Learning Polish: A Challenging but Rewarding Experience

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Over twenty years ago, I set out on a bold mission: to try and learn Polish. Not fluently, mind you—just enough to order food in a restaurant without accidentally asking for a plate of shoe polish, call a taxi without summoning a horse-drawn carriage, and understand at least a portion of what people were saying to me.

Background

In 2004, I applied for and received a Fulbright Scholar grant to spend about five months in Poland, primarily to teach an Executive MBA course at the University of Lodz (pronounced Wudz). The Fulbright Program, founded by U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946, is an international exchange initiative sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. Its goal? To promote international goodwill and mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the world. Think of it as a sophisticated, academic version of a cultural exchange program.

Every year, about 8,000 students, teachers, professors, and professionals from the U.S. and abroad participate in this prestigious program across 160 countries. There are different categories for U.S. participants, including the Fulbright Specialist Program (short-term gigs of two to six weeks), the Fulbright Scholar Program (one to two semesters abroad), and the Distinguished Fulbright Professor award (the name itself sounds impressive). I was lucky enough to receive the Fulbright Scholar award for Poland and spent the spring 2005 semester there. Later, in 2010, I also spent six weeks in India as a Fulbright Specialist.

The Great Polish Language Challenge

Since I would be in Poland for nearly half a year, I figured learning some Polish would be a good idea. After all, how hard could it be? I had ten years of college education under my belt and over twenty-five years of university teaching experience.

Little did I know!

To prepare, I purchased the Pimsleur CDs for Polish, which promised I’d be speaking with a near-native accent in just 30 days. (They clearly underestimated both the complexity of the Polish language and my linguistic ability.) After about two weeks of listening to those CDs, I realized that unless I was ordering “a beer, please” (“piwo, proszę”), I was in trouble.

So, I did what any desperate language learner would do—I hired an instructor. For four weeks, I met with my very patient tutor for one-hour weekly sessions before departing for Poland in January 2005. My goal was not to learn vocabulary, grammar, or spelling (who has time for that?), but simply to string together a few useful phrases without embarrassing myself.

Polish Pronunciation: A Consonant Catastrophe

Once I arrived in Poland, I quickly discovered that Polish words often look like a Scrabble player's nightmare. Many seem to be missing vowels altogether, making pronunciation a real adventure. And one is expected to pronounce all the letters in words.

Consider these fine specimens of Polish words:

• szczęście (happiness—ironically, not the feeling you have when trying to pronounce it)

• źdźbło (blade of grass—because obviously, we all need to say that daily)

• chrząszcz (beetle—good luck with that one!)

• Szczebrzeszyn (a town in Poland—probably named just to confuse foreigners)

President Clinton once (jokingly) suggested that the U.S. should send 100,000 vowels to Eastern Europe to make their words more decipherable.

For six years, we have stood by while names like Ygrjvslhv and Tzlynhr and Glrm have been horribly butchered by millions around the world,” he said. “It is time we stood up and said, ‘Enough!’ It is time the people of Bosnia finally had some vowels in their incomprehensible words.

Making Progress (Sort of)

Despite these challenges, I did manage to pick up around 30-40 Polish words. Did that make me fluent? Absolutely not. Could I confidently order food or call a taxi? Also no. However, I did occasionally receive compliments on my pronunciation, which was probably the Polish people’s way of humoring me.

Calling a taxi in Lodz turned out to be fairly simple—if I was in my apartment. My university host had arranged with a taxi company to pick me up whenever I called them and used the code 555 (pronounced “piench, piench, piench” or written as “pięćset pięćdziesiąt pięć”). It worked like magic! But if I needed a taxi from anywhere else? That was a different story. More than once, I had to call my host, who would kindly provide directions to the taxi company, probably chuckling to themselves about my language struggles.

The Lingering Effects of My Polish Adventure

Now, two decades later, my grasp of Polish has mostly faded. But I do remember one thing: how to say “hello” or “good day”—Jen dobry (written as Dzień dobry).

Learning Polish was a struggle, but it was also a rewarding experience. Even though I never became fluent or anything close to it, my efforts to learn the language helped me connect with the culture and the wonderful people of Poland. At the very least, I learned just enough to appreciate the complexity of the language and to be deeply grateful for vowels.