First language breakthrough

I always tell people that learning a language involves a series of 'clicks' when suddenly something clicks in to place and you realise you have made progress.  In Germany I remember having the first click after about 3 months when I suddenly realised I could understand the lecture I was sitting in.  And then after 6 months after spending a lot of time with my German flatmate I suddenly realised that I could talk relatively fluently.  

I feel like I've had the first of what will hopefully be a series of 'clicks' with Polish this week.  After a month here I now feel like I can communicate verbally in a relatively acceptable (yet basic) way and form comprehensible sentences and hold up some kind of basic conversation.  I have enough confidence to initiate a conversation or ask something in Polish and I have Polish words floating round my head (they sometimes jump unannounced into my German, which I speak daily at the university - this makes for some very weird German sentences…).   This mini breakthrough was probably precipitated last week by having to communicate with my physiotherapist (trying to fix my knee), the doctors’ surgery, having language classes, and talking to colleagues and other people I have met along the way.  While I still have a long way to go, I feel like I’ve made the first step in my language learning journey.

The Polish really help you to learn the language.  In a lot of countries like Germany, you meet a lot of people who want the opportunity to practise their English.  However, many people in Poland do not speak a lot of English.  The older generation (educated prior to 1989) mostly learned Russian and German in school, meaning that it is generally speaking only the young, highly educated generation which has a high level of English.  This means that I can’t always get away with speaking English in my day-to-day life.  The Poles are also quite a self-conscious people.  Even if they do have some knowledge of English, they are often reluctant to try because (I get the impression) they feel that their knowledge should be better. I have also had Poles apologise to me for their poor English skills.  While I can imagine a British person apologising when they are abroad for their poor knowledge of the local language, somehow I just cannot imagine one apologising to a foreigner, when in the UK, that they do not speak their language.

I also find that the Polish are incredibly happy and excited when you show you can speak a bit of the language, and they always laugh with no small amount of joy and tell you how wonderfully well you speak (even if you have just said ‘hello, how are you?’!). Generally you don’t meet a lot of foreigners who can speak much Polish, and it’s obviously not one of the first languages people learn (and indeed, usually their first question is, “Why did you start learning Polish?!”).  They are aware that it is a really hard language to learn so they are always impressed to see people attempting to battle with its crazy grammar, spelling and pronunciation.  All this has the effect that I am often not too shy to attempt to speak because I know that they won’t judge me.

All in all, so far I am happy to have made the progress I have so far but I have a long way to go!