Most Difficult Languages - Polish
86I'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--another Slavic language--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 Mars - the 3rd month is the Roman god Mars's month, as it is in English)
- 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...named after the Polish cochineal, a red insect that is used for red dye and is harvested in June - thanks, Lola!)
- 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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For our Czech and Russian friends - there is several things you can't do in your languages and they exists in polish. I can't find a proper word for it but it's when you make a word from other to make something sound smaller, more cute. You can do it in every Slavic language but not to the extent you got it in polish - it is just possible to make it smaller and smaller infinitely in Polish. The longest word in Polish that soemone put here in comments is just one of such cases. And you can really go with it even further.It's like - Jan - Janek - Janeczek - Januszek - Januszeniek - Januszenieczek - etc... I actually think the reverse is also possible to quite some degree.
Also Polish has a lot more imported stuff from other Slavic languages and this comes from quite bad habit we got - belittling us ourselves. We were importing a lot more from german and even more than Czech who were governed by Germanic originated dynasties etc. Same for Russian that had quite long time a germanophile stature ( XVII century ) and they even originate themselves from Germanic tribe of Rhos' although it got drawn eventually in overwhelming Slavic element ). At times most of our enlighten nobles used to use other languages to bigger extent than their own - be it Latin, French or also Russian ( actually Belorussian cause it was big part of Poland for quite some time ). Thousand years ago we all were speaking one Slavic language but now they have lots of differences and Polish actually got overly complicated that eventually limited whole Polish culture to its own borders.
I'm form Poland and I'm so proud of the people, who want to learning polish. Reading the comments I'm so proud of my nationality, really proud. :D [sorry for my english ^^']
wiecie co jest najgorzes, wytlumaczyc obcokrajowcowi przypadki, bo przeciez u nich stol to stol a nie stol stolem stolowie stole
i dated a polish man and i really tried to learn the language. i was able to learn sweet words, or some basic greetings, thank etc, but i think it would take me 3 years studying and living in poland, to try to really speak it. it is such a complex language, not so much for the pronounciation, that is also hard, but mostly in logic. i speak 5 languages, most of them latin ones, the supposed beautiful languages, but i always found polish the most beautiful one. it is sweet and tough at the time. and i admire that most polish i met had some knowledge about the origin of words and were really proud of the language.
a very interesting article! that's true that you use widziec if something happens continuously and zobaczyc when it happens only once. But there's one thing I want to add: for something that happens regularly, you would use "widywac"
Polish has 5 genders. Neutral, Feminine and three Musculine. No animated like "table" animated human like "man" and animated animal like "dog"
Hey: your ancestors conquered it (read "The Deluge"/Potop by Sienkiewicz), so there must have been some appeal for your countrymen.
Why would anyone want to live in that godforsaken contry anyway? Eastern europe is jus a parasite!
"4 or 5 hands: 4 r?ce (rent-seh) but 5 r?k (ronk)"
No 'ronk', but 'r?k' :-)
"Konstantynepolitya?czykiewiczówna po?o?y?a rozrewolwerowany rewolwer na kaloryferze obok sto?u z powy?amywanymi nogami."
I'm from Poland and I can say it so fast ;)
Polish is really difficult language :)
None of the Polish citizens, can't speak perfectly in Polish language !
A mnie jest wstyd za tych dupków co wypowiadali si? wcze?niej. Zawsze znajdzie si? ch?tny do popisania si? przekle?stwami:( mam nadzieje ?e jeste? z siebie dumy!
Haha...
I'm Polish and when I hear immigrant trying to speak Polish, then...
Well, for us Polish is...Polish - but that's because it's our native.
I feel full respect for all of you guys that managed to fully understand and learn Polish.
Let Chuck Norris be with you.
OR
Niech Chuck Norris b?dzie z wami. (in Polish)
I am native Czech speaker, and I can tell you, Czech language has the same features as you mentioned for Polish in the article. We don't perceive our language as difficult, but I of course can imagine how hard it must be to learn for someone who's language doesn't flex words. It is also quite easy to learn other Slavic languages for a fluent Slavic speaker because the rules are very similar. They are even mutually understandable to some degree. I have no problem to fully understand Slovak speaker, and a little problem with understanding what Polish speaker says (in general).
Interesting article. Have you explored Hungarian or Finnish which are menbers of the Finno-Ugric branch of languages? (not Indo-European) Also Basque which appears to be a unique language.
Awesome..nice post
And say it :
W Szczebrzeszynie chrz?szcz brzmi w trzcinie
I Szczebrzeszyn z tego s?ynie.
Wó? go pyta: ”Panie chrz?szczu,
Po co pan tak brz?czy w g?szczu?”
”Jak to – po co? To jest praca,
Ka?da praca si? op?aca.”
Its good that Polish is such a hard language!
