The age old question - Polish or Russian? (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

The age old question - Polish or Russian?
Tags: Age \| Polish \| Choosing a Language \| Russian
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

15 messages over 2 pages: 1 2

Flipper
Newbie
Ireland
Joined 5293 days ago
1 posts - 1 votes
Speaks: English*

Message 9 of 15

01 June 2010 at 4:39am | IP Logged

My comic voice is forcing me to suggest that you fuse the two & do 'Prussian'.

Easier for you as you know Swedish.
1 person has voted this message useful

Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 7159 days ago
4228 posts - 8259 votes

20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

Message 10 of 15

01 June 2010 at 5:43am | IP Logged

Thatzright wrote:

Hello, I simply can't help miserably falling victim to my wanderlust anymore. Or maybe it's not so much a case of wanderlust as it simply is wanting to start a smaller project on the side of my French and Swedish studies, something that I could come back to when I have time or just get tired of those two languages for a while. Ironically I would now like to choose from languages that would in all probability be, in fact, [I]harder[/I] than French or Swedish, but hey. Of course English is not my native language, but it's not like Finnish would be of any use whatsoever learning any of these so you can pretty much regard me as a regular native Englishman here.

The languages I've mainly been thinking about are Hungarian, Polish and Russian. I've briefly studied Russian before and can remember about ten to fifteen verbs, basic greetings and sayings and the Latin equivalents for every letter of the cyrillic alphabet albeit I can't read cyrillic text fluently (so not much). Polish intrigues me because I would like to learn a Slavic language, but am not sure if that should be Polish or Russian. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Obviously Russian would be perhaps somewhat more useful for me since Russia and Finland are neighbouring countries and thus deal with each other a whole lot - Russian is a widely appreciated and useful language to know in the country. I'm greatly intrigued by the history of Russia as a country, listen to some Russian music and would like to visit the country on numerous occasions, just not so sure whether or not I'd like to live there for reasons I don't wish to point out here. Poland is a more distant country in Europe and the Polish language is significantly smaller than Russian. Then again, Poland is a member of the European Union and hey, the more member languages an EU citizen knows the better. Poland is a country I would actually like to live in, too, if I knew the language. Polish could bring about some unexpected job opportunities inside the Union aswell - not to say that the EU doesn't need people fluent in Russian. With Polish, there'd be no need to learn a new alphabet either.

Hungarian is there just for... I don't know, maybe it's a stupid, reckless or/and foolish idea to begin with. I don't know, it just intrigues me but I know I should stay away from it, it would probably be easier to get even Russian or Polish to a reasonably understandable level than to do the same in Hungarian. Plus it's smaller than both of them in terms of speakers and far less useful. There's just something about it though.

It'll probably be Russian or Polish either way, but feel free to point out more reasons why not Hungarian anyway : D If at all possible refrain from telling me to simply stick to French and Swedish for the time being - that's exactly what I am doing and I definitely won't drop them or anything, but I just want something to learn at the side of these two, something of minor importance as opposed to the major importance of those two for me. I would simply like to hear your opinion on which one is more useful - and yeah, I guess you could try to analyze which one is "easier" too, but of course that can't really be decided.

Take a look at this thread for choosing Polish or Russian:

how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1513 8&PN=1
1 person has voted this message useful

ruskivyetr
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5484 days ago
769 posts - 962 votes

Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew

Message 11 of 15

01 June 2010 at 6:19am | IP Logged

I love both languages equally as they are both very special to me, and I have tried Polish before and I am currently
learning Russian, so I think I have a relatively unbiased and educated response to your answer.

Writing/Pronunciation:
The cyrillic alphabet is really easy, so there's really not much to worry about there.
The Polish version of the Latin alphabet is actually really really easy, although it may seem like a million diacritics
exist. The consonant clusters are actually fun to try and pronounce :).

Grammar:
Polish has the vocative case for extra, not much. They both have similarities in case formation so if you ever
decide to learn both then that's fine :).
It is true that Polish differentiates between third person plural pronouns (I forget if it's for gender or animacy),
but I'm not sure about verb conjugation with respect to that concept, but that isn't much of a problem
considering that the two languages share verbal similarities.

