# Complexity of Polish



## Oletta

Hello everybody,

A friend of mine have sent me the following link on impressions of a person who has tried to study Polish:
http://hubpages.com/hub/Most_Difficult_Languages_-_Polish

I enjoyed reading the Norman Davis's impressions, unfortunately I haven't found them on the Internet to quote. 

My question is dedicated to those of you who have have had any experience with studying Polish. What has been the most difficult for you? What do you like/dislike about the language.

Thank you


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## Cynthia F

This isn't quite the same, but there was a thread along similar lines....

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1597412


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## cpuzey1

Actually I do not think Polish is as difficult as everyone says. All foreign languages are hard at a certain level. That's just their _wymówka_ (excuse) for not making any progress.


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## BezierCurve

Exactly. And I never said Polish is difficult. It is just terribly irregular, that's what makes it hard to acquire at a fluent level.

And what makes a language difficult? Cases? What about Hungarian then? Maybe tonality? Then Polish is as easy as ABC.


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## majlo

If we take Europe into account, I think Polish would make the Top 10 of the most difficult language.


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## Jadeitea

Actually, it is quite difficult, even if it's mainly because of the maaaany exceptions. Who on Earth would think that "pies" becomes "psa" in genitive, but a word which is strikingly similar, "bies" is "biesa"? I'm a native speaker, so maybe there _is_ a method in this madness, but I do not know it. 

Although I must admit that learning Basque or Japanese was quite challenging too.  All in all, no language is too difficult to learn - let's not forget that there are native people who speak it, so it can't be impossible!


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## Sobakus

What's there to Polish that makes it harder then any other declined Slavic language?


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## bibax

> Who on Earth would think that "pies" becomes "psa" in genitive, but a word which is strikingly similar, "bies" is "biesa"?


Who on Earth would think that a Czech "pes" becomes "psa" in genitive, but a similar word "běs" is "běsu" in genitive? (in Proto-Slavic there was soft yer after p in pes, but yat after b in běs ;-).

Who on Earth would think that Latin "dominus" (pan) is declined differently than "domus" (dóm)? (dominus is an o-stem noun and domus is an u-stem noun)



> What's there to Polish that makes it harder then any other declined Slavic language?


I think it is phonology at least in comparison with Czech and especially with Slovak (s-ś-š, c-ć-č, z-ź-ž, l-ł etc. distinction).


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## Jadeitea

Yes, Latin was difficult too, how could I forget.  I'm not saying that Polish is the most difficult language, but surely more than English (they don't _have_ declension, and their conjucation is reduced to the "to be" verb and the "s" in the third person singular) or Spanish (extremely easy, too). I'm sure the Czech and Slovak languages, as they belong to the same family, are as difficult as Polish.


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## BezierCurve

Still, you can look at declension simply as at prepositions glued to the main word as suffixes, depending on the case (at, by, to, for etc.). Of course, I agree that it gets a bit more complex when you also have to modify the stem (dąb -> dębu), but that's more of a phonology question I guess.

Example: in Hebrew when you want to use a preposition like "from" or "to"/"for", or to use a conjunction like "and" you just stick it to the word as an affix. But that does not make it any harder, does it? Eventhough you might treat is as some kind of declension.

And there are things in English that give a headache to millions of learners every day, like, say, all the phrasal verbs or the distinction between short and long vowels - how many native Polish speakers realize there is a difference between the pronunciation of "bit" and "beat"? Or "polish" and "Polish", to make it funnier?


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## phosphore

BezierCurve said:


> Or "polish" and "Polish", to make it funnier?


 
You got a point. 

And Spanish is a long way from being easy too, it might seem easy just at the very beginning. But we Slavs are somehow proud because our languages are allegedly so hard to master.


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## Jadeitea

phosphore said:


> You got a point.
> 
> And Spanish is a long way from being easy too, it might seem easy just at the very beginning. But we Slavs are somehow proud because our languages are allegedly so hard to master.



Well, Spanish sure seems easy to me even now, after almost five years of learning it about seven hours a week. 

We are proud, maybe because many other languages are easier for us to learn.  Maybe it's because of the phonology of Slavic languages. See, I've met many Polish people who speak English, French, Spanish, Russian, and when they do, they sound like natives. And I know quite a few foreigners who have been living in Poland for years, one of them translates Polish poetry, so he must be extraordinarily good, but still you can tell he's Mexican when you hear him. Our vocal chords must be really well trained.


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## marco_2

You know, I asked once a Swede, who learnt Polish quite well, what was the most difficult for him, and he answered: "phonetics", but not "chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie" - he couldn't tell difference between the words like *wieś - weź - wieź - wiesz *and *wesz -* it was a real nightmare for him.


