POLISH

I'd like to ask what do you think about polish language? Is it difficult to you? It's my native language :)

it sounds awfully complicated kate give us a few examples (with the english)

To ask whether some particular language is difficult or easy is absurd. You must also ask "for whom it is easy or difficult". For the Japanese or Chinese person Polish may be extremely difficult, for the Czech or Ukrainian person it is very very easy...

But Kate asked, "Is it difficult to you," which is quite specific.

Oh, allright then. My native language is Lithuanian and I speak Russian too, so for me it is not difficult to understand Polish even though I cannot speak it. Besides, Poland and Lithuania have been as one country for many centuries (something like England and Wales). During that period (XVI - XIX centuries) Polish almost completely replaced Lithuanian as a language of educated Lithuanians and there were many Polish words that penetrated into our language. Most of them have been replaced by Lithuanan equivalents in the XX century, but thay are still used in the Lithuanian dialects or by older people. Therefore it is not difficult for us to underatand Polish, although most Lithuanians do not speak it any more.

If Polish people can speak it, it's not so difficult.

The Pope was Polish, so forget my last messagggg.

I studied Russian for a few years, but when I hear Polish in movies, I don't recognize as many words as I do in some other Slavic languages.

Considering that I know nothing about Slavic languages, I'd guess that Polish would be difficult for me.

Polish is difficult,definately. I think it sounds better than any other slavic languages in the area but it's my view.

Polish belongs to the west-slavic subgroup of slavic languages. The other west slavic languages are Czech, Slovac and Sorb. Therefore naturally for those peoples it is much easier to understand Polish. For the speakers of other groups of Slavic languages (like south slavic - Serb, Croatian, Bulgarian etc.) and east Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian) it may be more difficult to understand Polish. However, I think at least western Ukraine should have no problems with Polish due to the geographical and historical proximity (any ukrainians on this forum who could confirm this assumption?) The speakers of Lithuanian (which is not a slavic language at all) should also have relatively few problems with Polish (see my previous post). As for the speakers of all other languages, I think Polish must be much more difficult. Especially for those who have no clusters of consonants and hissing sounds in their languages. Can any English native speaker try to pronounce the Polish words for universe (wszechszwiat) and man (mienszczizna). Sorry for the spelling, poles :)

Thanks for this thread..I find it very interesting. All I am able to contribute though is about an article I once read some time ago all about Language, and it mentioned something about Polish being among the most difficult for English speakers (from the UK anyway) to pronounce correctly. That's all I can say really. Just looking at written Polish would present a challenge, so may that article was correct in its assertion.

I wish I had raised this point when I spoke (briefly!) to the Polish students I chatted with when I worked at the supermarket, but the circumstances were difficult. Strictly speaking we were not supposed to chat with the customers.....it makes the people behind them in the queues a wee bit agitated!

Being a Russian native, I find Polish totally incomprehensible. I can make out some few Slavic words but that's all I can say about it. My brother-in-law, living in Ukraine looks at Polish TV with no problems. Also I have a chatpal in Kazakhstan, who speaks Polish well and is taken by Poland like hell. He's been there a couple of times.
Though, the Slav world is very diverse and nowadays split up, too...

Polish sounds no worse to me than any other language. It's all relative.

Spoken by the raven-haired young woman at the counter where I take my dry-cleaning, it sounds like heaven.

Spoken by a couple of old drunks in the Rynek Glowny on a Saturday night, ...well, enough said.

I agree,

The poles in the netherlands all speak very friendly,partly because they need to steal our jobs,but,and this is so strange,when a dutchman curses he leaves a silence between the curses,a pole doesnt do this,whenever I hear a pole cursing (I don't understand Polish,but they say it if they were cursing in german("in" polish,but they explain that they were cursing in german))

And that (that=the polish cursing) sounds like coffing...its just a barrage of words.