Polish Language Blog

Today we have another report from our fabulous guest blogger – Barb from Canada.

Enjoy!

I recently returned from a short trip to Poland with my head (and heart) bursting with impressions and perceptions. Since my last trip occurred over 25 years ago, to say things have changed would be a little bit of an understatement.

It was a trip that mixed both business (confirmation of citizenship- stwierdzenie posiadania obywatelstwa polskiego) and pleasure, so the types of interactions with native Poles varied quite a bit. I would like to write a post about the citizenship aspect of my trip (with Anna’s permission of course – yes, please!!! Actually, no, not “please”, you MUST!!!) at a later date, so this post will be a little more general.

Język polski: With the sole exception of a teenage girl working the counter of a Subway sandwich establishment, I managed to interact in Polish with enough mastery of the language that no one felt compelled to switch over into English. I felt like this was a huge accomplishment. It still rankles that the Subway worker had the gall to ask me “big or small?” I naturally ignored her and asked that my sandwich include: pomidory, swieży ogórek, sałata, i musztarda. My proficiency with the language varied/depended with the time of day (feeling tired – zmęczona), emotional state (a heightened emotional state – podekscytowana) and of course the amount of alcohol consumed. My efforts were warmly received and my interactions were all very pleasant and sometimes brought smiles.

On one occasion, I was taking a commuter train to Sulejówek from Warszawa and was on the phone with my uncle. I was trying to convince him to meet me in the courtyard of a nearby church. It was the end of the day and I was struggling with the proper declension (przy kościele, koło kościoła, itd). As I was the only one speaking accented Polish in a rather crowed compartment, many people tuned into my conversation. As I valiantly tried to get the declension right, I noticed many folks starting to smile, and to hide it unsuccessfully.

People were kind/helpful (uprzejmi) everywhere I went, including dreaded institutions like the post office (poczta) and Urząd Stanu Cywilnego. I lead a rather charmed existence, it seems.

Polish pride: It really is challenging to interact with Poles in their native land and to successfully navigate through the minefield of making comparisons/comments about your own country without inadvertently triggering that prickly Polish pride. After a while, I learned it was best to confine my comments about Canada to two subjects: legal blood alcohol limit (0.08 grams versus 0.02 grams in Poland) which was met with resounding approval and the universal appeal of Canada’s small woodland creatures, namely chipmunks. For anyone not familiar with the charm/cuteness of this creature (urocze stworzenie), please view the attached link. Another neutral topic was the similarity of our coinage (monety). How can you offend anyone with more cuddly Canadian animals, namely engravings of loons or polar bears?

I must confess to developing an affinity for some strictly Polish “wildlife” i.e. wściekły pies, but that is an entirely different story.

Old town in Warsaw, photo by Barb

PS. Barb, so are you officially Polish now?

Remember how a few posts back I said all kinds of fun things about Joanna Chmielewska and recommended her books as an easy and painless choice for a beginner Polish reader?

Hmmm… Not so, apparently. This is what our fabulous guest blogger, Barb from Canada had to say about her experiences of reading Chmielewska. But not only Chmielewska. Barb tackled a few other books and this is what she has to say:

My commitment to learning Polish naturally included reading Polish books. Up until last year, the only Polish book I had ever read was Sienkiewicz’s “W pustyni i w puszczy” (assigned reading in Polish school).  I wanted to read books written by Polish authors that had a distinctive Polish voice or soul (dusza polska), not books translated into Polish.  Scanning the shelves at our local library (biblioteka) wasn’t very helpful, so I approached a friend and asked to borrow (pożyczyć) a few books.

I started with “Jestem nudziarą” by M. Szwaja. A light, easy read that falls into the genre of “chick lit”.  The book was very contemporary (współczesna), exposed me to female dialogues and relationships with men… – tricky the world over, it seems.

Next, I tackled “Szajka bez końca” by J. Chmielewska.  Chmielewska is a very popular and humorous author of criminal mysteries/adventures (powieści sensacyjnych i kryminalnych).  Other than the novelty of having a few chapters set in Barry’s Bay, home to Polish-Canadian cottaging and scouting camps (obozy harcerskie) with unpleasant memories of scratchy grey wool uniforms (mundurki), the book fell flat for me.

