If you’ve ever been to America you know that people love small talk. Everywhere you go you have to have these little chats about your day and how you are. For Poles, that would be a nightmare. For Americans, it’s actually necessary I would say. So why do we communicate in such different ways? How can you overcome the difference? Read on to find out.
You always hear that Polish is one of the hardest languages to learn. There’s are even memes that makes the rounds from time to time about the various version of the word “two” or “play”. And the memes have like 30 versions of the word and this is somehow proof that Polish is “unlearnable”. I have to say, I hate those stupid memes because it makes people think they can’t learn the language. But they can. Here’s my experience.
I realized recently I have a problem with the various forms of the word “friend” in Polish, so “przyjaciel”, and even for a long time I couldn’t remember the word at all. Finally, I know why. Poles seem to avoid using the word almost entirely and I just don’t hear it used often enough to use it properly. Why is that?
You might have noticed that people in Poland are pretty formal with strangers. There are a lot of “Pans” and “Panis”, so “Sir” and “Ma’am”, being thrown around, which I often find just exhausting. It can be hard to know how this works, but how you address someone in Poland usually depends on how well you know someone, age difference and power distance. So how do you know when to call someone Pan or Pani? I’ll explain it in detail in this post.
Nowadays, parents are really concerned with their children learning English, which is totally understandable. There’s a lot of pressure on parents to speak English themselves, so it makes sense that they want to make it easier on their kids. The question is, when is the best time to get your kid started on their English-learning journey? Read on for my thoughts.
I’ve officially been living in Poland for 10 years… a whole decade. I’ve gone from 23-year-old girl, freshly graduated from college with no plans for the future, to a mom of 2, wife, business owner, blogger, and the hardest of all – a Polish speaker 🙂 it’s been quite a decade. I’d like to commemorate it with the craziest shit that’s happened to me since I moved here.
I’ve met my fair share of urzędniks in Poland. Specifically, I will be discussing mainly the ones from Urząd Wojewódzki today, but, in general, these rules apply pretty much everywhere. However, I have found that often in Urząd Miasta they tend to be less mean, even nice sometimes! That’s, honestly, the best you can hope for.
When Americans go abroad, they expect things to be exactly like they are at home. They expect good customer service and are often very disillusioned when confronted with the reality in other countries. It can be hard to understand and accept. It shows that in America we’re really used to certain conveniences that the rest of the world just doesn’t have. Read on to find out exactly what!