Foreigners have many different reasons which motivate them to learn Polish. Some of them work in Poland,
others plan to start a family and stay in our country for longer period. There are also people, for whom studying
foreign languages is a great passion. Regardless of reasons we began our adventure with Polish language, first
discouragement appears often very fast.
Why is that happening? What are the biggest language barriers in learning Polish? You can see 5 of them below,
they occur very often in my daily profession.
- "Polish language is very difficult" – lots of people start their learning process with that particular attitude, they lose their hope that they can make it just at the beginning. Negative attitude and lack of faith in our own possibilities cause discouragement and resignation. But what is the truth? Is Polish language really so amazingly hard to master? Hmm…, let’s say that it is not among the most easiest to study, but Chinese, Finnish or Arabic are also a challenge. After all, many people do well learning them, so why exactly YOU should not succeed in learning it???
- „I don’t have to learn Polish because everybody speaks English fluently at work and anywhere else” – do not full yourself, you have to study, at least you should. Why? Official Language in Poland is Polish not English. Nowadays most of Polish people know English well, sometimes poorly, but you never know if in a moment of despair, when you need someone’s help, you will be able to communicate. A language barrier makes our daily lives harder and you know it well. Handling simple business in any office or shopping can sometimes be a serious problem. You can always ask somebody to help you, of course, but is that what you wish for? To become dependent on somebody? Isn’t easier to start learning Polish and to be sure of oneself???
- „I have no time for studying” – It is not true, you don’t feel like doing it and you lack your motivation, there’s always time for it, even if you work a lot, you have a family, time-consuming hobby or you make a business trip very often. There is a wide variety of kinds of language courses that you can choose. Lector can come to your company or to your apartment. Online lesson are also possible. All you need is a computer or laptop with the Internet connection and you can learn at any place in the world. Indeed, if there is no time for you to revise the lecture’s material, which can be a problem since only regularity can guarantee a success, a good solution is to arrange with Lector, for example, one e-mail a day containing 5 new words to memorize. You are able to learn that amount of words in your way for lunch, when you make a coffee or drive a car. It’s just an example but it really shows that lack of time is only an excuse.
- „I want to speak Polish but I don’t want to learn grammar” – I will not lie to you – Polish language is very discouraging, especially at the very beginning of your study. Mostly because of amount of countless endings, exceptions and irregular forms, which made more than one student angry. The great crisis comes with lessons about masculine accusative, in which we have two categories: animate nouns and inanimate nouns. It seems to be a simple division, but there are full of exceptions where rules can be applied to only few nouns. Believe me or not but if lector has an idea for lessons, he or she is creative and is dedicated to his/her work, he or she will never let his students resigned because of difficult grammar. Logically thinking, I guess nobody will focus only on studying single case forms and doesn’t demand knowledge of all possible endings. Grammar is very important, but what is even more important is a context in which it is explained. I assure you that you will not feel that you have to learn complicated words infection, if you go to the right teacher. We work according to teaching method based on modules in our school. You can read more about it on our website. I can explain it briefly. We choose subjects which are most needful to a studying person, i.e. how to introduce oneself, telling about oneself and one’s family, about work and interests, asking for the directions when moving around the city, booking a place in a hotel etc. We attach a lot of weigh to correct pronunciation. These learning methods bring desired effect very fast – foreigner starts to speak Polish.
- „I have no motivation for learning Polish” – this is definitely the biggest language barrier in learning Polish because everything else seems to have less meaning. If we simply consider it pointless and we lose the will to make an effort then it’s over. The most important thing in learning a new language is to determine carefully phrased goal. It cannot be just „I will learn Polish”, because what does it mean exactly? When can we say that we know the language? If we can communicate? Or we read and write skilfully? If you decided to start a Polish course determine your goal, but not with distant term, i.e. „I will have known 30 verbs by next month and I will be able to build sentences using them” or „I will be able to introduce myself, to tell where I live, where do I come from and what’s my hobby in two week time. Small steps method bring desired result not only in learning languages, but also in everything else. You need to learn one verb a day to memorize 30 verbs a month. You have to know more or less 20 words to build few sentences about yourself, which you will learn on first and second lectures. I guarantee that determining carefully phrased goal within not distant term makes you learn small part of material and will give you unshakable motivation to learn Polish – That’s what it’s about! J