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## Wasmachien

The hardest thing for me is to hear the difference between the different sibilants. I don't want to know how many times I said 'prosię' instead of 'proszę'.


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## robin74

marco_2 said:


> he couldn't tell difference between the words like *wieś - wieź *


Well, actually these two are phonetically identical so at least for this particular pair no wonder he couldn't tell the difference


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## marco_2

I know - I should have wriiten *wieź / wieś, *and of course *tell the difference *- marry (write) in haste - repent at leisure :-(


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## phosphore

Jadeitea said:


> Well, Spanish sure seems easy to me even now, after almost five years of learning it about seven hours a week.
> 
> We are proud, maybe because many other languages are easier for us to learn.  Maybe it's because of the phonology of Slavic languages. See, I've met many Polish people who speak English, French, Spanish, Russian, and when they do, they sound like natives. And I know quite a few foreigners who have been living in Poland for years, one of them translates Polish poetry, so he must be extraordinarily good, but still you can tell he's Mexican when you hear him. Our vocal chords must be really well trained.


 
Firstly, the concept of language learning is quite different for us than for speakers of so-called world languages. For us it is much more important to speak a foreign language with no accent than it is for them, they are usually satisfied when they can communicate effectively. Secondly, the learners of Polish are certainly much less numerous than Polish learners of foreign languages, and still how many Poles really speak English or French without any noticeable accent? not to mention that you would notice even the slightest accent in Polish, while you wouldn't notice such an accent of a Pole speaking English or French, so it is quite natural that you haven't met many foreigners speaking Polish as good as you. Finally, there is much more literature for learning English or French than for learning Polish and the quality of the former is a lot better than the quality of the latter. I hope I made my point.


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## Jadeitea

Sure, I get it, but I agree only to some extent.  While our foreign accent may be _barely_ noticeable, the foreigners who speak Polish are instantly recognisable. As for the "literature for learning", I stand by the opinion that the best way to learn a language is to live abroad for a few years and speak with the natives.


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## Kochaner

Jadeitea said:


> Sure, I get it, but I agree only to some extent.  While our foreign accent may be _barely_ noticeable, the foreigners who speak Polish are instantly recognisable. As for the "literature for learning", I stand by the opinion that the best way to learn a language is to live abroad for a few years and speak with the natives.


 
Hi all! Been browsing a bit, and as I'm very interested in Polish, decided to leave my first message in this forum. I was a bit surprised to see this statement. Do you Poles really believe that you don't have any noticeable accent when speaking English?  I mean, there are a bunch of sounds that are found in one language and not in the other. I'm not saying that we English speakers have no accent (those hushes are hard to distinguish) but I find it far-fetched that no accent would be noticeable at all. I think that's the _polska duma_ talking there...


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## Jadeitea

Kochaner said:


> Hi all! Been browsing a bit, and as I'm very interested in Polish, decided to leave my first message in this forum. I was a bit surprised to see this statement. Do you Poles really believe that you don't have any noticeable accent when speaking English?  I mean, there are a bunch of sounds that are found in one language and not in the other. I'm not saying that we English speakers have no accent (those hushes are hard to distinguish) but I find it far-fetched that no accent would be noticeable at all. I think that's the _polska duma_ talking there...



Haha, to some extent, certainly.  But notice that I wrote "barely".  I know a case of a Pole who went to Spain and spent a few years there. Soon she got mistaken for a native (by other natives, mind you) quite a few times. I'm just saying.


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## PawelBierut

Jadeitea said:


> I know a case of a Pole who went to Spain and spent a few years there. Soon she got mistaken for a native (by other natives, mind you) quite a few times. I'm just saying.



The case of Spain can be a little misleading because there are plenty of different accents / regional languages in Spain. So it isn't so unusual for a Spaniard to think that a person who has a good command of his native language and a rare accent can be his compatriot brought up in a different province.


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## ><FISH'>

Polish people certainly have a very noticable accent. I know that the younger ones who study English in an Anglophone country can speak it very well with a very beautifully clear accent, but it is nowhere close to native-sounding, even if it does sound very clear. I don't doubt that they have the capability to sound like natives, but it's far more trouble than it is worth. It is hard enough to learn English from a variety of people who speak with different accents, such as American, Australian, English, Scottish, and everything in-between. Just within 50 miles of me there are at least 7 noticable variations of an accent, so I wouldn't expect any foreigner to be able to learn English to the level of convincing people they're native (and even then they would have to choose an area to sound like a native of) unless they were actively trying to learn a particular accent for some reason.

