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Is Polish really that hard?

 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages Post Reply
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michi
Nonaglot
Newbie
Austria
Joined 5302 days ago

33 posts - 57 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, German, French, English, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese
Studies: Turkish, Arabic (Written), Serbo-Croatian, Indonesian, Japanese

 
 Message 121 of 125
04 March 2012 at 2:14pm | IP Logged 
EricsonWillians wrote:
Well, but I have this necessity, I really want to learn a Slavic Language, since I
speak none of them, I think that by learning some of polish I'll have less problems
when I begin to explore the Russian Language.

Dear Richardson

I think that if you are interested in learning languages, it is a splendid idea to learn a Slavic language. And it is not a bad idea to learn two of them, as they are quite similar and you won’t need twice the time to learn them.
I have learned Russian for one year at the university and attended a language course in Charkov for two weeks. I still have problems reading novels in Russian, but I was able to speak Russian quite well when I was in Russia and the Ukraine. Moreover I have learned some Croatian and Polish and attended a language course in Zadar, so I know a little bit about these languages too.
With regard to the choice which language(s) to learn, all of them have their pros and cons. I wouldn’t care so much about the differences in difficulty. I would say all have quite a complicated grammar, with Bulgarian being probably a little bit easier.

Russian:
Without doubt Russian is the most important Slavic language. It has most speakers (145 Mio) and also with regard to political and economic importance it is the clear number one – even if the times when the Soviet Union was a world power belong to the past. Moreover Russia has one of the richest literatures in the world. It is also by far the largest country in the world with enormous contrasts. Moscow and even more Saint Petersburg are fascinating cities to visit. A negative point however is the low quality of life and I couldn’t really imagine living there.

Polish:
For its number of speakers (50 Mio), its literature and political and economic importance Polish would be number two within the family of Slavic languages. In comparison to Russia Poland is a much more western country and has a better quality of life. I made only short visits to Warsaw and didn’t like it so much, but I think the old capital Cracow is a wonderful place to stay.

Czech:
The number of speakers of Czech (12 Mio) is much lower than Russian or Polish, but the Czech literature is quite interesting. Moreover I think the Czech capital Prague is really a wonderful city and it would probably be the only Slavic city where I could imagine to live permanently.

(Serbo-)Croatian:
Forget what Croatian and Serbian nationalist tell: Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and Montegrin are simply variations of one single language. You only have to learn one to understand all and be able to talk to 18 million people. It is more or less like Portuguese in Portugal and in Brazil. I think former Yugoslavia is a very interesting part of Europe with wonderful landscapes and beautiful cities like Split, Dubrovnik or Sarajevo. However I think Zagreb and Belgrade are just provincial towns turned into capitals.

Bulgarian:
I have never learned Bulgarian and have never been to Bulgaria, so I really can’t say much about it. In contrast to other Slavic languages Bulgarian has reduced its noun cases, which probably makes it a bit easier to learn. However like Russian it is written in the Cyrillic script and the verbs seem to be as complicated as in the other Slavic language. The disadvantage is that Bulgarian is spoken by 9 million people only. The Bulgarian landscape might be nice, but its capital Sofia seems to be rather boring. At least in comparison to cities like Prague or Saint Petersburg.

Of course there are more Slavic languages like Slovak, Slovene and Ukrainian, but I don't think they would be a good choice as long as you don’t have a special reason to learn them. Ukrainian has 47 million speakers but nearly all of them speak Russian as well and when you know Russian it is not so difficult to understand Ukrainian. Even the Ukrainian president speaks Russian only.


Edited by michi on 04 March 2012 at 2:16pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 5057 days ago

2096 posts - 2972 votes 
Speaks: Russian*

 
 Message 122 of 125
04 March 2012 at 4:19pm | IP Logged 
the verbs seem to be as complicated as in the other Slavic language.
There are much more verbal forms in Bulgarian than in other Slavic languages. For
example, Perfect, Pluperfect, Aorist, Imperfect in both aspects instead of single past
tense in Russian.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Merv
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5274 days ago

414 posts - 749 votes 
Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian*
Studies: Spanish, French

 
 Message 123 of 125
05 March 2012 at 2:55pm | IP Logged 
Марк wrote:
the verbs seem to be as complicated as in the other Slavic language.
There are much more verbal forms in Bulgarian than in other Slavic languages. For
example, Perfect, Pluperfect, Aorist, Imperfect in both aspects instead of single past
tense in Russian.


Serbian also has a number of these tenses and they are used by more educated people or in more rural/isolated
areas, such as Bosnia and the border with Bulgaria. In particular, I'm thinking of the aorist and imperfect. I've never
heard the plupurfect being used, though.
1 person has voted this message useful



Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 5057 days ago

2096 posts - 2972 votes 
Speaks: Russian*

 
 Message 124 of 125
05 March 2012 at 4:39pm | IP Logged 
I've never
heard the plupurfect being used, though.
Jа сам био радио нешта
1 person has voted this message useful



Kartof
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5067 days ago

391 posts - 550 votes 
Speaks: English*, Bulgarian*, Spanish
Studies: Danish

 
 Message 125 of 125
05 March 2012 at 10:31pm | IP Logged 
michi wrote:
The Bulgarian landscape might be nice, but its capital Sofia seems to be rather boring. At least in
comparison to cities like Prague or Saint Petersburg.


Sofia is currently the only city (along with Varna on the Black Sea Coast) that's increasing in population in Bulgaria,
despite mass emigration out of the country. While the city may be a bit dull as of now, as the population increases,
more of the city is renovated, and Bulgaria's economy improves, the city can only improve. Sofia is a contemporary
to Athens so it's not as if the city lacks in culture or architectural legacy in itself.


1 person has voted this message useful



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