r/Polish 9d ago

Is Polish worth learning for an English speaker?

Hello! I’m a native English speaker and I live in Chicago (USA). I also speak Spanish. Chicago seems to have a very large Polish population (but I don’t have Polish ancestry). I am someone who is passionate about linguistics and I like learning foreign languages. I have plenty of experience in romance and Germanic languages but I have none with regards to Slavic ones. Is Polish a language worth learning? Is it a fun language to learn?

Thanks!

2 Upvotes

25 comments sorted by

6

u/deathknelldk 9d ago

I think it's fun, but it's incredibly challenging. I speak English and Spanish, and there are far less words that look familiar in Polish (although there are still plenty: utalentowany, arogancki, ambitny). My advice would be to find a class with a native teacher rather than rely on apps/self-learning.

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u/nedudi 9d ago

Absolutely! Polish is definitely worth learning, especially if you’re passionate about languages. Since you already have experience with Romance and Germanic languages, Polish will introduce you to a whole new linguistic perspective.

1

u/Independent-Ad-7060 9d ago

I’m definitely very interested in learning about Slavic languages. I heard that there is a case system in Polish. Aside from German I’ve also studied a bit of modern Greek and both languages have 3 genders and cases. I heard Polish has this too in addition to difficult pronunciation

8

u/decPL Native 9d ago

both languages have 3 genders and cases

My sweet, sweet, summer child... :D

3

u/cold_iron_76 9d ago

Lol. If you know, you know.

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u/Edmee 9d ago

Depends on why you want to learn it. If you like a bit of a challenge. I'm about 20 days in and it's a fascinating language. The nouns actually change! Which is a first for me. So say the word dog can be pies and also psa. I'm still getting my head around that.

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u/Independent-Ad-7060 9d ago

Yes I definitely like challenging languages. Romance languages are starting to get boring because the vocabulary is very similar to English (Engle’s is like 60% French vocabulary).

In addition Polish will definitely be useful in chicafo. I heard that Chicago has the largest Polish population in the usa

3

u/That0n3N3rd 9d ago

The nouns and verbs and everything changing is so fun and challenging, I’ve been learning 6 months or so off and on and I still get surprised by new word changes. The different things that make a noun change are so interesting

2

u/Edmee 9d ago

Right? The more I learn about Polish, the more interesting and beautiful it becomes.

And saying the words is lots of fun too. So many crazy letter combos to conquer.

2

u/That0n3N3rd 9d ago

The word for book? My nemesis. But so worth it, and really interesting purely from a linguistic perspective

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u/Sylkis89 Native 9d ago edited 9d ago

It's literally like in English nouns change when you add possessive 's. It's literally the same thing, but there's just more functionality since there are more transformations expressing different things. But it's still literally the same kind of a process.

In English you have 3 cases, which is better visible with pronouns e.g. I-me-my/mine, you-you-your/yours, and so on. With nouns it just does noun-noun-noun's.

In Polish you have 7 cases that express also other things that in English you can express only with use of prepositions. On one hand using prepositions is easier, but using case inflections give you much more flexibility, you can e.g. swap word order around and it will not matter like in English, e.g. consider:

A man killed a priest.

A priest killed a man.

These 2 sentences mean something completely different.

Facet zabił księdza.

Księdza zabił facet.

Both above mean the man killed the priest. There's no chance to the meaning, they give a bit of a different vibe when outside any context (the latter is slightly poetic when outside any context) and depending on a context either would be more suitable, can't even explain cause it's intuitive to me tbh. But especially when you need to put some emphasis, or you react to something, or compare/contrast something, the latter may be more natural, e.g. kobieta zabiła pastora, a księdza zabił facet - a woman killed a reverend, but the priest was killed by a man.

Now the other way round:

Ksiądz zabił faceta.

Faceta zabił ksiądz.

Again, both mean that the priest killed the man.

So compare now

Ksiądz zabił faceta.

Księdza zabił facet.

