Do I need to speak Polish to live in Poland?

Polish, it is argued, is the hardest language in the world to learn. This immediately might put you off going to Poland. It will please you to know however that you can get away with just the basics and sometimes not even those.

In the main towns like Warsaw, Krakow etc you'll be able to carry out the simple necessities of life without too many difficulties like shopping, buying a bus ticket, buy a beer, find accommodation and deal with people on a basic level.

In small towns or villages your ability to live life will probably be compromised without at least the basics of the language down.

Dealing with officialdom or any public office.

It doesn't matter where you are, the chances you'll be able to manage in these offices will be limited or near impossible without at least a smattering of Polish. You could get lucky. Then again the chances are you'll get to deal with a decrepit old hag who still thinks Poland is a communist state in which case you'll simply be ignored.

Learning the language.

If you've learnt languages before that will definitely help, if you haven't you're in for a real treat! Nothing quite prepares you for the absolute frustration of getting to the grips with the Polish language. A language teacher of mine at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow said that it takes the average person about 5 years to get to an intermediate level. In the big towns you'll find a multitude of people and companies willing to teach you Polish. You should be able to swing an English/Polish exchange where you teach for 1 hour and they teach you Polish for 1 hour. This also allows you to meet more people.

Links to online resources to help you learn Polish

Following some feedback from one visitor (thank you!) here are some links to various sites that will help you to learn some Polish.
If you decide to buy a book on Polish grammar (and you shouldn't need to, have a look at the link to "Polish Grammar in a Nutshell" below) please be advised that Polish isn't a popular language to learn and therefore the literature reflects that. What do I mean? All books are deadly boring and follow the same format. There is a new series of books out called Hurra!!! Po Polsku but the geniuses who wrote it, wrote it entirely in Polish, which makes it useless for self-study. There are no "fun-looking" Polish language textbooks out there, sorry.

Also, please don't treat this list as exhaustive, simply type 'Polish grammar' or 'Polish phrases' into google and you'll bring up lots of other resources!

Polish Basics:

Polish Grammar:

English-Polish online dictionaries:



Teaching English in Poland