I don’t speak any Polish, but I speak some basic Russian. If I visit Poland will they be able to understand it?
Friday, September 11th, 2009 at
2:47 pm
I'm an American, and I took Russian for a while in college, but no Polish.
Since Poland was Communist for many years, and also because it's another Slavic languages, will most Poles be able to speak and understand Russian, too?
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Tagged with: poland • slavic languages
Filed under: Polish Written and Spoken
My advice is: speak English. The last time Russian was obligatory at schools was twenty years ago, and even prior to that, many students did not like the language. On top of that, you would speak Russian with American accent, and that would complicate things even more. Furthermore – Poland was NEVER communist (only some top party officials) and some Polish people might take offense if you addressed them in Russian. No, definitely stick to English.
some ppl think that russian and polish are so much alike. not at all. but yes, lots of ppl will understand you cuz they used to learn that in schools! so don’t expect too many young ppl to be eager to use it cuz they just don’t understand it at all! although some words are similar. what makes it different from russian is that polish comes from westernslavic languages, therefore is VERY similar to czech and slovak(you can use those and everybody will understand you!) and russian is easternslavic), which makes it a bit more difficult. but anyway, good luck!
Young people in Poland prefer to learn English because they now have the choice their parents never had. You will find that a lot of people over the age of 40 speak Russian because it was compulsory when they were at school, but you will have more luck with English with people under the age of 30, especially in the larger cities. As the first answerer said there are similarities between Polish and Russian but not enough for the two nations to speak to each other and be understood in the same was as,for example, Swedish and Danish.
you don;t need to speak russian in poland as many young people learn english in schools but maybe elder people will prefer you to speak to them in Russian as this was the language you used to learn in school few years a go
hope this helps
xxx
maybe some adults will understand you but you would be better of speaking english
I go to medical school in Poznan, Poland and I am Ukranian/Russian and speak them fluently. Yes it is similar and the elderly do speak it but ussually if im stuck and i need to speak Polish i throw in some russian words that would help me get my point across but otherwise I would stick to english. Unless u are certain they will pick up on Russian and show some hand signals lol then youll be fine.
Hope this helps
yes a bit