# Slovak speaking parents



## Thomas26

My grandfather grew up in a Slovak speaking household. His parents move his family here from what was at that time Czechoslovakia. He remembers that when he was growing up, especially younger (6-11) his parents would speak Polish between each other when they did not want the children to be part of the conversation. I imagine gossip, money issues, etc......

My question is two fold. 

1.) Do you find it odd that he and his siblings would not be able to understand atleast some of what their parents said in Polish, or is it very feasible to believe they would not have? (He is 89 but what he remembers he says they didn't pick up on much of it). 

2.) Is it odd for his parents to be both fluent in Slovak and Polish? Or this is not all that uncommon in that part of the world? 

Dziękuję


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## CharlesXavier

Hello Thomas,

according to your second question I have to say that this is not very common here to be fluent both in Polish and other Slavic language. Many people focus on learning westward ones like English, German or French because it helps us to get well paid job in big international enterprises consequently giving an opportunity to either increase a salary or leave a country. There is no point in learning Ukrainian or Czech for Poles unless it's just your whim or your family roots belong there. Let's wait for other natives and check their responses though.

Truth be told 'this part of world' as you've said is in many aspects alike your part of world. Globalisation is spreading so Europe and world in general have been becoming similar.

Proszę bardzo!


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## Thomas26

CharlesXavier said:


> Hello Thomas,
> 
> Truth be told 'this part of world' as you've said is in many aspects alike your part of world. Globalisation is spreading so Europe and world in general have been becoming similar.
> 
> Proszę bardzo!



Yes, here in the USA the Spanish language is becoming almost a must to learn if you would like better business oppurtunities.......of course also depending on the line of business you are in. 

I do not know if they were fluent in Polish, they may have just known enough to be able to communicate effectively between themselves.


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## marco_2

You know, if your great-grandparents came from Spisz or Orawa (they are regions now divided by Polish-Slovak border), it could be possible that they spoke both Slovak and Polish dialects.


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## Anczan

I agree with marco, I come from the Czech Republic, but lived most of my life near borders with Poland, so I can understand and speak both languages (Czech, Polish). Truth is that I went to a school where I was taught Polish and Czech, but still, even the people who didn't go to such a school could speak the Polish dialect in that region, and of course Czech, I imagine this could be similar to the situation of your grandfather's parents.


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## CharlesXavier

Truth be told Polish and Czech are much alike, consequently you do not have to learn Czech to be able to understand the gist, though admittedly it doesn't mean you do know both _dialects_​.


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## majlo

I used to work with a Czech guy and he would always 'forget' to use English to communicate with me and he'd always try to speak Czech to me. Truth be told, I didn't understand what he was saying to me. I could only catch seperate words.


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## pawel_zet

Mutal intelligibility among western Slav languages is fairly good. However, if somebody has never been exposed on the other language, it may be a little difficult for him to understand the correct meaning of sentences in this languages. It is a bit strange for me to start the conversation with Czech or Slovak in English. I use English only when I find communication difficulties, which occurs not very frequently.


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## Anczan

If you know one Slavic language, you can always understand another Slavic language to some extent, but it does not mean that you can speak it well, not to mention understand the context correctly. Speaking from my experience. So to answer your first question, Thomas, I think that your grandfather could understand some words, but couldn't catch the whole context, because he wasn't exposed to Polish language before.


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## rdimd

pawel_zet said:


> Mutal intelligibility among western Slav languages is fairly good. However, if somebody has never been exposed on the other language, it may be a little difficult for him to understand the correct meaning of sentences in this languages. It is a bit strange for me to start the conversation with Czech or Slovak in English. I use English only when I find communication difficulties, which occurs not very frequently.


But what would happen if I try to use Russian communicating with a person whose native language is Polish, Czech or Slovak?
As far as I know, there are two aspects - linguistic and political - for many Eastern Europeans (including Latvians), Russian language is a bit like 'bad guys' language.


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## pawel_zet

rdimd said:


> But what would happen if I try to use Russian communicating with a person whose native language is Polish, Czech or Slovak?
> As far as I know, there are two aspects - linguistic and political - for many Eastern Europeans (including Latvians), Russian language is a bit like 'bad guys' language.



Mutal intelligibility between Russian and Polish is still good, although for sure not as good as between Polish and Czech or Slovak.
During communism we all had to learn Russian for 4-6 years at least, and - in Poland - it was a very hard dare duty for many people because for political reasons.
When communism collapsed, nobody studied Russian in Poland any more apart from enthusiasts. However, Russian is still extremely useful if you want to travel in the former Soviet Block countries because:
1. in former Soviet republics (maybe apart from the Baltic states) almost everybody speaks Russian; in Armenia for example even children speak Russian well - I have been there this year; Moscow is the economic (and sometimes political) centre of the world for them;
2. in Slavic countries mutual intelligibility leads to fairly good level of communication, and after 20 years I do not suppose that you would meet many people pretending that they do not understand you because you speak Russian,
3. in countries like Ukraine and Belarus Russian in many places is more popular than Ukrainian or Belarusian respectively,
4. older people were tought Russian in countries like Poland and Czech Republic, so many of them speak Russian a bit, sometimes fairly well; a few years ago in Olomouc (Czech Republic) I (Pole) speak in Russian with an owner of the pension; he studied in Moscow, and I - apart from a school education - worked in Russia for a few months.


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## cyruslb

rdimd Don't worry "normal" people know that politics is politics, feel free to speak Russian in Poland, just pronounce all unstressed "o" as "o" not "a" and use penultimate stress all the time   It's gonna make your Russian a little bit Polishized  and slightly more understandable for someone who doesn't speak Russian.


P.S And use as many archaic words as you know, they're more similar to Polish.


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