Most Difficult Languages - Polish
89I've read about the supposed difficulty of many languages. Some I don't know at all (like Chinese or Arabic, which I'd imagine are difficult), but I did have the opportunity to learn one of the hardest, and supposedly the most grammatically-complex Slavic language, Polish. It is certainly harder than Croatian, which I already knew when I started to learn Polish.
Here's one (somewhat trivial, but illustrative) example of the relative complexity of languages: the number 2.
English, Spanish, Dutch: 1 form (two, dos, twee)
Portuguese: 2 forms (dois/duas) - depending on gender (2 - masculine & feminine)
Croatian: 7 forms (dva, dvije, dvoje, dvojica, dvojice, dvojici, dvojicu) - depending on gender (3 - masculine, feminine, and neuter) and case in one specific form. There were other variants historically but they're not used anymore.
Polish: 17 forms. Depends on gender (3), case for all forms. Pretty much all these forms occur in regular speech (6-11 less often than the others)
Dwa palce
17 grammatical forms for the number 2
- dwa
- dwie
- dwoje
- dwóch (or dwu)
- dwaj
- dwiema
- dwom (or dwóm)
- dwoma
- dwojga
- dwojgu
- dwojgiem
- dwójka
- dwójki
- dwójkę
- dwójką
- dwójce
- dwójko
Why is Polish so complex?
Poland's history is one of being attacked and subjugated by its neighbors throughout most of its history, either by Germans, Austrians, Swedes or Russians. Many times the speaking of Polish was forbidden, so people were understandably protective of their language and less likely to have foreign intrusion into it. (English readily absorbs foreign words because American, Brits, Australians, etc don't feel like their language is threatened.) Also, "world languages" simplify much more rapidly, while "niche languages" don't have the same sort of pressure.
Even the names of months, which are usually similar in all the languages of the world, retain old Slavonic forms in Polish:
- January - styczeń (from the Polish word for joining, since January joins two years together)
- February - luty (from the Polish word for freezing cold; this is the only month that is grammatically an adjective, not a noun)
- March - marzec (from the Polish word for freezing - yes, it's cold in Poland)
- April - kwiecień (from the Polish word for flower, since this is the month when flowers bloom)
- May - maj (the only one adopted from the Roman calendar)
- June - czerwiec (from the Polish word for reddening...not sure why)
- July - lipiec (from the Polish word for linden tree, which blooms in July in Poland)
- August - sierpień (from the Polish for for sickle, since this is the month of harvest)
- September - wrzesień (from the Polish word for heather, which turns a brilliant shade of purple then)
- October - październik (from the Polish word for a type of flax mulch used in the fields during this month)
- November - listopad (almost literally - falling leaves)
- December - grudzień (from the Polish word for hardened, frozen ground)
Imperfect and Perfect Verbs in Polish
Another grammatical difficulty is the concept of imperfect and perfect verbs in Polish (and other Slavic languages). The verb "to see" has two completely different verbs in Polish: widzieć and zobaczyć. The only difference is that you use the first if something happens continuously or more than once, and the second if it only happens once.
Widziałem - I saw (repeatedly in the past, like I saw the sun come up every morning)
Zobaczyłem - I saw (only once; I saw the sun come up yesterday)
This is not a tense difference - the verbs themselves are different.
There are many other examples:
to take - brać / wziąć
I took - Brałem (repeatedly), wziąłem (only once)
to sigh - wzdychać / westchnąć
I sighed - wzdychałem (repeatedly), westchnąłem
So for every verb in English, you effectively have to learn two verbs in Polish, which often conjugate in the future tense completely differently from each other (the past tense is usually the same, which makes for relatively easy side-by-side comparisons, like above). The present tense is impossible for the perfective verb because you can not be doing something now and finish it at the same time.
For about 5% of Polish verbs, there is no perfective version, so you luckily only have to learn one verb counterpart.
