As of this past week, I have been in Poland for two years. A few weeks ago, I finished my fourth language course and am surprised in two respects - first by how much I have learned so far, and second by how little I can speak the language at this point.
As I have written previously, Polish is notoriously difficult to learn, even for Poles. And the more I learn about it, the more difficult it seems. I keep hoping that I will suddenly realize I do know the language (like Bart Simpson), but no such luck.
In addition to the things that seem odd to me that I have mentioned before, here are a few more things that I have learned in the last two courses that make my head hurt.
Why Use One Word When You Can Use Two?
One of the most difficult for me so far is that you need to learn two words for almost every verb. This concept (a perfective form and an imperfective form) was first introduced when I learned the past tense. You use the perfective form of the verb if the action was completed in the past, while the imperfective is used if talking about something in the present, over a period of time, or not completed. Complicating matters is that there are numerous differences between the two infinitives, For some, you just add a prefix such as po- or za- and the verbs decline the same way. For others, letters in the middle of the work are changed and may decline differently. Still others have completely different words for the two forms (think of the difference between go and went and you'll get the idea).
One of the most difficult for me so far is that you need to learn two words for almost every verb. This concept (a perfective form and an imperfective form) was first introduced when I learned the past tense. You use the perfective form of the verb if the action was completed in the past, while the imperfective is used if talking about something in the present, over a period of time, or not completed. Complicating matters is that there are numerous differences between the two infinitives, For some, you just add a prefix such as po- or za- and the verbs decline the same way. For others, letters in the middle of the work are changed and may decline differently. Still others have completely different words for the two forms (think of the difference between go and went and you'll get the idea).
But as I have learned more, I have also learned that this distinction goes far beyond the past tense usage. For example, the future tense is built from the perfective form of the verb. Imperative forms use one or the other if you are telling someone to do something or to not do something. And with sentences communicating I want to do something, must do something, should do something, and so on, you need to know which one to use.
The Gender Spectrum
Another head scratcher is that there are three genders in the singular (masculine, feminine and neutral) while there are two in the plural (masculine personal and non-masculine personal). What the masculine personal / non-masculine personal distinction means is that if the subject of a sentence is a group, there is one form if that group includes at least one male person or not. Ten women and a dog (dog is a masculine noun) is non-masculine personal, while ten women and one man make the group masculine personal (with or without the dog).
There are also different verbs to say someone gets married. A man marries, while the verb for a woman would literally translate to "goes out to (or after) a husband". Again, there are two forms for each of these verbs.
Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover
I touched on this in an earlier post, but it got worse. I don't know if there really are fifty ways to leave your lover, but I am confident that there are more than fifty ways to say in Polish that you are going somewhere. There are separate words to use if you are going in general (or on foot) versus going in a vehicle. Add another verb if you refer to frequency (with yet another if a vehicle is involved). Add other verbs if you want to specify that you are (a) arriving somewhere (b) arriving from somewhere or (c) going to somewhere. There is yet another which is used only when referring to when a form of transportation is departing. And, most of these (but not all) have two words for the same concept for the perfective/imperfective I mention above.
I know, I know, I know
There are three different verbs to refer to knowing something - one for specific knowledge (I know him, I know a fact, etc.), one to use with phrases (I know that he knows that fact) and a third to express "knowing how" to do something (I know how to cook). And don't forget that there are two of each...
All Hope is Not Lost
Having said all of that, there is a certain logic to many of the words here and I am getting better at figuring out meanings of words when I read them. While I often can't follow what someone is saying, if I have enough time to analyze the words, the gist emerges. For example, any verb that starts with wy- has something to do with exterior/out/exit, etc. So add wy- to the word for "to pay" and you have "to withdraw". Add it to the verb "to go" and you have "to go out". With the word "to run" you have "to run out of". Similar prefixes can change the same verb stem into "to order", "to schedule", "to speak up", etc.
Other things are easier to remember because they have a rather odd logic to them. The word for "north" is the same as the word for "midnight". The same with "south" and "noon". The words for "east" and "west" kinda mean the same as "coming" and "going", referring obviously to the sun.
Holidays also offer an opportunity to remember thing, strictly by virtue of numerous repetitions. I had a difficult time remember how to say Merry Christmas (Wesołych Świąt) and Happy New Year (Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku!) but if you say it to enough people in the office, you tend to remember it.
I am also happy to say that my listening comprehension is improving. While at first all I heard was a series of sounds like "sh", "ch", "dz" and swallowed vowels, I can now understand the context (if not the content) of some conversations that I hear. People here still speak WAY too fast for me to fully comprehend, but I do make some of my colleagues nervous now since they can't be certain that I don't understand what they are talking about....
I Deserve a Break Today
After I finished the third course last June, I had wanted to dive right into number four. I knew I would be traveling a lot in the fall and would not be able to commit to classes then and I was afraid of waiting until January without the structure of the lessons. As it turns out, there was no summer session so I had to do without but that turned out to be a positive. Rather than trying to absorb new material while still struggling to remember what I had just learned, I spent time reviewing the classwork, got some self study books and concentrated on understanding. Having done that, the rules started making some sense, I started to recognize the patterns and I became less frustrated.
