A B C, it's easy as 1, 2, 3.....

September 11, 2011

Well, here I am at the end of my first week of Polish language training. It has been quite interesting so far! I'm trying this morning to focus on reviewing our lessons for the last week instead of on the events that happened 10 years ago a couple of Metrorail stops south of my home.

The hardest thing so far is learning how to pronounce these very strange Polish words. We are learning to say our A-B-Cs this week, and also variations on the letter sounds. The Polish alphabet is almost the same as in English, since we share the Latin alphabet. But the variations are difficult. I think that the familiarity of having the same alphabet actually makes it harder. For example, not only do you have the letter e, but you have ę, which sounds different when you say it. The letter Q is not even in the polski alfabet.

Those of you who have never seen the written word in Polish, go ahead and Google some up. The first thing that you will notice is that the words are made up of very few vowels.

A few good examples I've had to deal with this week are:

czterdziesty

osiem

dziewięć

trzy

siedem

(Those are all numbers, by the way)

The "hooks" and "slashes" associated with letters like s and e don't tell you where to put emphasis on the word, or syllable, but tells you how to change the sound of the letter itself.

I am able to read most Polish words out loud, learning the phonetic rules, and sounding them out slowly, then faster and faster. I think that for the next several months, I will continue to feel a little like Eliza Doolittle, struggling to train my mind and mouth to match what is proper Polish.

I find that the Poles don't really care as much about pronunciation of their words, unlike the French. A lot of their words, like in American English usage, run into each other, and sounds get blurred. Even if you say it wrong, they know what you're saying.

It's been very frustrating for me so far, but it's getting a little easier every day. Practice makes perfect. I'm using a lot of youtube videos to help me hone my pronunciation, and to sing the alfabet and numbers 1-10. Last night on the bus ride out to the Falls Church Dogfish Head Alehouse, Doug very patiently taught me to count to 10 in Polish, and to spell them correctly.....all in 20 minutes. Let's see if I remember it all today......

Anyways, I thought I'd give a small update on how things are going. We will see what this week brings.

In the meantime, I'll continue learning my Ah, Beh, Cehs......it's easy as jeden, dwa, trzey!