At least no immigrants from third world countries want to come here, thank God!
Look what happened to my father's country- Sweden!
half Swedish and half Polish= 100% sexy!
Sverige i Polska!
zalosni kurwa jestescie. Tylko polacy sie wypowiadaja bo gowno jakiegos amerykanina czy francuza obchodzi wasz obsrany polski. Zakopleksione cipy. "I'm polih, I'm polis...." pitiful
forms of "robi?" (to do/ to make)
robi?, zrobi?, robi?, zrobi?, robisz, zrobisz, robi, zrobi, robi?, zrobi?, robimy, zrobimy, robicie, zrobicie, robi?em, zrobi?em, robi?am, zrobi?am, robi?, zrobi?, robi?a, zrobi?a, robi?o, zrobi?o, robili?my, zrobili?my, robi?y?my, zrobi?y?my, robili?cie, zrobili?cie, robi?y, zrobi?y, b?d? robi?, b?d? robi?, b?d? robi?a, b?dziesz robi?, b?dziesz robi?, b?dziesz robi?a, b?dzie robi?, b?dzie robi?, b?dzie robi?a, b?dzie robi?o, b?dziemy robi?, b?dziemy robili, b?dziemy robi?y, b?dziecie robi?, b?dziecie robili, b?dziecie robi?y, b?d? robi?, b?d? robili, b?d? robi?y, rób, zrób, niech robi, niech zrobi, róbmy, zróbmy, róbcie, zróbcie, niech robi?, niech zrobi?, robi?bym, zrobi?bym, robi?abym, zrobi?abym, robi?by?, zrobi?by?, robi?aby?, zrobi?aby?, robi?by, zrobi?by, robi?aby, zrobi?aby, robi?oby, zrobi?oby, robiliby?my, zrobiliby?my, robi?yby?cie, zrobiliby?cie, robi?yby?cie, zrobi?yby?cie, robi?yby?cie, zrobi?yby?cie, robi?cego, robi?c?, robi?cych, robione, zrobione, robiony, zrobiony, robiona, zrobiona, robieni, zrobieni, robionych, zrobionych, robionym, zrobionym, robionej, zrobionej, robionemu, zrobionemu, robionej, zrobionej, robionego, zrobionego, robion?, zrobion?, robionymi, zrobionymi, robi?cy, robi?ca, robi?ce, robi?cego, robi?cych, robi?cemu, robi?cej, robi?cym, robi?cego, robi?c?, robi?ce, robi?cym, robi?cej, robi?cymi…
…many forms of words like e.g.: depending on gender, case for all forms, tense etc…
AND MANY MANY MANY MAAAAAANY MORE
This was easy… try to see the difference between “u” and “ó”, “?” and “rz”, “h” and “ch” etc.
forms of "by?" (to be):
by?, jestem, jeste?, jest, s?, jeste?my, jeste?cie,
by?em, by?am, by?e?, by?a?, by?, by?a, by?o, byli?my, by?y?my, byli?cie, by?y?cie, byli, by?y,
b?d?, b?dziesz, b?dzie, b?dziemy, b?dziecie, b?d?,
by?bym, by?abym, by?by?, by?aby?, by?by, by?aby, by?oby, byliby?my, by?yby?my, byliby?cie, by?yby?cie, byliby, by?yby, by?oby, b?d?cego, b?d?cej, b?d?cych, b?d?cym, b?d?c?, b?d?cymi…
I believe that "7 genders" is not true. From Polish Wikipedia:
male osobowy ("person", eg. a student)
male ?ywotny nieosobowy ("living, not person" eg. a dog)
male nie?ywotny ("not living" eg. a hat)
female (eg. a book)
neutral (eg. a child)
On to ZROBI?- He did it
Ona to ZROBI?A - She did it
Ono to ZROBI?O- It did it
My to ZROBILI?MY- We did it
Wy to ZROBILI?CIE- You did it
Oni to ZROBILI - They did it(to mens or mens and womens)
One to ZROBI?Y- They did it(to womens
Polish is so difficult..;) I'm from poland and thousands people here can't Polish gramma yet!For us sure..Polish can be easy. But foreigners who want to learn polish I wish perseverance really difficult language..
Polish is one the most difficult language because it has words from all neighbouring coutries (especially German and Russian). I am Pole and I have (or I think I have) a good command in English - by comparing these two languages I would say it isn't possible for a foreigner to learn my mother tongue. On the other hand, there is no need in learning Polish - English is much more practical nowadays :)
"Widzia?em - I saw (repeatedly in the past, like I saw the sun come up every morning)"
Actually, it's not like that. The form that you describe would be: "widywa?em". "Widzia?em" refers to continuity, not repeatedness.
