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Glam Monitor

Is Polish hard to learn?

Author

David Ramirez

Updated on August 15, 2026

As a Slavic language, Polish is one of the most difficult languages for native English speakers to learn.

How long does it take to learn Polish?

For those of you who wonder how long it takes to learn Polish, the FSI offers these numbers: Polish is a Category 4 language. Which means that it takes around 44 weeks or 1100 hours of study to master it.

Why is Polish so difficult to learn?

Spelling and grammar are a couple of areas in which Polish can give English speakers a hard time. Words are loaded with consonants, which makes them difficult to spell and pronounce. For example, szczęście means “happiness” and bezwzględny means “ruthless.” Ruthless, indeed.

Is Polish the hardest language in the world?

Polish is amongst the hardest languages to pick up in the world. Polish words are confusing and can be hard to pronounce for English speakers. Though the language uses the Latin script, it has some additional letters, a complex grammar freestyle system and relies heavily on consonants.

Is Poland easy to learn?

Polish is not hard, and definitely not an impossible language to learn. Although it's a Slavic language, Polish uses Latin letters in its alphabet. This makes Polish a much easier language to study than Russian for example.

16 related questions found

Are Polish people friendly?

Although the Polish are generally considered friendly and helpful (the average score is 4.05), we are not very tolerant. Expats feel being discriminated against in every city. The Polish language is an issue.

How many ways can you say 2 in Polish?

Numbers and Quantity

There are 22 ways to say two, twice, or second, and they are noun, adjective, and pronoun dependent. For example, two is dwa. However, it changes even more than the abovementioned declensions. The list goes on and on down to 22 tear-inducing ways to say 2.

What is the longest word in Polish?

4. The longest Polish word contains 54 letters. Dziewięćsetdziewięćdziesięciodziewięcionarodowościowego is the longest Polish word. It roughly stands for “of nine-hundred and ninety-nine nationalities”.

Is Polish hard for English speakers?

As a Slavic language, Polish is one of the most difficult languages for native English speakers to learn.

What language is Polish closest to?

Polish (język polski) belongs to the west Slavic group of the Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. Its closest living relatives are Czech, Slovak, and Sorbian. It is spoken by 36.6 million people in Poland.

Is it worth it to learn Polish?

By learning Polish, you'll be able to acquaint yourself with a country with one of the most fascinating and turbulent histories in Europe. This history still has influence on life and politics in the country today, and may offer the key to understanding the region's present.

Is Polish a pretty language?

Learning Polish is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance. It's an extremely rich and beautiful language, spoken not only in Poland but also throughout the world, officially ranked number 21 in the world as regards the number of speakers.

Is English widely spoken in Poland?

In general, English is fairly widely spoken in Poland with just under 40% of Poles overall reported as being able to speak English to some degree, with a higher percentage in major cities. However, Russian is much more widely spoken in Poland, with around 97% proficiency.

What are Level 5 languages?

5 – Native / Bilingual Proficiency

Someone at this language proficiency level was either raised speaking the language as their native tongue or has been speaking it so long that they are completely fluent. They have little or no accent.

Is Duolingo good for Polish?

A decent starting point for learning Polish

A lot of Polish learners enjoy Duolingo for its interactive game-like exercises. It has a lot of vocabulary, and even absolute beginners will be able to build speaking skills.

Is Poland a good place to live?

Poland is one of the most economically developed countries in Eastern Europe. It offers a high level of salaries, low housing prices, low taxes compared to other EU countries and a lot of people are choosing Poland for permanent residence or as the first country to “move to Europe”.

Why is Polish grammar so complicated?

Pronunciation. The Polish language is known for having lots of consonants together, which makes it very hard for native English speakers to pronounce some words. If you take the word Szczęście (happiness), the sounds “sh” and “ch” are pronounced one after the other.

Why is Polish so different?

The alphabet

The most distinctive difference between Polish and Russian is the alphabet. The Polish language uses the standard Latin alphabet with 9 added letters that only exist in this language. You may have seen Polish words being spelled with letters such as “ć”, “ę” or “ż”.

What's the easiest language in the world?

And The Easiest Language To Learn Is…

  1. Norwegian. This may come as a surprise, but we have ranked Norwegian as the easiest language to learn for English speakers. ...
  2. Swedish. ...
  3. Spanish. ...
  4. Dutch. ...
  5. Portuguese. ...
  6. Indonesian. ...
  7. Italian. ...
  8. French.

What word takes 3 hours to say?

That's called: Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia and it's one of the longest words in the dictionary.

What is the hardest Polish word to say?

The hardest words to pronounce in the Polish language

  • Szczęście. Ironically, the word that means happiness makes lots of people (mostly foreigners) very unhappy. ...
  • Źdźbło. That is probably the most bizarre word in the Polish language. ...
  • Żółć ...
  • Następstwa (and następstw) ...
  • Bezwzględny. ...
  • Chrząszcz. ...
  • Pszczoła. ...
  • Ślusarz.

Is Russian easier than Polish?

If you want to learn more than one Slavic language, it's best to start with Polish. You'll learn it faster than Russian, because of the Latin letters and English loanwords. And knowing Polish is a great base to start your Russian studies.

How does Polish sound like?

Polish sounds like a light, happy, and melodic version of Russian. Some words tend to have a similar melody to Italian, and many sounds resemble French or Portuguese.