English translation

Polish is considered a very difficult language. And many people mention many arguments that justify the point that it really is so. However, I think this is unfair treatment of the matter. And that in Polish there are also such aspects that are very easy.

Hi, my name is Radek, and this is „Polish with Radek”, a channel intended for people who are learning Polish. If you are not fluent in Polish yet, activate the subtitles, so you can understand what I am talking about in this video. You can also download a full transcription, which can be found on my website. You can find a link to it in the description.

First of all, in Polish we only have three tenses. Ok, one could add the fourth, because verbs in the past tense can have a perfective or imperfective aspect. So we have, e.g., „kupować” – an imperfective verb (form), and „kupić” – a perfective verb (form). Or „pomagać” – an imperfective verb (form), and „pomóc”, i.e., a perfective verb (form). But otherwise in Poland we don’t play with any 'Paste Perfect Continuous’ Nor 'Pluscampecto de Subjuntivo’. No, we have four tenses, and they are just enough for us.

Secondly, although Polish is a Slavic language, we have a lot of borrowings from Latin. It is estimated that a dozen or so percent of words in Polish come from Latin. And this is normal, this is natural, and this is fantastic. And these words are a sort of a handrail to hook… to lean against for the people who have just started learning Polish.

Third, we have a fixed lexical stress. Lexical stress always falls on the penultimate syllable of a given word, with only a few exceptions. Forget about a situation that happens, e.g., in Spanish, where stressing one or another syllable, can completely change the meaning of a word, Like, e.g., „hacia” versus „hacía”.

Fourth, Polish is a phonemic language. That is, it’s predominantly read the way it’s written. I know some people who don’t speak Polish, who learned and memorized just a few rules on the pronunciation and its respective spelling, so they can read virtually everything in Polish, without speaking the language. Perhaps they would come across words like „marznąć”, and they will read them as „marznąć” [exception], but besides, when it comes to the Polish pronunciation, nothing shall surprise you. In other words, we are not like the French, who sometimes need a whole lot of different letters, to write a single-syllable word.

What is more, we have simple vowels. Ok, we have nasal vowels, such as 'ą’ and 'ę’, but we don’t need open and closed vowels, or a whole lot of vowels, such as the English or Catalan schwa [ə].

Another point, already the sixth, is that there are no articles in Polish, So we don’t play with any: „el”, „la”; „der”, „die”, „das”; or „the”, „a”, „an”. No, as Poles, we decided that we will not bother with it because… who needs it? „But who needs it, that’s right, for what?”

And finally, seventh, we claim that everyone has the right to speak as they wish, so we don’t bother with a fixed word order, the fact that the subject comes first, then the verb, and then the object of a given sentence. If you want, you can put the object at front, and then the subject, and then the verb … Play with this order as you like, Because, while speaking Polish, you have the freedom to choose in what order you want to put the words. Just remember to stick to the right (verb) case. They alone [i.e. no matter the order] will tell us what is the function of this word in the sentence.

Of course, this movie was a bit ironic, I hope you have noticed this irony. Learning Polish, like any other language, isn’t easy, but please note that not everything regarding the Polish language is difficult. There are also things, elements, and in this video I listed seven of them, which make learning Polish possible. And this is also the mission of this channel, to (through authentic, interesting, at times a bit ironic materials such as these) help you develop your comprehension of the Polish language step by step, at your own pace.

I hope you liked this video. If so, please leave a like, or comment: is Polish easy for you, what’s the most difficult, what’s the easiest part of it, as compared to your native language, or other languages ​​you already know? I am very curious about your takes on that. And see you in the next video on this channel!