The language (oh, my dear Polish)

As a matter of fact, as you may be thinking, Polish is spoken in Poland. And, as a matter of fact once again, nobody f***ing understands Polish.

Before starting my travel, my friends threw a surprire party for me and each of them gave me something different (they're so cool and I'm so lucky to have them as my friends hehe). One of them, the most practical one, gave me a Polish handbook, of which we made fun all night long, because it had (well, it still has indeed) a section dedicated to sex terminology... Literally. I'll never forget all my friends saying at the same time "Ach" (pronounced "aj" and that means "oh gosh", although it sounds horrible in Spanish... It may sound like someone faking).

Oh then, I'll follow on. I'm very fond of foreign languages, I'm a translator after all, and I admit to being very meticulous. The fact is that after a couple of days I thought I had got the pronounciation, but when I actually got there... everything just sounded like Polish.

Fortunately I had been chosen to carry out a language course offered from the EU in collaboration with each country (apart from the countries where the most common languages are spoken, such as Spanish, English, German and French; despite that, this course existed in Spain for students going to the Basque Country, Galicia, Catalonia, C. Valenciana or Mallorca). This course consisted in 4 weeks, 5 days per week, 4 hours class per day. You would end up learning something in the end, of course. The problem was that among the 15 students at the low level, 8 were Spanish... and we could speak Spanish at any moment. We were the majority and nobody could tell us off!

Polish proved to be extremely f***ing difficult. Although we did learn some verbs, declinations (it's got 7) and enough vocabulary, it didn't give us time to loosen up in a conversation.

Even so, I ran across a text in Polish in Facebook the other day and I was able to read it all without any problem in terms of vocabulary or comprehension. I prided myself on it!

I'd like to go on studying it, little by little, because it's quite unusual to find someone in Spain who can help you out with this language. But as soon as I've got enough time, I'll start over again.

Two further things I'd like to add:

Firstly, no matter to what country you go to, make an effort to learn the local language even if it seems impossible. There'll always be something remaining in your mind and believe me, you'll never forget them and you'll feel even more proud of your Erasmus experience. If you've got the chance to take the EILC course, do it, because apart from language classes you'll also do cultural activities, trips and excursions (and you'll be paid for taking the course, I was paid 300 euros..! The very first and last time I got paid for studying! )

Secondly: one thing I loved about the language is that I realized that in Polish "ley" and "derecho" are said the same way!

P. S: Polska, bialy czerwoni! (Poland, white and red!)