While I was in this last class, I had to acknowledge that some of the other students were far ahead of me in speaking ability, and I concluded that part of it is that I understand the grammar more than I remember the vocabulary....and if you can't remember the words it's pretty hard to speak. So, I have decided to retrench again. I plan to take individual review classes for the discipline, but to focus on what I already learned so as to absorb it better.
I also need to practice more but, as I have said to many people, it is very easy to not learn Polish here. So, I read along with the Polish subtitles when I go to a movie. I use an online practice site to test my skills. I occasionally tackle a newspaper article. I try watching soap operas on television. I have started to go the theater in Warsaw to see shows that I am familiar with, but which are performed in Polish (not that Mamma Mia is very intellectually challenging in the first place...)
But most importantly, I try to speak my pidgin Polish in restaurants, shops and anywhere else I go out. On a daily basis I see how far I can carry a conversation with a co-worker before I have to revert to English.
So it only took Bart Simpson deux mois and I have been here for dwa lata....ale robię postępy.
Another head scratcher is that there are three genders in the singular (masculine, feminine and neutral) while there are two in the plural (masculine personal and non-masculine personal). What the masculine personal / non-masculine personal distinction means is that if the subject of a sentence is a group, there is one form if that group includes at least one male person or not. Ten women and a dog (dog is a masculine noun) is non-masculine personal, while ten women and one man make the group masculine personal (with or without the dog).
There are also different verbs to say someone gets married. A man marries, while the verb for a woman would literally translate to "goes out to (or after) a husband". Again, there are two forms for each of these verbs.
Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover
I touched on this in an earlier post, but it got worse. I don't know if there really are fifty ways to leave your lover, but I am confident that there are more than fifty ways to say in Polish that you are going somewhere. There are separate words to use if you are going in general (or on foot) versus going in a vehicle. Add another verb if you refer to frequency (with yet another if a vehicle is involved). Add other verbs if you want to specify that you are (a) arriving somewhere (b) arriving from somewhere or (c) going to somewhere. There is yet another which is used only when referring to when a form of transportation is departing. And, most of these (but not all) have two words for the same concept for the perfective/imperfective I mention above.
I know, I know, I know
There are three different verbs to refer to knowing something - one for specific knowledge (I know him, I know a fact, etc.), one to use with phrases (I know that he knows that fact) and a third to express "knowing how" to do something (I know how to cook). And don't forget that there are two of each...
All Hope is Not Lost
Having said all of that, there is a certain logic to many of the words here and I am getting better at figuring out meanings of words when I read them. While I often can't follow what someone is saying, if I have enough time to analyze the words, the gist emerges. For example, any verb that starts with wy- has something to do with exterior/out/exit, etc. So add wy- to the word for "to pay" and you have "to withdraw". Add it to the verb "to go" and you have "to go out". With the word "to run" you have "to run out of". Similar prefixes can change the same verb stem into "to order", "to schedule", "to speak up", etc.
Other things are easier to remember because they have a rather odd logic to them. The word for "north" is the same as the word for "midnight". The same with "south" and "noon". The words for "east" and "west" kinda mean the same as "coming" and "going", referring obviously to the sun.
Holidays also offer an opportunity to remember thing, strictly by virtue of numerous repetitions. I had a difficult time remember how to say Merry Christmas (Wesołych Świąt) and Happy New Year (Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku!) but if you say it to enough people in the office, you tend to remember it.
I Deserve a Break Today
After I finished the third course last June, I had wanted to dive right into number four. I knew I would be traveling a lot in the fall and would not be able to commit to classes then and I was afraid of waiting until January without the structure of the lessons. As it turns out, there was no summer session so I had to do without but that turned out to be a positive. Rather than trying to absorb new material while still struggling to remember what I had just learned, I spent time reviewing the classwork, got some self study books and concentrated on understanding. Having done that, the rules started making some sense, I started to recognize the patterns and I became less frustrated.
While I was in this last class, I had to acknowledge that some of the other students were far ahead of me in speaking ability, and I concluded that part of it is that I understand the grammar more than I remember the vocabulary....and if you can't remember the words it's pretty hard to speak. So, I have decided to retrench again. I plan to take individual review classes for the discipline, but to focus on what I already learned so as to absorb it better.
I also need to practice more but, as I have said to many people, it is very easy to not learn Polish here. So, I read along with the Polish subtitles when I go to a movie. I use an online practice site to test my skills. I occasionally tackle a newspaper article. I try watching soap operas on television. I have started to go the theater in Warsaw to see shows that I am familiar with, but which are performed in Polish (not that Mamma Mia is very intellectually challenging in the first place...)
But most importantly, I try to speak my pidgin Polish in restaurants, shops and anywhere else I go out. On a daily basis I see how far I can carry a conversation with a co-worker before I have to revert to English.
So it only took Bart Simpson deux mois and I have been here for dwa lata....ale robię postępy.
