Don’t you wonder how the English, Americans or others, even foreigners (obcokrajowcy), non native speakers of English, can easily recognize a Pole as a Pole even though he speaks (what he believes is) English. Your grammar (gramatyka) is perfect (or so you think), your Polish vocabulary (słownictwo) immaculate and nonetheless, there is no denying it. You speak English with a distinct Polish accent (polski akcent), just like any other Pole (Polak).
You could say you don’t care. Fine, but what if your accent means that your Polish English is in part incomprehensible to native ears? Hey, your future (przyszłość) in the West depends on the way you speak; it can often mean the difference between getting a job or not. What now? Have I got your attention?
That a Pole sounds (brzmi) like a Pole, a German like a German when speaking a foreign language is common knowledge. But why does it happen? There is no simple answer to this question – in fact there are many complex issues at hand that could be a suitable subject for a doctoral dissertation, or several.
There is a melody, the way we “sing” words or phrases signaling a statement or a question. There is the word accent, which differs. There is the different spelling that confuses the issue and more.
There is also a valid point to make: A child (dziecko) is capable to learn a foreign language perfectly; the adult (dorosły) is very seldom up to the task. Thus, there must be a difference in the way we learn and acquire language depending on age. What is going on here?
The main difference is that children learn almost exclusively by listening (słuchanie), while the adults mainly by reading (czytanie). There is a good reason for the latter, since as adults we do not memorize or comprehend the spoken words as well as children do. Thus, we tend to rely on the written word (słowo pisane).
Written word or not, you might say, does it make any difference the way we learn and speak? As long as it makes learning easier (learning a foreign language is no laughing matter). It does, if you take into account that the way we write is far from the way we talk. In fact the written language is very distant from the spoken one – that is why it sounds so strange when politicians or preachers read written speeches. It just does not sound right.
Learning the written language is a skill (umiejętność) in itself, and many people without proper education find it hard, even in their mother tongue (ojczysty język), to write about their feelings and opinions, although they have no problem whatsoever expressing them in everyday speech.
My message? Listen to how the natives speak and become a human parrot. You can’t go wrong! Remember, it all starts with a sound (brzmienie); the writing (pisanie), although prestigious, is and always has been secondary to the speech.
And last, but not least, don’t be ashamed of your accent! That is what makes you unique. You can try to improve the way your English sounds, but a little accent is not a bad thing.
Do następnego razu! (Till next time…)
Comments:
Łowiczanka:
This is very true. When I travel I study languages with Pimsleur audio system. No books !!! Only audio. So that when I have visited countries, they remark on my accent!!
For example, speaking Mandarin, I was told I had a Beijing accent!! When I first studied Arabic I was told by many many people that I had a Lebanese accent !!!
It is so much easier to learn by sound they way children learn. Even though I did not speak Polish as a child, I did sing songs, and I was surrounded by Polish speakers. With the complex grammar that is the Polish language, I just rely on the memory of how I heard it spoken years before, and most of the time I am right !!
John:
I think this has been one of the best and most useful articles and the last comment yet. I have recently “looked” at Ukrainian compared with Polish and Russian and “hear” similarities with Polish. So instead of trying to “read” Cyrillic alphabet and pronounce the words, just listen and repeat. Many times in Poland, even though I can carry on a simple conversation, I try to “read” the newspaper and I am astonished when I “read” the word and remark “Oh, so that’s how it is written.” Thanks for this.
Russ:
Problems with accent often stem from 2 common problems:
1. A sound in the 2nd language which doesn’t simply exist in the first, so learners have trouble saying it (or even hearing any distinction from sounds they do recognize). E.g. English words like “bat” and “man” (Polish doesn’t have that vowel, so Poles often say them as “bet” and “men”, picking the closest similar Polish vowel) or “hut” and “cut” (Polish doesn’t have that vowel, so Poles often say “hot” and “cot” or similar).
2. A letter in the spelled word is unconsciously erroneously assumed to sound like it would in the speaker’s first language. E.g. English “bit” and “hit” being mispronounced as “beet” and “heat”. This case illustrates your point about people learning from reading text instead of really listening and hearing. Polish has its sound “y” which is essentially how “bit” and “hit” should sound, so in this case there is no phonetic problem with saying “bit” and “hit” correctly, but the visual appearance of the word leads Poles to mispronounce them according to Polish orthography.
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Of course this is nothing special about Poles learning English, but occurs with any pair of languages. E.g. many people learning Polish have trouble hearing the difference between ć/cz, ś/sz, ź/ż, dź/dż and pronouncing them distinctly since most languages don’t have such distinct consonant pairs. And English speakers learning Polish are fooled by Polish words ending in “y” since in English we never have words ending in that sound, even though it can occur in side words, and words spelled with “y” at the end typically sound like Polish “i” (“really”, “silly”) or “aj” (“why”, “sky”).
Susan Grzyb:
Thanks for the grammar & language posts lately. Keep them coming!
Karola:
You are ‘right on’ with your observations and advise. I have given the same suggestions to friends in the past regarding learning the American/English language.
Rod Smith:
Good day Kasia…
I am an adult student of Polish Language here in Rhode Island.I have 2 unique questions that I wanted to speak with you about that would help me go along way with my polish language studies. I speak, read and write. I would say my reading is the strongest but speaking is getting there.. 🙂 My email is included above. Although it is a Polish email, I live down near Newport RI. I look forward to hearing back from you when you get a free minute.. Dziękuję bardzo! 🙂