Plural forms change based on number
The last major wrinkle is that the plural form of nouns changes depending on the number. In English, there is only one plural form for the word "telephone" and that's "telephones", whether you have just 2 or 100. In Polish, it's 2, 3 or 4 "telefony" and 5 "telefonów". (Grammatically speaking, 2, 3 and 4 take the nominative case, while 5 and beyond take the genitive case)
Occasionally the difference between the nominative and genitive forms makes the jump between 4 and 5 awkward sounding.
4 or 5 hands: 4 ręce (rent-seh) but 5 rąk (ronk)
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Wow, I'm going to stop complaining about Japanese now ...
My god! And I thought the seven cases in Czech were a nightmare!!!
But at least Polish doesn't have that special R that 50% of the country - including Havel! - can't pronounce!
I think Czech works similar to Polish, but it probably doesn't retain all the complexity of the old Slavic tongue.
Yeah, that ? is supposed to be impossible to pronounced. Combination of r and zh (ž). It's funny but for words with a common Slavic root, Croatian pronounces it r, Polish pronounces it rz (despite the r, it's pronounced ž) and Czech like ?.
River - Croatian rijeka (ree-yeh-ka), Polish rzeka (zhe-ka) and Czech ?eka.
Hey, this was interesting, and nice to see you speakng Croatian. Pozdrav ;-)
i'm polish ^^
it's really difficult language ,my natives sometimes can't use properly language^^ a lot of mistakes in wirting and conversations..a lot polls can't prounounce word jab?ko^^
I remember that, Anna. I remember (occasionally) correcting my students' Polish - things like "weszlem", "nie mam rekawiczkow", and "plasc" (instead of plaszcz). But then again I made PLENTY of mistakes that no native speaker would ever make!
Mieszkam w polsce ale szczerze nie zdawa?am sobie sprawy ?e j?zyk polski jest a? tak trudny! Chcocia? i nie jeden polak ma problem z tym j?zykiem I salute all :*
To Isabella Snow: Trust me on this one: What you've read about Polish is the same in Czech. Apparently, czech is meant to be the 2nd most difficult language to learn (after japanesse). Our ? is the best invention!
zycze powodzenia wszytkim ktorzy maja zamiar uczyc sie tego jakze wspanialego ale i naprawde bardzo trudnego jezyka :) pozdrawiam
Dziekuje Andreew, i zgadzam sie zupelnie - jezyk polski jest bardzo trudny i takze wspanialy!
to e bell: these features are not only the same in czech but also in serbian/croatian. i didn't count how many forms there really are for the number 2 in croatian, but the author missed some eg. dvojicom, dviju etc... so there are definitely more than 7. serbian/croatian has also the same feature of perfective/imperfective verbs and the different counting from 5 on. 2,3 and 4 go with the genitive singular and from 5 on the genitive plural is used.
Polish rlz :)) have fun learning:) start with dzie? dobry - good morning/ guten tag ;-)
Well, I have started to learn Polish in February 2007, and I have learned the 2/3 of my language book. IT IS VERY VERY DIFFICULT, but I enjoy this difficulty which is training my mind.
I'm polish
I can't say how difficult is polish cause it is my first language. But, to my embarrasement, being in England 7 years, I started making terrible mistakes. And that despite the fact that I had best marks at matura (egzam when you 18 years old). I am so dissapointed with myself.
I married portuguese. My children speak 3 languages (poruguese, polish and english) I tell you! Englishjust comes naturally. Portuguese, I cant say much, but seems that it is ok to my kids (from what my wife says). But polish grammar!! I cant make up conversation with my 3,5 year old son in polish at all.I'm very happy he gets the basics. Sometimes he does suprice me with jewels like 'to jest tatY, ale to jest FranciszkA' (thas is dad's but this is Franciszek's). but his cousin is doing much better progress living in Poland.
i am czech..
