Talk Polish

5 Responses to “How similar is the Polish language to the Czech language?”

1. aus_melb Says:
   November 15th, 2009 at 4:29 pm

   Polish and Czech, while both being members of the West Slavic language family, are quite different in orthography. For example, whilst Polish uses two letters for sounds such as "sh" (sz) and "ch" (cz), Czech uses only one: š and č, respectively.

   In terms of vocabulary, like with American English and British English, for example, there are many differences. However, despite the differences in spelling, it is easy to see the similarities, such as with the adjective "pink": "różowy" for Polish and "řůžový" for Czech.

   With grammar, again there are many similarities and differences.

   Czech and Polish are not regarded as mutually intelligible, as they have developed away from each other to a large degree. However, being familiar with one language from a Slavic language family means that it would then be somewhat easier to learn another language, particularly if they show a high degree of similarity, such as Czech and Slovak.

2. Bill Says:
   November 15th, 2009 at 4:29 pm

   They are both members of the same subgroup of the Slavic language family, so there are similarities. I don’t believe they are completely mutually intelligible, but speakers of one could understand some of the other.

3. Travis S Says:
   November 15th, 2009 at 4:29 pm

   As someone who speaks some polish an having traveled to both Poland and the Czech Republic. It has been my expierence that people who speak polish should not have any trouble understanding Czech. My polish friends have explained it to me like this .. It is like someone who grew up in NY listening to someone who has a thick southern accent. Some words will not make sense but most of the conversation is understandable.

4. Katrein. Says:
   November 15th, 2009 at 4:29 pm

   Yes, it is similar. As a native Czech speaker I can understand Polish words and the sense of a conversation, but when they speak too fast, it will be difficult. The grammar is almost the same. Females add the ending -a to a past form, the infinitive gets converted into the past form, i. e. "write" is in Czech "psát" – Past form is for male: "Jsem psal", female: "Jsem psala", but I do not know the spelling in Polish. But Polish women do not add to their surnames the ending -ová, only -a. Polish: Malinowsky will be for female Malinowska. In Czech it is different: The surname Novák will be for a woman Nováková. But as neighbours we can understand each other. Polish is more similar to the Sorbic language, spoken in some parts of Saxony, Germany.

5. anna Says:
   November 17th, 2009 at 4:12 am

   Hi I’m polish and I can tell you that I have some friends from slowakia and some of them can understand polish but I donn’t understand czech or slovakian language is not true that we can understand czech or slovakian or russian we have some words that are existing in both languages but some words mean different things