About the Polish Language

Polish is the official language of the Republic of Poland, and the first language of the vast majority of its 39 million people. In addition, over 3 million people living abroad speak Polish, mostly in the United States and Canada.

Polish (along with Czech and Slovak) belongs to the West Slavic group of the Slavic subfamily of Indo-European languages. Linguists believe that the Slavic languages have retained the features of the original Proto-Indo-European language to a much greater extent than have the Romance and Germanic languages. The spoken Slavic languages also show more similarity among themselves than do the Germanic or the Romance languages.

The Polish language is written in the Latin alphabet, with the addition of diacritical marks over some of the letters. The stress pattern in Polish usually falls on the penultimate (next to last) syllable. The earliest documents written in the Polish language date back to the 14^th century. Prior to that time, both literary and official documents in Poland were written in Latin.

False Friends!

As you learn Polish, you will notice that some Polish vocabulary words resemble English. But don't assume that a Polish vocabulary word always means what you think it does! For example, the Polish word dym, (pronounced "dim") actually means "smoke." The Polish word on means "he," and the word los, though pronounced like the English "loss," actually means "destiny" in Polish.

Formal and Informal Address

When you speak Polish to anyone who is not a close friend or a young child, it is polite to refer to the person you are addressing in the third person, using the words Pan (Sir) and Pani (Madam) followed by the title of that person. When your friendship becomes more intimate, the person’s first name, rather than their title, may follow the words Pan or Pani.

Polish Grammar and Polish Pronunciation

As you learn Polish, you will notice that Polish grammar can be quite complex. For example, Polish nouns (as well as adjectives, and most of the pronouns) decline in seven cases. Because the Polish language is so highly inflected, the word order in sentences is fluid (unlike in English)-- that is to say, the declined endings of Polish nouns identify the subject and the direct and indirect objects, as well as other meanings.

Polish verbs possess a feature called "aspect." The aspect can be perfective or imperfective, showing perpetual action and action that is completed. A variety of prefixes that help create perfective verbs convey shades of meaning that frequently require several words in an English translation, or defy translation altogether.

Written Polish can awe the student with its frequent conglomerations of several consonants in a row. Realizing that in most cases these letter combinations represent a single sound will make learning Polish pronunciation a bit less daunting.

Regular practice is necessary to learn to speak Polish well. That's why good Polish software and other Polish products can be so useful. It's easier than ever to learn Polish and to begin to speak Polish with the language resources and Polish language software from Transparent Language. With PolishNow! and our other language learning products, you will speak Polish, learn the Polish alphabet, learn Polish vocabulary, conjugate Polish verbs, understand Polish grammar, and master Polish pronunciation quickly. Best wishes as you learn Polish!

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