the most difficult is czech, slovak and polish language...we have 7 cakes in our grammer..our language is easy to write but our grammer is very difficult...i would like see stranger who can learn it...if you exist you can write me on my mail...i am very curious !!! mirindaaak@seznam.cz
and next information :
in czech we can have THREE negatives in one sentence
for example : " nikdo nic neud?lal " - nobody did it
but when i want translate it to english exactly so its mean: "nobody didn't nothing"
one more thing...maybe last what i will say : our cases
we have 7 cases : 1. who 2. out of 3. to the 4. who (for, i see,..) 5. call 6. about who 7. with who
i have word "syn" - son
in english :
1. who - son
2. out of - son
3. to the - son
4. for - son
5. (call) heej - son
6. about - son
7. with - son
czech in english :
1. who - syn
2. out of - syn
3. to the - syn
4. for - syn
5. heej - syn
6. about - syn
7. with - syn
in czech :
1. who - syn
2. out of - syna
3. to the - synovi
4. for - syna
5. heej - syne
6. about - synovi
7. with - synem
i choosed very easy word...we have more difficult words of course
i hope that you will understand it....
You know, I'm Polish and I really admire people who are learning Polish. Sometimes even I don't understand this language... It's strange that people do everything to make his lives difficultes, don't you think so?
Anyway... I wanted to say that now I'm learning a lot of Spanish, becouse I'm in the class where I have 18 hours Spanish in a week. And I have a teacher who is Spanish, but he lives in Poland 9 years. And I must to say that even he doesn't speak Polish very well. He has terrible accent and he always makes maistakes in genders, cases and verbs. And he is learning Polish 9 years!
But I have a friend who is half Japanese half Polish and she is living in Poland 4 years and she speaks so well! I don't hear any difference from normal Polish! It's amazing. She speaks actually 3 languages (Polish, English, Japanese) very well and she has started learning Spanish and she is quite good in this. :)
So once more I want say that it's so nice and I feel proud of my languge when I hear that someone really likes it. And I really admire you, all, who are studying Polish.
Thank you. / Dzi?kuj?. / Gracias. / Arigato. / Danke.
Ps. In Polish is similar!
Is all the same, but we have diffrent order.
1.who-syn
2.out of-syna
3. to the - synowi
4. for - syna
5. with - synem
6. about - synie
7. call - synu!
And we can have tree negatives too. :)
Is so funny, that these are two diffrent languages, but so similar. :)
Very interesting. I had a friend who went to poland for 6 weeks for school and said it was one of the greatest/worst experiences of her life, namely because of the language barrier. Now I see why. Good hub! And thank you for your comment!
Polish, Czech abd Slovac languages belng to the same Western Slavic group and have many similarities, but aport from gramar diferrences Polish pronounciacion can be more difficult than Czech. Actually Polish speakers perceive Czech pronounciation as a littly funny and childlike(i.e. easy). Similarity between Polish and Zlovek are even greater and dialects along Polish Slovak border are very similar.
Comments on Polish names of months:
Czerwiec(June) is from insect czerwiec polski(Porphyrophora polonica) used to produce red dye in middle ages and collected in June. In fact color red in Polish (czerwony) is derived from this insect name too.
Pazdziernik - the name is in fact from flax mulch but the October was (and still is) the month when the flax is processed not when it is used in field. Even now the flax mulch is used for production of building and furniture material (plyta pazdzierzowa). similar to wood particle board.
After listing all of the difficulties with Polish it is worth mentioning that Polish spelling is almost completely phonetic and contrary to English if you learn how to pronounce 32 Polish letters and 7 two letter combinations you can read Polish text so it can be understood by Polish speakers even if you don't understand a word! It also means that when you learn how to write the word you will now how to pronounce it and vice versa(in most cases). For beginners it is worth mentioning that even when you use wrong grammar forms most Polish speakers will understand you providing the pronouncciation of the word roots will be close enough.
Good luck lerning Polish
I Proud to be Polish and use most beautyful and developed language on the world
About the negation: in the Polish grammar there's multiple negation, so you can negate even five or more times in one sentence (you must be very creative though!). Ex:Nikt nikomu nigdy nic nie powiedzia?.Word for word:Nobody hasn't never said nothing to nobody.
