The Joys of Being Stupid
It turns out that more English is spoken in Krakow than in the Polish section of Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago. Since I want to learn Polish, I try my best to pretend I’m Polish so people won’t speak to me in English. But when I say things that roughly translate to “Please, a table to the first person,” it’s not surprising that waiters in the more touristy sections of town switch to a language which they know better than I know Polish.
I can honestly say that I’m getting what I paid for at Glossa, my language school. Polish is a hard language, hard as Latin probably, and it’s not unusual for me to begin a sentence at noon and finish the same sentence at ten past. Most folks will give up on me within that time, but when you pay someone to speak to you in Polish, they tend to be a whole lot more patient. Glossa, as a good language school should, insists on never speaking English unless absolutely necessary.
My host family and I know very few words in common. I believe this is a good thing because, like Manuel the Spanish waiter in Fawlty Towers, my broken and confused Polish provides a constant source of amusement. Only, like Manuel, I’m the one who never really quite understands what’s going on, and like John Cleese’s character, they probably suffer from some very real frustration. But since I don’t really know Polish, I’m off the hook.
Like a foreign language comedy, I’m not really sure why people are laughing when they are laughing, but it might look something like this:
“What do you like on your bread?”
“Yes!”
“Are you feeling any better?”
“Yes, the rice is good!”
Oh well.
Tags: homestay, krakow, Language barriers, Poland, Travel
treeseventy