I'm a Polish teacher and I have to admit that the language is difficult, but everything depends on motivation. I know students who are totally fluent. Of course, grammar can be scary, but skilled teacher and well- prepared lesson is all you need! I wish you all good luck!;)
The Polish language is a femme fetale - the kind of girl you try to please constantly, trying to guess her mood at the moment, and no matter what you do, how hard you try, she always says, "Wrong again!"
Poles always say there are only three tenses. Garbage. Zrobi?em co?, robi?em co? is exactly I did and I was doing - you just use different forms of the verb. Zjem i jem is again - i am eating and I eat.
The biggest difference between learning Polish and English is that in English, you learn a few words, they don't change, and you string them together and it makes more or less sense. People understand you. You cannot say ANYTHING whatsoever in Polish without studying lots and lots of grammer. Also, English speakers are used to their language being mangled by Poles, Chinese, Indians, Scots, Jamacians, French, New Yorkers, etc. etc. and can understand just about anything said in English. Poles have often never heard an accent, and often cannot understand at all.
I can speak Polish fine, but when writing, all the mistakes come out...
Andryuha, luckily enough i'm a pole who speaks russian as well, so you can hear it straight from horse mouth - polish is pretty tougher to learn than russian. Verbs has only two, very simple conjunctions, in polish there are much more of them plus there is overhelming amount of irregular verbs. Moreover, the same we have in past tense, not just 4 regular forms - ???, ????, ????, ???? ;) by?em/by?am, by?e?/by?a?, by?/by?a/by?o, byli?my/by?y?my, byli?cie/by?y?cie, byli/by?y. If it comes to the nouns, declination is also far more difficult.
Jan, Polish language has TWO THOUSANDS varieties of word "robi?" (do), if you modyfied it by all modes, cases, times, plural and singular forms, genders and many other Polish different shit.
And other thing, polish for women and men is different. Women has other form of verbs.
I apologize for my language w?umaczy?em google
I'm Polish and Polish to me something is easy
how it is used to codzie? can get used to it and the whole grammar is just need to learn how to scratch
Although I'm studying English and German (a gymnasium) and there is useful to know what a noun or verb but the pronoun, adverb, article somehow they are not useful
kuba pa?dziernik(October) has nothing to do with bees and beekeeping :-)
All forms of "byc" (to be):
jestem, jestes, jest, jestesmy, sa, bylem, bylam, byles, bylas, byl, byla, bylo, bylismy, bylysmy, byliscie, bylyscie, byli, byly, bede, bedziesz, bedzie, bedziemy, bedziecie, beda, bylbym, bylabym, bylbys, bylabys, bylby, bylaby, byloby, bylibysmy, bylybysmy, bylibyscie, bylybyscie, byliby, bylyby
:)
for me "pazdziernik" (october) has something to do with bees and beekeeping not with the flax mulch. my respects for all foreigners trying to learn polish.
I think you should do some research on Estonian language, it might come as a surprise who unlearnable it is, lol!!!
As a Polish person I can write that..., it's true that Polish language is difficult even for natives!
It's rather NOT common that an adult can spell even mostly used words correctly! Although words are written in the same way they are pronounced, there are exceptions on some letters which can be pronounced in the same way, but written differently (like: u=ó, ch=h, rz=?). In some cases there are no rules - one just has to learn the word. Of course it's a horror for teenagers at school...
But on the other hand - in my opinion - that difficult start makes it's easier for most of Polish people to learn another language - a few things can surprise us :)
For instance - as far as I know - in English phrasal verbs are quite difficult for most Polish people: knowing a noun "mouth" wouldn't give you a clue what "mouth off" means ;)
And of course spelling not connected to pronunciation it's an another big problem for us. For instance a word "sewer" has two different meanings with two completely different pronunciations.
In "So 'u think"'s post are many mistakes:
1. Codziennie widzia?em wschód s?o?ca (nie: widzia?em codziennie) [Every mornig, I was seeing sunrise]
2. Wczoraj widzia?em wschód s?o?ca (nie: widzia?em wczoraj)[Yesterday, I saw sunrise.]
In polish you must use time adjunct before anything else.
--
3.Singular
widz? [I see]
widzisz [you see (singular form)]
widzi [he, she, it sees]
Plural
widzimy [we see]
widzicie [you see (plural form)]
widz? [they see] (In Polish there is no one form of 'they ' are but three: one(women), oni (men)and oni (women & men))
And simpler, uncorrect but understandable version:
ja widzie? ( I + infinitive)
"belong" to any person (oni wdzie?) etc.
but it not correct form and people will laugh out of this :P
Past
Correct version:
Ja widzie?em
Ty widzia?e?
On widzia? (he saw- it not only for people!)
Ona widzia?a (she saw)
Ono widzia?o (it saw)
My widzieli?my
Wy widzieli?cie
Oni widzieli (men saw - it not only for people!)