Usefulness:
With Russian, you do get more bang for your buck (Russian has more speakers, many of which do not speak
English), whereas it is not so with Polish (fewer speakers, more of whom can speak English). The proportion of
monolingual Russian speakers to Russian speakers than can speak English is greater than the proportion of
monolingual Polish speakers to Polish speakers who can speak English. Though both languages are relatively
useful, and you can get farther in their respective countries than you would be able to with just English.

Edited by ruskivyetr on 01 June 2010 at 6:19am
1 person has voted this message useful

michamotor
Tetraglot
Newbie
Germany
Joined 5443 days ago
23 posts - 31 votes
Speaks: German*, Czech, French, English
Studies: Hungarian

Message 12 of 15

01 June 2010 at 9:35am | IP Logged

Flipper wrote:

My comic voice is forcing me to suggest that you fuse the two & do 'Prussian'.

Did you know that Prussian is an extinct Baltic language, once spoken by the inhabitants of Prussia in an area of what later became East Prussia.
My grandparents from my fathers side come from East Prussian during WW II, but they didn´t speak this language.

4 persons have voted this message useful

Theodisce
Octoglot
Senior Member
Poland
Joined 5889 days ago
127 posts - 167 votes

Speaks: Polish*, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Czech, French, English, German
Studies: Italian, Spanish, Slovak, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Portuguese

Message 13 of 15

01 June 2010 at 11:19am | IP Logged

Prussian has been dead since 400 years, there are however some specimens of it (Lutheran religious books etc). There are some efforts though to bring it back to life, both in Poland and in Kaliningrad Oblast.

But let's go back to the main question.

I won't even pretend to be unbiased if you are to choose between the two. Russian is a typical "hard" language, at least if you happen to speak Germanic or Romance. It is however the most extensively studied "hard" language east from Elbe, thus being quite popular among non populars. That has it's advantages as well as vices.

Some time ago I've decided I want to learn Slovak. It was curious choice for many people I've talked with, since Czech has generally much more higher prestige, at least in Poland. But I want to explore something little explored.

Both Russian and Polish cultures are immensely rich. Polish spelling will become unproblematic if you get used to it. There are few digraphs and few diacritics, voiced and unvoiced consonants influence each other, but this is a common Slavic feature. Poles will be surprised you learn their language. I can't guarantee everybody will give you feedback, but I'm sure at least more educated people will be only too happy to help you.

You are from Finland, we have after all a piece of common Russian-Finnish-Polish history and experience of being citizens of the same state.

Edited by Theodisce on 01 June 2010 at 3:05pm
4 persons have voted this message useful

Tyr
Senior Member
Sweden
Joined 5785 days ago
316 posts - 384 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Swedish

Message 14 of 15

01 June 2010 at 1:28pm | IP Logged

Hungarians links to Finnish are tentative at best. It might be margingly easier than for another European but we shouldn't get carried away.
That being said though- Hungarians love Finns. I have a bunch of Finnish friends and one time when I was with them we ran into some Hungarians in the pub. The Hungarians just wouldn't shut up with desperatly trying to spot the similarities between the two and comparing words. I guess they don't have the Estonians to make them feel like they belong so they really grasp onto the Finns- which means a lot of help if you do try it out.

Polsih vs Russian though- I've heard Polish is harder. Its much cooler though. And likely to be more useful in the future. And less studied.
1 person has voted this message useful

Thatzright
Diglot
Senior Member
Finland
Joined 5675 days ago
202 posts - 311 votes

Speaks: Finnish*, English
Studies: French, Swedish, German, Russian

Message 15 of 15

02 June 2010 at 12:52pm | IP Logged

Thank you all for the advice, I think I'm going to go with Russian for now, mainly because it just seems a little more useful than Polish at the present moment, plus I also have some basics of the language down already : ) That's not to say that taking a look at Polish every once in a while isn't possible either.

1 person has voted this message useful

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