Yes, yokie, but almost every language except English seems to work that way. :)
I'm Polish living in Chicago for over 13 years. I learned English in Poland and I do understand that Polish is a very difficult language to learn. One sentence in English can express the same what two or more sentences would in Polish. I love that about English. I do know some Spanish; I tried learning French (NOPE! Not for me :) ) . My sister is a translator and lives in Spain. She knows five languages; I admire that. What's best about knowing well another language, you learn also nwe culture and mentality of people.
Podziwiam ludzi próbuj?cych uczy? si? j?zyka polskiego. Obawiam sie, ?e ?ycia Wam nie wystarczy ?eby pozna? go do ko?ca :)
I think sri lankan language is very difficult language, I live in london and some times I see srilankan people speak to each other, i think it would be impossible for non srilankan to learn the language
I'm studying Polish and I do agree is a complicated language. It even harder than my mother tongue, Portuguese, considered very difficult worldwide.
Juz umie mówic troche po polsku, bo ucze sie troche sam w domu. To bardzo interesujacy jezyk, ale tez trudny... Mieszka w Brazylii, a studiuje tlumaczenie na uniwersytecie. Poniewaz lubie jezyki obce, tez ucze sie niemiecki, japonski i arabski. Dobrze rozumiem i pisze po angielsku. Nie mam polskiego pochodzenia, ale straszno uwielbiam jezyk polski (przeprasam, dla mnie nie jest ladnego, ale warto go sie uczyc!)...
Sayounara!
Auf Wiedersehen!
Salaam!
Pozdrowienia z Polski ;-)
Children learn Polish in 3-4 years. I think that anyone, who comes to Poland for a few years would learn it.
Yo, I'm from Poland. I didn't expect that our language is so difficult, but after this article I changed my mind ;) Good luck with learning!
hi, wow i don´t think i´ll try polish ;)
i learned basque at school, which is also pretty hard, with 21 cases, this was really hard but it opened my mind for language learning, after that, learning german was a
fairy tale (with only 4 cases), and by now i speak 5 languages quite fluently.
i think it must be also easy for polish speakers to learn other languages.
respect for having learned such a tough language
nice hub
Joe - I think Basque is much, much harder than Polish. 21 cases?! And it's not Indo-European, so many of the international words we expect to be similar (like "hotel", "telephone", etc) must be completely different. Like Hungarian!
Hi!
I'm Polish and I have to say Polish, Czech and Slovak kept a lot of characteristics of praindoeuropean language. Take example of sanscrit (India). There is dwa in polish, dva in sanscrit and two in english. Brat in polish, bhratr in sanscrit and brother in english. Sanscrit has seven cases like polish czech and slovak, too.
Only seven cases, but you have to consider system of genders in these languages. There are five genders in singular and two in plural in polish language. There are three genders in czech in both numbers. In Slovak.. I don't know.
Czech and slovak are similar, but polish has more archaic characteristics. E.g. nasal vovels (?, ?) or some words (e.g. r?ka, oko, ucho- hand, eye, ear) are inflected in plural not as plural words, but other way, as dual. German languages and romance languages aren't so "archaic" in gramatic.
By the way, learning other language is quite easy for us (I think so) but belive me, english tenses system is terrifying;) In polish we have only 1 present tense, 2 future tenses (simple, composite in two variants B?d? robi?= b?d? robi?) and 2 past tenses (plusquamperfectum on the decline).
Crevan - yes, I taught English and know there were 2 main difficulties for Polish learners:
1) tenses (esp the perfect tenses which don't exist in Polish; also the progressive tenses)
2) the really messed-up spelling of English words.
I told students that native speakers rarely make mistakes with tenses, but they *always* make mistakes with spelling.
But then again, my students made mistakes in written Polish, too. (Weszlem i wzialem plasc)
Oh, forgive me, I have made mistake... In sanscrit is 8 cases, seven like in polish plus ablativ. Ablativ disappeard in polish a few centuries ago. Genetive with preposition "od" is used in place of ablativ nowdays.
I have sentence for you to pronounce:
W Szczebrzeszynie chrzaszcz brzmi w trzcinie:)
working
vic says:
16 months ago
This is interesting. I sure didn't realize that Polish was such a difficult language. Thanks.