Postby tarvos » Wed Nov 04, 2020 1:02 pm
I haven't done that much studying over the past week (and the elections across the pond worry me inordinately, though I am not a US citizen thankfully and I can't vote there) but I did do a few Polish lessons on iTalki. The result: I understand Polish fairly well and can also speak it to an extent. The real thing that causes trouble is the enormous interference from my other Slavic languages, which gives an odd effect: it's not the actual phonemes so much as the intonation and the vocabulary choice that make my Polish have that characteristic foreign lilt.
In the next class, my teacher is going to take notes, and we are going to work on the pronunciation.
Here's what I expect to happen:
- The intonation is very Czech. For some reason I have a tendency to play with the Polish vowel sounds, and draw them out or shorten them when they should be medium length. I may misplace stress too, but I think that is actually less what happens than simply butchering the actual vowel quality. Czech has a tendency to stress the first syllable (with secondary stress on the third), and sometimes stress in Czech gets weird because of the long vowels (it feels like other syllables are stressed just because the vowel is long, when in fact the stress does NOT fall on that syllable). Because I am so used to that Czech pattern, switching to the Polish pattern is hard. It cost me a lot of time to adapt to the Czech pattern, I do remember that. And I wouldn't say I get the Czech one spot on, either - I don't - but in general I have the flow down. I miss that flow in Polish. The reason is that I have a LOT more experience listening to Czech and visiting that country (and some experience listening to Slovak as well).
- I mess up some endings. I'm not up to speed on some of the noun declensions yet, and even though I get the general idea (knowing one Slavic language means you know all of them structurally really, with the exception of whatever is going on in some corners of the Balkans), I miss more of those than I would like to. Honestly, that's kind of an eternal battleground when you don't speak a Slavic language (or one with cases) natively, so I am not too fussed about this, but it's annoying since in Russian I get them right more often than not (I'd say 95% of the time). But of course I speak WAY better Russian than I do Polish.
- Word choice is odd. I need to focus on that, at times I insert a Russian word (more likely) or a Czech word (occasionally) and once I make an effort to use the Polish word then it sounds more natural.
What is the conclusion, then?
All in all, my Polish is acceptable and completely comprehensible, apart from the odd word. A more educated Pole would likely be able to pick up even the odd divergence if they are familiar with some of the neigbhouring languages and countries. I can keep up my end of the conversation and understand the majority of what is said to me as well, bar the odd phrasing, a false friend, or some new vocabulary item that makes my ears prick up.
Does that mean my Polish is perfect? No, not by a long shot, and there is no reason to pretend that is the case either. But I'm not aiming for professional interpreting skills in Polish, I just want to be able to talk to my Polish friends and not get totally lost when I'm with them socially. Do I "speak Polish"? There are too many diverging standards for me to be able to judge that, but all in all by most practical standards most people would say "yes, you speak Polish". Is there going to be some keyboard warrior that disagrees? Yes. Have at me, then. Tear my Polish apart.
Also, a funny story: my teacher and her sister share the same first names with me. As in, my teacher's first name matches my second name, and her sister's is the same as mine. Coincidence? Certainly, but it's hilarious. My first name is actually pretty common in Poland, so my Polish friends actually just use the regular Polish diminutives when they address me.
Oh, and if anyone of you is into the whole name day thing, apparently, next Monday is my name day in Poland. So if you would like to do something with that, have at it. (I don't care, I'm not Catholic).
7 x
I hope your world is kind.
Is a girl.