One widzia?y (women saw)
and simpler - but it uncorrect form and people will laugh out of this :P
ja widzia? (uncorrect)
ty widzia? (uncorrect)
on widzia? (correct)
ona widzia? (uncorrect)
ono widzia? (uncorrect)
my widzieli (uncorrect)
wy widzieli (uncorrect)
oni widzieli (correct)
one widzieli (uncorrect)
Future
Here we must use past forms of verb "by?" [to be].
Correct and simple version:
b?d? widzia? [I'll saw]
b?dziesz widzia? [you'll saw (male)]
b?dziesz widzia?a [you'll saw (female)]
b?dzie widzia?o [you'll saw (neutral)]
b?dzie widzia? [he will saw]
b?dzie widzia?a [she will saw]
b?dzie widzia?o [it will saw]
b?dziemy widzieli [we'll saw]
b?dziecie widzieli [you'll saw (plural male form)]
b?dziecie widzia?y [you'll saw (plural other form)]
b?d? widzieli [they will saw (male)]
b?d? widzia?y [they will saw (female)]
The most difficult in Polish is ortography!
--
Overall well done "So 'u think"
Sorry for my english, but is difficult for me...
I forgot to add that I also speak pretty well in russian, I think russian is beauty "melody" language:)
Hi everyone, I'm Polish and I have not any more place in my brine for other languages than polish.. sorry for my english:D
ale jaja to takie trudne kurwa co? chyba pierdolicie...
nie ma chuja wy te? potraficie pierdoli? ludzkim g?osem :D
I'm from Poland and maybe polish isn't the most difficult language in the world, but it;s soo hard. I still sometimes mistaken in the spelling. Forms can learn, but worse is the pronunciation and spelling.
I think almost all languages are difficult if you're aiming at advanced level. For example basic english is quite easy, but to understand typical english book you must be on a near-native level. When I was first learning english I couldn't grasp the idea of having 12+ tenses (depending on what you actually count) because in polish there are only 3. Yes, you don't really need to know most of them for every day speak but the same goes for polish and it's grammatical quirks. The only difference is that if you want to learn only basic polish you acctually must make mistakes (to avoid learning many forms of "dwa" for example) but everyone will still understand you and appreciate your effort. That is if your pronunciation isn't horrible ;-) I once met a german turist who was asking for directions in polish. His pronunciation was so bad that at first I thought he was drunk ;-)
dla mnie polski nie jest trudny , ale ja jestem z polski ale za to nie umiem angielskiego .to co napisa?am
Polish to me is not difficult, but I'm Polish but they do not know English. what I wrote.
Please bare in mind that we used to have in adition to singular and plural count also so called double count ("liczba podwójna") in Polish. Its' remnants are still present in modern Polish language (as in Slovenian and Latvian).
It is necessary to mention the common presence of reflexive pronoun "si?" in Polish which quite difficult to understand and especially to use properly by most of the foreigners.
In summary: I appreciate very much foreigners trying and struggling to learn Polish but I always ask a question: " Don't you have anything more useful to do?" During 46 years of my life I have met only two foreigners who had learnt Polish as adults and I was not able to recognize that Polish was not their native language neither to lack of foreign accent nor to lack of grammatical mistakes and use of very complex sentences, sophisticated vocabulary with a sense of phraseological nuances.
Hi, I'm Polish, and I guess all Poles would concede that the polish language is not an easy language to learn.. A lot of adult poles has problems with the grammar, and often they're using it wrong. Polish words has many forms, and if you used a wrong form people would laugh at you :] I'm really glad to be polish and learn this language from I was a child, and I'm proud of it :) I think that other Slavic languages may be on the same or similar level, It's hard to say for me, because I really don't know much about them. Anyway, I wish good luck for people who are learning that, and I'm always very impressed when I hear a foreigner talk in Polish, I guess learning this language with another than polish background must be really hard work..
i'm amazed about what you are writing..i think it only depends on your own skills how fast can you learn foreign language, and if it's easy or not..if You say that your native language is the hardest in the world and you still can't use it properly it tells me only about yourself, and shame on you..I'm Polish, speaking english, greek and spanish..i also learn latin and ancient greek..but most of all i have problems with "easy" (for you) spanish..the rest is quite good.learning laguages is about practice only..
Jestem polakiem i wasze komentarze daj? mi kolejny powód do dumy ;DD
Pozdrawiam
hmm im polish and I found this page by accident too.
polish is difficult for the same polish. Teenagers can't orthography so our language lose on it. We have many forms but orthography is complicated also.
If my cousin learnt japanese , every person can will learn every language. But he must to want. sory for my english.(:
Sebastian 7 days ago
Ha my mom and dad are from poland so as a result i speak polish pretty well. One of the things i enjoy the most is speaking polish to my friend and watching them try to pronounce the words correctly, thing is they never do even though i repeat the word hundreds of times