmative exclamation. Something like "yea!".
Or a statement you are listening to a person asking.
Used in common speak.

no
1. «wykrzyknik wyrażający odpowiedź twierdzącą na postawione pytanie, np. Zgadzasz się ze mną? - No., albo sygnalizujący, że adresat słucha mówiącego, np. Powiem ci coś. - No?»

http://sjp.pwn.pl/lista.php?co=no (Polish Dictionary)

"Mhmm" has similar meaning.

http://say.expressivo.com/jacek/język%20polski
Ever wondered how to say it in Polish?

Aseth

PaintDoctor wrote: »

I'd a fair idea of those two seeing as I wrote the guide in the sticky in this forum. There is a third word Polish people use for yes, it's more of an acknowledegement. Every polish person I know uses it. It's pronounced No, and if you're chatting with someone and they're agreeing with you, they'll be nodding their head saying things like 'No, No spoko' agreeing with you.

What you wrote is illogical. 'Nie' would always be 'nie' and english 'no' would always be english 'no'. You can't put equality sign between 'no'(pl)='no'(en) as you can use polish 'no' only as acknowledgment. You are taking polish word with different meaning and asigning it english meaning just because they look exactly the same.
And I think I know better as I've been speaking polish for last 28yrs or so.

alder

well, I guess Polish is very difficult. but that doesn't mean it's too difficult

if someone wants - here will get it.
the other thing is that some people are not able to learn easy. but dla chcącego nic trudnego

Dorotka

PaintDoctor wrote: »

I'd a fair idea of those two seeing as I wrote the guide in the sticky in this forum. There is a third word Polish people use for yes, it's more of an acknowledegement. Every polish person I know uses it. It's pronounced No, and if you're chatting with someone and they're agreeing with you, they'll be nodding their head saying things like 'No, No spoko' agreeing with you.

Wykrzyknik/ zwrot 'no'- moze byc zastosowany w jezyku polskim jako odpowiedz twierdzaca na zadane pytanie, lub jako potwierdzenie stwierdzenia lub istnienia pewnego stanu rzeczy.

Jest to wykrzyknik najczesciej uzywany w mowie potocznej.
Swiadczy on o ubogosci slownictwa polskiego, niskim poziomie intelektualnym/ inteligencji u osob uzywajcych ten wykrzyknik.

Uzywany rowniez w polskiej literaturze.

Wykrzyknik 'no' nie jest stosowany w oficjalnej mowie/ korespondencji.

gar32

syklops wrote: »

Errr....

Yes in Polish is Tak and No is Nie(pronounced nyeah).

Are you thinking of Czech where Ano means Yes, and czechs often drop the "a" when speaking quickly, or in informal situations?

I was in Poland and a few times having mastered some very basic questions. Coffee = Kawa, herbata = tea. I found after asking my GF Dad he said No. He was very unhappy and ask my GF why I did not get him Kawa? (Happened more then once before No meaning yes issue was copped.)

No way!! Way.

beazee

gar32 wrote: »

Happened more then once before No meaning yes issue was copped.

But still is used informally. Something like 'Yea...'
And 'o' in Polish 'no' meaning 'yes' is longer than 'o' in English 'no'.

Right! And what about 'Yeah' which states that s/he is eating "(On/a) je" instead of "yes"?

AFC_1903

syklops wrote: »

Errr....

Yes in Polish is Tak and No is Nie(pronounced nyeah).

Are you thinking of Czech where Ano means Yes, and czechs often drop the "a" when speaking quickly, or in informal situations?

It's like that in Slovak too

callaway92

Charny kleb i charna kawa

Toast and Black coffee

alder

not exactly

trevorku

Czesc tam,

Mam na imię Trevor i mieszkam w Dublin 10. Studuję w polskim język za długo czasu ale niestety nie jest lepsze już. Bardzo chętnie napisać z ludzie kto w samo situacji. Proszę wyślij mi do email. Dzięki. Trevor

Basically I attempted in writing that I am learning polish and was looking to correspond with some irish people via email in order to practice polish on each other. I've been studying on and off for few years, never got any better. My gf is polish, my son is half polish so I want to learn, plus I got to Poland twice a year so am keen on learning.

Thanks guys

- Trevor

beazee

Trevorku,
do you mind if I polish your Polish?

And yes, your Polish is easy to understand but needs some polishing, same as my English.

trevorku

tak beata, moze byc. Polish my Polish, that sounds funny. Hihi. Usmiechnij sie

CiniO

trevorku wrote: »

Czesc tam,

Mam na imię Trevor i mieszkam w Dublin 10. Studuję w polskim język za długo czasu ale niestety nie jest lepsze już. Bardzo chętnie napisać z ludzie kto w samo situacji. Proszę wyślij mi do email. Dzięki. Trevor

Czesc tam - hi there.
In English sounds great, but in Polish you rather wouldn't use such form.
Czesc wszystkim - hi everybody - would be much better.

"Studiuję w polskim język za długo czasu ale niestety nie jest lepsze już" would be something like:
"I study in Polish language too long time, but unfortunatly it's not better already"

Much better would be:
Studiuje jezyk polski od dluzszego czasu, ale niestety ciągle nie jest dobrze"
which is
"I study Polish language for a good while, but unfortunatelly it's still not great"

"Bardzo chętnie napisać z ludzie kto w samo situacji"
should be something like
"Bardzo chętnie nawiąże korespondencję z ludzmi w takiej samej sytuacji"

"Proszę wyślij mi do email"
better "Proszę wyślij do mnie email"

CelticSpirit

Ucze sie polskiego jenzyka od kilku tygodni.

Musze powiedzic ze jest to trudny jezyk.

trevorku

No Własnie, uczę 4 lata i już nie wiem dokładnie co piszę, lol.

herya

Tym bardziej was podziwiamy, ze chce wam sie go uczyc

Tak trzymac!

WooPeeA

Jak uczycie sie jezyka polskiego?

Dave147

AFC_1903 wrote: »

It's like that in Slovak too

Czech and Slovak are almost identical.. obviously, Slovak people don't use 'Ano' that often in every day conversation, they usually say 'Hej' pronounced 'Hey' I found it confusing at first when I was over there because I thought they were using it like we do, instead it's like 'Yeah'.

Girlfriend is Slovak and I've been there a few times, interesting fact is that she can understand a Polish person speaking to her in Polish but the Polish person can't understand my gf speaking Slovak. Any Polish person want to shed some more light on that?

herya

Dave147 wrote: »

Girlfriend is Slovak and I've been there a few times, interesting fact is that she can understand a Polish person speaking to her in Polish but the Polish person can't understand my gf speaking Slovak. Any Polish person want to shed some more light on that?

It really depends on the person and what they are used to, my bf has a Slovak colleague at work and they understand each other perfectly just speaking each in their own language. I was amazed to hear this, no breaks, no misunderstandings, they just go on and on - but they've spent some time together and got used to each other.

alder

id depends. if a Slovak bf is from the northern part of Slovakia (near to Poland) he may not have problems with understanding Polish. and a Pole understands him. but i've met a few Slovaks and we didnt understand each other.
Czech and Slovac languages are deifferent, though. i worked with two lads. we always sat together. me (Pole), Slovak and Czech. sometimes they didnt understand one another. i had no problems in communication with the Slovak, however i had some with the Czech.

okay now. can any non-Polish man write something but in the way he can hear it (pronounced) ? like Doopa instead of Dupa

spurious

alder wrote: »

okay now. can any non-Polish man write something but in the way he can hear it (pronounced) ? like Doopa instead of Dupa

Nee yest-em mensh chizz-nah yest-em kob bee-eh-tawn.