The Pros and Cons of living in Poland

By mistressoftheflies · Sep 6, 2009 · 540 · 3
  1. I have lived in Poland for the last two months after moving from Canada. Why am I here? Because univeristy is free if you're a Polish citizen. My sister had to do student loans in Canada and she'll be paying them off for years to come. My mother didn't want that for me, so here I am, somewhat against my will, I may add.

    Without further ado...

    PROS

    -Living on my own is amazing. I am not exactly independent as I rely on my parents for money, but I am free to do whatever I like otherwise. Probably the biggest plus for being here. :)

    -I have two adorable rats named Pandora and Alice. :love: If I lived back home in Canada my mother would not have allowed me to have any pets.

    -The food here is cheap, tasty, and apparently more organic than in Canada

    -My whole family (aside from my parents and siblings) live here.

    That's about it, which is pretty pathetic. Haha.

    CONS

    Do I understand Polish? About 75% of it.
    Do I speak Polish? Very minimally. My tongue is non-existent whenever people try to force me to speak the language, though. Ugh.
    Do I read or write Polish? No.

    The fact that I am not bilingual is the biggest issue I have to face. And I am not sure that I'll be able to overcome my fear of speaking the language. :/

    -Everything here is expensive (besides the food, as I've mentioned)

    -I have no friends here (aside from this one guy who is also Canadian but I don't like him too much) so I can go days without speaking to anyone in real life. I am pretty much a lone wolf anyway, but this is a tad...extreme.

    -University is apparently quite challenging here. And why am I taking English Philology if I am already a native English speaker?!

    If my sister lived with me, this would be a wonderful situation. But right now I feel a little strange, to put it lightly. When my dad buys me a computer (this week?!) I'll feel a whole lot better.

    Help me. o_o

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  1. marina
    What a great experience to live in another country, though. I envy you.

    What is your major, by the way? Will your foreign university diploma be accepted as a proper degree in Canada? Do you live in the dorms or off-campus? Are there other non-Polish students there for the same reason as you? Are you treated any differently by the other students because you're Canadian? {Just curious.} :)
    marina, Sep 6, 2009
  2. Wreybies
    *puts on linguist-boy hat*

    The fact that you understand 75% of what you hear means that the information is there, it simply resides in your passive memory, not your active memory. You have done the very thing I did a few years ago when I returned to Puerto Rico. When I got here, my Spanish comprehension was better than 75%, more like 98%, but still, like you, most of that information was in my passive memory, not my active memory.

    You have immersed yourself in a place where you have little choice but to start accessing your passive memory and copying those files into your active memory. It will happen. Really, it will. Immersion therapy is the best way to learn a language in my opinion. No excuses to not learn, and every reason to have to learn. Make some bilingual friends who can help you understand the patterns that you don't understand in Polish grammar. I speak Russian and a little Polish as well, so I know how the grammar of Polish works: all the little endings on the words that change depending on what job the word has in the sentence and all that. It's called inflectional grammar. Anyway, it's not always intuitive, so make friends who can help you weedle out the patterns.

    Best of luck to you.

    When you get to my age (almost 40) and you look back on this part of your life, I promise you that this adventure is going to be one of your fondest memories.
    Wreybies, Sep 7, 2009
  3. Kirvee
    Polish is on my list of languages to learn. Right after Japanese, Norwegian, and Latin.

    Hm, Pandora and Alice, eh? I wonder where THOSE names came from, lol. Let me guess, is Alice brown? =3. Or is Alice white? LULZ!
    Kirvee, Sep 12, 2009
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