Have you just moved to Warsaw and already from the beginning you feel overwhelmed with the strange language. We help out all expatriates in Poland to understand the basics of the Polish language.

Polish seems to many foreigners quite a difficult language at first. It is said to be one of the hardest languages to learn. It’s grammar is based on Latin with its:

• 3 genres in singular and 2 genres in plural
• 7 cases
• 3 tenses (past, present and future)
• 2 numbers

It belongs to Slavic groups of languages and is the closest to Czech or Slovak (western Slavic), as well as Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian (Eastern Slavic) and Southern Slavic i.e. Slovenian, Croatian & Serbian.

Polish uses Latin letters with some special typical Polish signs: ą ć cz dz dź dż ę ch ł ń ó rz ś sz ź ż

Polish Language has lots of borrowings from Latin, German, Italian, French and recently English:

German:

• kartofle = Kartoffeln (eng. patatos)
• szyberdach = Schiebedach (eng. glass roof)
• auto = Auto (also samochód) (eng. car)

Italian - lots of vegatebables and fruits names come from Italian after Queen Bona had introduced Poland to Italian cuisine, especially vegatables.

• pomidor = pomodoro (eng. tomato)

French influence Polish languages during XIX century, when Polish were strong supporters of Napoleon hoping to gain independence by cooperating with French against Russians:

• bagaż = bagage (eng. luggage)
• ekran = ecran (eng. screen)

Hungarian - there is a Polish say: Polish and Hungarian - two brothers which already indicates the relationship between these two nations.

• środa = serda (eng. Wednesday)
• czwartek = csutortok (eng. Thursday)
• piątek = pyjntek (eng. Friday)

Polish is has some dialects especially in the Northern region and Southern parts of Poland, while in Eastern parts one can find dialect with the Ukrainian and Russian influence.