Learning Polish

After 13 years here, I have been increasingly aware that my written Polish is below par and certainly nowhere near good enough to be able to use it in a literary manner. In Polish I cannot write short letters to newspapers nor pithy comments to bloggers who've gone way off course nor lengthy analysis pieces accurately summarising differences between British and Polish society. My non-standard Polish accent makes me a hit with TV and radio editors (I appear a couple of times a month on average commenting on UK events) indeed my accent lends a certain credibility to what I'm saying. But accent cuts no ice with print editors dissecting the written word.

I also feel that I write about the English language better (in particular grammar and syntax) if I can authoritatively refer to Polish equivalents to highlight differences and similarities - which I can't right now.

Why is my written Polish poor? After all, I usually write 20-30 emails in Polish during the course of a working day...

1) Shaky foundations. Polish is, like Latin, a language of declensions and conjugations. I learnt all this stuff like biernik, czasownik, bezokolicznik, przyimek at Polish Saturday school in West London round about the time that Gierek was taking over from Gomułka here in Poland. Consequently what's left of it in my head is a rather confused mixture of half-remembered rules.

2) Literal translation. It annoys me when I see Poles translating into English using Polish word order and directly transposed figures of speech, yet I do exactly the same when trying to get my thoughts (in English) into good Polish.

3) Inadequate vocabulary. In Polish it is considered good form to display your education by spattering your text with literary allusions, metaphors derived from the Classics, clever historical parallels. [In English this is the sign of a tiresome show-off. Below: a foreign intellectual as drawn by Nicholas Bentley, from George Mikes's timeless How To Be An Alien]


It's the foundations that need addressing first. Once I make a mistake in using the wrong case for the object, that mistake then carries on into all the adjectives that follow it. So it's back to basics - the kto/co, kogo/czego, komu/czemu, kogo/co etc need to be learnt by heart (plus the exceptions) rather than just guessed at as at present. Kolin has a good take on this for all you non-Poles out there.

Prefixes to verbs are another problem I have. If phrasal verbs give Poles problems (to send over, to send out, to send in, to send across etc), I have problems with the Polish equivalents - przysłać, przesłać, wysłać or rozesłać?

And quite a few Polish verbs have two infinitive forms! (eg. rozśmieszyć/rozśmieszać.) The latter appears to be a continuous infinitive(?).
And what's the difference between 'zabierz swoje pióra' and 'zabierz twoje piora' (take your pens / take your pens)?

Eventually, my aim is to be able to get some texts published in Polish.

Note: 'Eventually' I have learnt does not mean ewentualnie, which simply means 'or'.