{"id":1511,"date":"2011-02-17T23:23:36","date_gmt":"2011-02-17T23:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/?p=1511"},"modified":"2011-02-17T23:23:36","modified_gmt":"2011-02-17T23:23:36","slug":"polish-accent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/polish-accent\/","title":{"rendered":"Polish accent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don’t you wonder how the English, Americans or others, even foreigners (obcokrajowcy<\/strong>), 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<\/strong>) is perfect (or so you think), your Polish vocabulary (s\u0142ownictwo<\/strong>) immaculate and nonetheless, there is no denying it. You speak English with a distinct Polish accent (polski akcent<\/strong>), just like any other Pole (Polak<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

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 (przysz\u0142o\u015b\u0107<\/strong>) 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?<\/p>\n

That a Pole sounds (brzmi<\/strong>) 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

There is also a valid point to make: A child (dziecko<\/strong>) is capable to learn a foreign language perfectly; the adult (doros\u0142y<\/strong>) 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?<\/p>\n

The main difference is that children learn almost exclusively by listening (s\u0142uchanie<\/strong>), while the adults mainly by reading (czytanie<\/strong>). 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 (s\u0142owo pisane<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Learning the written language is a skill (umiej\u0119tno\u015b\u0107<\/strong>) in itself, and many people without proper education find it hard, even in their mother tongue (ojczysty j\u0119zyk<\/strong>), to write about their feelings and opinions, although they have no problem whatsoever expressing them in everyday speech.<\/p>\n

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<\/strong>); the writing (pisanie<\/strong>), although prestigious, is and always has been secondary to the speech.<\/p>\n

And last, but not least, don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

Do nast\u0119pnego razu<\/strong>! (Till next time\u2026)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 (s\u0142ownictwo) immaculate and nonetheless, there is no denying it…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1511","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture","category-grammar"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1511"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1516,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511\/revisions\/1516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}