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The Polish Language

The Polish language is the official language of Poland. The language is spoken by 50 million people worldwide. It is the most widely spoken language among the West Slavic group of the Indo-European languages. Polish only comes second to Russian among the most widely spoken Slavic languages.

Facts about Polish

The Polish language is part of the West-Slavic group of the Indo-European languages that also includes Czech and Slovak. Speakers of the language in countries like United States, Canada, Australia and Brazil are mostly polish immigrants and their descendants.

In the United States, there are more than 11 million Polish-American citizens, most of whom are not fluent in Polish. In Canada, there are approximately 240,000 Polish speakers according to the census of 2006. Polish is also spoken in parts of Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania in Europe.

History of Polish

The Polish language sprung out of the Proto-Slavic language, which was the first language of all Slavic tribes. During the Partition of Poland between 1795 and 1918,the Polish language was suppressed by Russian and Prussian conquerors who imposed their ways on Poland. The Polish people, however, managed to retain their language almost intact despite foreign domination.

In 1945 after World War II, The Jalta agreement was passed and brought frontier changes, resettlement and migrations of the Poles to territories outside Poland. This resulted in Polish spreading beyond Poland and is now widely spoken as a second language in parts of Russia, Belarus, Lithuania, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

Benefits of learning Polish

Poland joined the European Union in 2004 and opened itself up to the rest of Europe. The country has since grown into an important international trading nation with Polish language establishing itself as one of the most important languages of the European Union. Enrolling for a polish course to learn Polish opens many doors for your private and business life. Poland boasts one of the fastest growing economies in Europe.

Moreover, enrolling for a Polish course to learn Polish is an important step toward understanding Eastern and Central European society. The turbulent history of Poland is representative of Eastern and Central European history. People who take a Polish course and learn Polish also have an easier time learning any of the other Slavonic languages, including Russian, Czech, Bulgarian, Bosnian, Croatian, Slovene, Macedonian, Ukrainian and Serbian.

Possible difficulties for native English speakers

Polish is, admittedly, one of the more difficult languages to learn. Native English speakers might encounter difficulties with its complex gender system, tongue-bending pronunciations and aspects of its grammar categories. However, English speakers taking a Polish course will love the fact that Polish consonants sound similar to English consonants and the stress of words is in the penultimate syllable.

Learning Polish with Babbel

Whether you enroll for a Polish course to learn Polish for leisure, business, travel or another reason, Babbel offers the highest quality Polish language courses with the best teaching staff and equipment available. The courses are designed for practicing listening, writing and speaking skills. With the state-of-the-art voice recognition, you will be able to improve your pronunciation in a short space of time. The interface of the platform is ad-free, so there are no distractions while learning. It's also very easy to use and designed for learners who might not be very familiar with computing. Thanks to the intelligent Review Manager feature, you will always know what vocabulary to revise and when to revise it. Besides the grammar lessons, the courses are divided into different categories; food and drinks, animals, numbers and colours, music, holiday and much more.
Take advantage of Babbel’s flexible timetable, multimedia exercises, grammar exercises, up-to-date technology and applications to learn Polish the right way.

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