Speaking Polish

One of the great things about Poland is that while it retains a deep and distinctive Polish culture, English is a relatively common second language. (Everyone associated with the Study Abroad Program speaks English fluently). That said, I rarely like to travel anywhere without having a basic set of useful and emergency phrases in the native language.

This is not to say that I'm any good at this effort. Oftentimes, my attempts to engage my hosts, more-or-less friendly public officials, waitstaff at restaurants, and particularly customer care specialists at various European and Chinese train stations merely engenders pity on the part of my listener. Many years ago in Spain, for example, my wife -- who is fluent in Spanish and has no accent -- asked for directions for the train to Segovia. The platform official rattled off directions in extremely fast Spanish and became frustrated when my wife asked him to repeat the directions a second time. At that point, my linguistic skills asserted themselves, and I asked him in an absolutely bland midwestern American accent, "donde esta el tren a segovia?" He looked at me and replied in perfect English that I needed to head over to platform 2 and the train would be along in 15 minutes.

So on to speaking Polish: "tak" means yes; "nie" means no.

How useful is this? It depends. If you understand Polish well enough to know what you're affirming or negating, then you already knew what tak and nie meant. If you're still working on your pronunciation of "nie rozumiem Populsku" (I don't understand Polish), my strong recommendation is that you avoid these two incredibly dangerous words at all costs.

If you're really interested in getting started, I've posted a link to a Useful Polish Phrases website. Importantly, the website not only provides phrases and interpretations, but also flashplayer links so you can actually hear each phrase spoken.