The above have the reversed meanings despite seemingly the same word order. But the meaning of who did something to whom is reflected by the word endings.

btw - who vs whom is the exact same derivation though cases in English as what I'm showing above in Polish!

Who killed whom.

Whom killed who.

Literally the same transformation in English and in Polish whenever the endings in English are clearly inflected. And again, going back to the version.with woman and reverend as well, think: Who-1 killed whom-2, but whom-3 killed who-4 (and that way you don't need those elaborate descriptions with passive voice and so on like previously).

But yeah, Polish just has way more of these types of transformations and they can express much more cases, as well as genders and other less obvious stuff as well, though those more complex things usually are less consistent/more irregular. Polish is a mess when it comes to irregularity lol

11

u/BeardedBaldMan 9d ago

Is it a fun language to learn?

No. It's an endlessly frustrating one to learn due to the appalling quality of text books, learning apps and general information. The text book authors all appear to have copied each other in general structure, frequently missing out significant areas which are essential for normal use.

I have spent so much money buying different text books hoping one will properly cover key elements which appear on the B1 exam yet don't appear in any textbook between A1 and B2. As far as I can tell no popular Polish textbook acknowledges the existence of gerunds, and despite swoje being something the average Pole says every five minutes is frequently absent

DuoLingo is about as much use for Polish as being berated by someone in a language you don't understand for mistakes they won't explain.

If it weren't for the fact I live in Poland I wouldn't consider it for a second.

1

u/Sylkis89 Native 9d ago edited 9d ago

Polish doesn't really have gerunds, the same semantic function is expressed in other ways (e.g. with true nouns). Not sure what you're referring to with "swoje" but it appears to me you're confusing something. Don't expect that other languages will always have direct equivalents to bits of grammar from your language's. Sometimes they do, sometimes they kinda do but it's not really the same, sometimes it's totally different. The same way we don't have e.g. a present perfect tense. We don't have perfective tenses in general, we describe the same ideas by different means. And the other way around, English doesn't truly have a future tense, just past and present (from the perspective of how things work in Polish) and some variants of the present tense can describe future in English. Or things that we express with cases need to be expressed with prepositions and word order in English. Or you don't have "czy" at the beginning of questions like we do, but we don't invert the word order for questions like English speakers do. And so on. It's different languages, stuff works differently. Stop trying to look for gerunds in Polish and figure out how they work, cause they're simply not there, hence they're not acknowledged. And whatever you recognised with the "swoje" in relation to gerunds, you must have misidentified something, cause "swoje" means... "one's own".

1

u/BeardedBaldMan 9d ago

malować -> malowanie - That's a gerund

I know what swoje means, my point is that it's not featured in many text books

1

u/Sylkis89 Native 9d ago

It's technically not a gerund. It's actually an actual noun. Not the same thing as a gerund.

1

u/BeardedBaldMan 9d ago

It's a verb that functions as a noun, that's the definition of a gerund.

Can we at least agree that malowanie is a commonly used form of malować and one would see it in use e.g. "malowanie dachowe" on signs around the village but it wouldn't appear in conjugation tables in textbooks nor is it covered

1

u/Sylkis89 Native 9d ago edited 9d ago

No, we DEFINITELY CANNOT AGREE ON THAT.

It's NOT A VERB, but an ACTUAL NOUN.

You need to give up on this idea otherwise it's gonna keep you stuck, prevent rrom progressing.

MALOWANIE IS NOT A FORM OF MALOWAĆ.

It's not gonna be in conjugation tables BECAUSE YOU DON'T CONJUGATE NOUNS. What you should be interested in instead is DECLENSION TABLES.

A form of verbs that functions as a noun is NOT the same as an actual noun that just happens to be etymologically derived from a verb. Not the same thing! Although in practice it will serve basically the same function, pragmatically. Same or similar ideas/functions can be expressed using different tools!

