So I’ve decided to do a comparitive section to highlight the differences we’ve noticed as Americans living in Poland.
These differences are just our observations, and are only as good as that.
That being said, let’s get on with the first, and most obvious difference: Language
It’s definitely disconcerting to live in a place where you don’t speak the language. It gives you a newfound respect for people in the US who dont’ speak English. It also prevents you from ever saying "Why don’t you learn our language" in a spiteful manner ever again. It’s easy to end up somewhere before you’re completely fluent, or even passable, with a language. After studying for a few months, Jess and I only have a very basic grasp on the language. We know some words and phrases – mostly where food is concerned, but I wasn’t able to carry on a conversation with a 5-year old. Very sobering experience.
The Polish language is at first very intimidating. The words look alien to a native English speaker. However, once you learn the rules of pronunciation and wrap your tongue around some of the tougher sounds (there are a few sounds and letter combinations that just don’t exist in English), you can at least read and pronounce just about anything. There’s not a lot of strange rules. And after you get used to hearing it, it’s actually a very beautiful language.
The other difficult thing about Polish is that, with most other languages I’ve touched, the verb is the only part that conjugates. In Polish, the subject and object can change depending on the verb, pluralization, and gender. It can make the language very daunting. For example. Rower is bicycle (Row-vair). Jedzie na rowerze (Yejay na rovairzheh… zh sounds like the g in garaGe) is "riding a bicycle" (or something close to that). Make it tough. Lots to remember, anyways.
But Polish isn’t the only linguistic difference.
Unlike the United States – where we are a united, contiguous landmass of country-sized states that all speak the same language, Poland is in the center of Europe. Europe is a conglomerate of countries different cultures and languages. These countries are roughly the size of a US state. Try to imagine if each state spoke a different language and had a different culture. We may joke about it, but the differences between states are nothing compared to differences between countries in Europe.
The reason I mention this, is that Poland is roughly the size of Ohio… They import a lot of what they need. It is not uncommon to find products in other languages with no translation. Most have multiple languages on the packaging, others have a Polish translation stuck on them.
To give you an example, in our apartment our washer is all in German. We’ve seen products in the grocery store entirely in German, Italian, English, Greek, and I think Swedish, or something similar. And we’ve seen clothing labeled in French, among other languages. And I don’t doubt that we’ll come across even more.
So it’s very easy to see why someone from Europe would think Americans are ignorant and stupid for only knowing English. But we’re not really exposed to much else. There is a fair amount of Spanish, and in some places French, but that’s about it.