These reading exercises sound painless right?  They were excruciating actually.  My need to slowly mouth each word, besides causing dry-mouth, quickly got tiresome.  My other challenge was deciding how often to consult my dictionary (słownik).  Mostly, I tried to ascertain the meaning of a word from the context of a given paragraph.  I did have a 4-word rule however: if an unknown word appeared four times within a single sitting I would look it up.

Much of my initial frustration centered around making the link between “known” words and “unknown” spelling (ortografia).  Inevitably, I would be struggling my way through a 5-syllable word (why do Polish words have so many syllables btw?), only to experience an “I know that word, so that’s how it’s spelled” moment.  Embedding those written letter patterns with the known word sounds in my head was painful.  I have much better French letter pattern recognition due to years of aimlessly reading bilingual cereal boxes over breakfast.

My word recognition and reading speed eventually improved which also resulted in less “dry-mouth”.  After a time, I decided that I should also read out loud every day.  Having a greatly inflated opinion of my abilities (did I mention that I have a confidence problem?) I wanted to give “voice” to the lovely prose I could “hear” in my head.  What a disaster!! (co za porażka).  More about my pronunciation and verbal abilities in another post.

Eventually, I hope to work up to some serious Polish literature (literatura polska).  One of my goals is to read “Pan Wołodyjowski” by H. Sienkiewicz, a book I’m rather sentimental about.

PS. Barb, you too? “Pan Wołodyjowski” is something that I want to read as well. I’m very sentimental about the TV series.

A couple of posts ago I asked you about your Polish language adventures on the internet, remember?

And our fabulous guest blogger – Barbara from Canada prepared this piece about her experiences w polskiej sieci.

Polski on the internet – by Barbara from Canada

As most of you know, there are very few good sites dedicated to teaching or supporting the study of the Polish language and its culture (except this one, of course).

For the grammar purists in the room, Learn Polish with Sam and Biluś is a pretty good site. The authors are not native Poles (but are serious students) and present the material in an organized and detailed manner. One of the things I like about the site is that the authors often share useful charts and exhibits from their own studies. One of the drawbacks is that the site is not regularly updated. (Anna’s comment – not regularly updated – that’s a big, fat understatement – this year they’ve only posted 10 entries so far.)

Another site which I use extensively is www.polishforums.com. The grammar resources are pretty thin, so I use it mainly for general knowledge about Poland. The forum contains a lot of information, but “filters” are required. One of its obvious shortcomings is political correctness (poprawność polityczna). Be aware, some topics contain very raw emotions and comments.

Although it is easier to be introduced to Polish culture with the assistance of a native or an experienced ex-pat, there comes a point when you just want to venture out without the help of a guide. To be confused, puzzled and a little disoriented all on your own. To not have someone apply context to behaviours and intentions. Short of a trip abroad (which is coming later this month), I wanted to get a feel for the people directly. So, I started frequenting various Polish websites and forums.

In the on-line women’s magazine (magazyn dla kobiet) www.kafeteria.pl, I found short articles (artykuły) about daily life in Poland. Although the articles were sometimes interesting, I learned MUCH, MUCH more from the comments (komentarze). It didn’t take long before I wandered over to the “forums” section and that’s where things got REALLY interesting. What I mean to say is, I would read a certain topic and all its related posts, then I would sit back in my chair and mutter “really!?!”. I also learned a lot of words and expressions that couldn’t be found in dictionaries.

Probably the oddest site I frequent on a regular basis is a Polish website dedicated to the learning of English. Seems like a strange place to learn Polish, right? I help by correcting people’s writing, answering questions, basically assisting where I can. What do I get out of it? I have carved out a little niche for myself and made a few friends. I get to practice writing in Polish. I am also working up the nerve to post a sample of my speech, which I hope will be analyzed objectively. I don’t want to suffer the platitudes of overly-polite Poles that say “jak na cudzoziemkę, mówi Pani bardzo dobrze po polsku.” AAACK! I have been a rather difficult task master on the English forum and I’m honest in my feedback of others. In return, I hope to receive the same objective appraisal. A few Poles may hazard a couple of honest comments. Problem is, I’ve found that Poles are just too damn polite and wouldn’t want to risk hurting my feelings.

Anna’s comment: Poles polite? It’s because you’re a foreigner! You should see how we just love to trample the feelings of our fellow countrymen!