Czemu język polski jest tak trudny? // Why is Polish so hard?

The single most frustrating thing about my polonization is the language barrier. I’ve been living in Poland for 5 years and I’ve only been speaking Polish about 2, so I had a late start. I think that’s a common story for foreigners here because we’re all so daunted by the complexity of it all. Luckily my Polish family doesn’t speak English, and for some reason, they accept me even though I can’t seem to stop botching their language so royally.

In hindsight, I made a big mistake. My most embarrassing moments all seem to be connected with this somehow. Having someone else speak for me or make calls for me. Feeling like an idiot at parties because I have no idea what’s going on. Then worse, the inevitable “do you understand?” and having to admit “no, I have no fucking clue” in front of all those people. Sitting there with a smile on my face while everyone else is laughing. Being asked “you’ve lived here for x years and you don’t speak Polish yet?” Add all these to the “reasons I’d like to jump off a bridge” list.

Polish is definitely not a language you just “pick up”. It takes work. Bardzo. ciężka. praca. I’ve had a teacher for the past two years, which is also something I highly recommend to any foreigner. But finding someone willing to teach you Polish is also not very easy. Why? Well of course you can talk to anyone, but who can explain complex grammatical issues? Kto może wytłumaczyć przypadki?!

So what is it that’s really so difficult? There are 3 genders, verb conjugations, strange plural forms, and 7 cases. In Polish, practically every word changes based on the “przypadek” or, in English, case. So sometimes there are many versions of the same word. The most popular is two, which has like 17 versions.

Let’s take the word milk. In English, milk is milk. It is uncountable, so that can cause problems, but in no way does this word itself need to change:

milk – mleko
coffee with milk – kawa z mlekiem
there’s no milk – nie ma mleka

Even names change you say? Let’s take my boyfriend’s name.

Peter – Piotrek
I’m going to the mountains with Peter – Idę w góry z Piotrkiem.
Peter isn’t here – Nie ma Piotrka.
I told Peter that it was a stupid idea- Powiedziałam Piotrkowi że to był głupi pomysł.

yeah. takie rzeczy.

Aside from those horrors, Polish looks crazy. Przepraszam, ale to prawda. It has different letters: ą, ę, ó, ż, ź, ł, ń, ć. Each of these has its own peculiar pronunciation. Also, there a lot of z’s and other consonants which can look really scary in the beginning. I don’t have huge problems with pronunciation, but for me the worst are words with r’s like rower (bike), Szczyrk (a city in the mountains), pochmurny (cloudy), Piotr (sorry, boo), and the name Grzegorz generally and all it’s variations (sorry to my students with this name).

The more I learn, the more I want to say “zapomnij” but then I remember that I’m getting married (and my vows will be in Polish ahh) to a Pole in approximately 3 weeks so I know I have to stick with it. Krok po kroku.

When all else fails, nod and smile.