Earlier this week, I told some friends that learning Polishmakes me want to drink � EVERY DAY!
I�ve been taking intensive Polish classes for 2+ months now (which is why the blog has been a little more quiet lately) here in Warsaw. I thought Level 1 was alright as I learned some of the language basics, and I passed with flying colors.
But now, I�ve hit a major roadblock in Level 2.
�Jestem zla!� (I am angry!)
I�ve even told my teacher and my private tutor this! Polish makes me angry!
Polish is by far the most difficult language I�ve had to learn so far in my expat life. (I also knew some Spanish, French and Italian before we moved abroad.) I thought learning Turkish was awful, but I was wrong. Turkish has a few rules and made sense once you understand those rules. As my Turkish teacher always said, Turkish is ��ok ekonomik!� He was right!
But Polish has more rules than I can or want to understand! Just when I think I understand a little, the endings change and then they change again! Why?
And there�s like 6 different verbs to say I go. Why?
Don�t even get me started about the cases � nominative, accusative, dative, instrumental and genitive � I don�t even know what the hell these things are in English!
I just want to learn enough Polish that will help me in my every day life just like I learned enough Turkish to help me when we lived in Istanbul. I want to be able to communicate!
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| Yesterday, I made my own Polish flashcards at home. |
Polish also makes me angry because I just want to get it! I�ve always been a good student, so the fact that I can�t understand it makes me angry. I either want to cry or go have a drink!
I basically need to memorize the phrase in Polish and forget asking why.
At least, I have learned enough Polish so I can go to the market and not look like a foreign idiot anymore. Most Poles seem happy that I�m trying to speak Polish and will repeat something for me if I don�t understand, especially the numbers.
I�ll keep trying to learn Polish. Yavas, yavas.
At the end of the day, at least I can go to a bar and say �dwa duze piwo prosze.�
The bartender doesn�t care that I didn�t conjugate the endings correctly.
Thanks for listening to my rant!
NOTE: A huge thanks to the Polish website/forum called Inside-Poland for republishing my article about learning Polish! Here's the link to that article:
Finding Polish a Difficult Language to Master? Don't Worry, You're Not Alone!
NOTE: A huge thanks to the Polish website/forum called Inside-Poland for republishing my article about learning Polish! Here's the link to that article:
Finding Polish a Difficult Language to Master? Don't Worry, You're Not Alone!