As for Polish being difficult, I can also not agree that Polish is no more difficult than any other language. An Anglophone learning Spanish, French or Swedish is going to learn it relatively easily. Poles themselves often say these languages are easy compared to Polish. Polish grammar is just too alien, and even Poles agree that it is weird and hard. Pretty much every Pole I have spoken to says that English is much easier than Polish, and that Polish is messed up and complicated. Then again I hear this from speakers of all Slavonic languages. As for phonetics, Polish is completely easy. As a native Anglophone sometimes the intricacies of English pronunciation gives me a headache, and I feel sorry for anyone who has to learn all of these pronunciations, dialects, accents, and idioms from scratch. I even feel that Polish to me is more natural than English. Poles often do mistake me for native Polish if I open with a Polish phrase, but that might just be because they're in disbelief that anyone would try and learn this language rather than any phonetic authenticity.


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## Ben Jamin

PawelBierut said:


> The case of Spain can be a little misleading because there are plenty of different accents / regional languages in Spain. So it isn't so unusual for a Spaniard to think that a person who has a good command of his native language and a rare accent can be his compatriot brought up in a different province.


 I do not believe that such a thing is possible. In Norway there are hundreds of dialects and the accents vary enormously, but a native Norwegian will always recognize a non native "rare accent". I suppose this is the same with Spaniards. The explanation might be that Spaniards are more tolerant towards non native accents.


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## Kochaner

Jadeitea said:


> Haha, to some extent, certainly.  But notice that I wrote "barely".  I know a case of a Pole who went to Spain and spent a few years there. Soon she got mistaken for a native (by other natives, mind you) quite a few times. I'm just saying.


 
Maybe it's just individual talent...? 

And Fish I do believe it's a matter of very high pride, which is an okay thing. But I find that a narrow-minded view. Alas!


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## arturolczykowski

> I know that the younger ones who study English in an Anglophone country  can speak it very well with a very beautifully clear accent, but it is  nowhere close to native-sounding, even if it does sound very clear.




I can not agree with this. My daughter was 8 when she came to England and now after 4 years when I meet English people they ask me whether she was born here.


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## ><FISH'>

arturolczykowski said:


> I can not agree with this. My daughter was 8 when she came to England and now after 4 years when I meet English people they ask me whether she was born here.


By young I mean teenager upwards (16-30). Naturally an 8-year-old or so would be able to absorb the language with much more depth. I also know a few Poles who came here when they were 10 or 12 and now switch erratically between fluent Geordie English and Polish. It makes for quite a flow of conversation...


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## arturolczykowski

Sorry I didn't get you. Yeah, some linguists say that you can acquire the proper accent of the foreign language you learn if you start learning it before you reach adolescence....


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## juraj

Oletta said:


> A friend of mine have sent me the following link on impressions of a person who has tried to study Polish ...


 
Honestly, most of things mentioned by article are common at least for all west slavic languages. I am lazy to count grammatical forms of 2 , but e.g. using different words to express different tenses is common concept. PL is not more difficult from this point of view than CZ or SK. 

Names of moths are secondary. It is about 12 words. It is not much more difficult than to learn numbers 1-10 (CZ also use slavic names of months).

I cannot agree with this: _"people were understandably protective of their language and less likely to have foreign intrusion into it"_. In my opinion, exact opposite is true. PL is less "pure" than e.g. SK and CZ. My ranking here: SK, CZ, PL.

What is different and more difficult? Pronunciation. PL, CZ and SK, grammars are very similar, but PL have objectlively more letters and sounds.


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## triuo

Jadeitea said:


> Sure, I get it, but I agree only to some extent.  While our foreign accent may be _barely_  noticeable, the foreigners who speak Polish are instantly recognisable.  As for the "literature for learning", I stand by the opinion that the  best way to learn a language is to live abroad for a few years and speak  with the natives.


I agree with you on the last point, and also about Slavic people seeming  to have a great knack for learning foreign languages (football players,  not usually known as the brightest of people, come to mind), BUT...  although I don't doubt there are Polish people who can speak English  with a near-native accent, it would certainly be a very small minority,  at least in the UK. As mentioned above by FISH, there are often very  noticeably different accents here within a relatively small  geographical area. Just hearing someone say a few words can usually give  you a good idea about where they are from and even their social  background. There isn't really such thing as a "neutral" accent, so  unless you somehow manage to pick up the local one after living in the area for some time, or maybe learn Received Pronunciation to perfection, then  your non-nativeness will always be pretty obvious. If you do a search in Youtube for "Polish Cafe", the girls in that comedy sketch are  how most Polish people sound to Brits .


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## BezierCurve

Indeed, I don't think that a speaker's nationality has anything to do with their linguistic skills. I guess that only young age can be some advantage here.

By the way, good comedy (Polish Cafe). Although the blondie definitely speaks with a Russian-like accent.


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