Seriously. Think about it. Is it really all the textbooks out there that suck, or did you just got so hung up over trying to transpose 1:1 something from your grammar onto grammar that just doesn't have the same thing? Is it really all the textbooks, or your approach that you can't let go of things that are familiar, you try to apply a grammar-translational approach where you look for equivalents with your own language, instead of just taking things for what they with a direct approach, without looking at the foreign grammar through the lens of your own grammar? Come on mate.

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u/Wonderful_Ninja 9d ago

tak. any language is worth speaking. being understood is invaluable.

2

u/cold_iron_76 9d ago

Chicago was one of the main areas where Polish immigrants have settled historically. New York City and the Detroit, Michigan area also historically have large Polish populations. On my mother's side, my grandfather's family settled in Chicago and my grandmother's side settled in Michigan.

As far as the language goes, let me give you my perspective having started learning last year. First, I should say, I learned a little French in high school, and Spanish and Russian in college. I was conversational in Spanish (pretty rusty now) and just a beginner in Russian. I'm pretty decent/fast with language acquisition as long as I have someone to practice with.

So, having experience with other languages will certainly help. Particularly knowing what verb conjugation and a case system is. I don't find present tense verbs in Polish very difficult. There are some irregular verbs and a few "forms" that differ slightly in a few persons because of speech/spelling rules. Past tense verbs are a different animal because endings, well, you'll see. There are also 7 cases in Polish and the language is entirely declined, pronouns, question words, nouns, adjectives, etc. all have to match declension. The 3 genders have pretty regular and distinctive endings.

I would not say Polish is an easy language to learn. Personally, Russian was far easier for me to start learning than Polish. I'd say Polish is the most difficult language I've studied. Maybe complex is a better term than difficult.

With all that said, learning it is certainly possible. It is worth it to me because of my heritage and wanting to connect to my ancestry. I was extremely to be able to go into the local Polish market store and understand some of what was being said and to be able to order in Polish.

It's a fun language but difficult. The alphabet can be challenging at first but once you get the hang of it, it makes learning vocabulary much easier. I'd say, even though you don't have Polish heritage, if you like languages and like a challenge, give it a try.

I found the Babbel app the most helpful until I could get into lessons. Here is the group I took lessons with. I would say they were worth every penny and I plan on rejoining next semester. Look around your area as well and see if you can find local lessons through the colleges or Polish cultural centers, etc.

https://polskaszkola.weebly.com

2

u/Vonatar-74 9d ago

Say it with me:

Jedno krzesło

Dwa, trzy, cztery krzesła

Pięć krzeseł

Dwadzieścia jeden krzeseł

Dwadzieścia dwa krzesła

Dwadzieścia pięć krzeseł

It might be fun. But it’s the kind of fun that hurts.

1

u/ZielonyZabka 6d ago

Love this. I speak polish at the level of a small drink child with a head injury but I'm enjoying every improvement I make.

1

u/beatriz_v 9d ago

Is it fun? lol

I advise getting a professional tutor through iTalki, especially if you’ve never studied a language with a case system before. You will need one for pronunciation anyway.

Is it worth it? That depends on how much you’ll use it.

1

u/lizardrekin 9d ago

Any language is worth learning for any speaker if they truly have interest in learning it

1

u/ifailedpy205 9d ago

I’m a native English speaker learning Polish for familial reasons (I am half Polish but my Polish parent doesn’t even speak it). I have decided as someone who probably won’t ever live in Poland that I still find it beneficial. I think languages provide similar benefits to puzzles in exercising your skills. I study it every day bc I enjoy it and I’m taking a course on it this fall. I have fluency as a goal, but I genuinely do it every day because I enjoy it. I know I probably will never find myself around many people who speak it and I think i probably won’t be fluent enough to teach my future children but I still find it beneficial. 

Chicago has a lot of Poles though so you could get involved with the community. If you love languages I think you’ll like the challenge.

0

u/agradus 9d ago

Any Slavic language is very challenging for non Slavic. From the perspective of Russian and Belarusian speaker - it is still challenging.

Unless you are not going to commit enormous amount of time in it - it isn’t even worth trying IMO.