Thousands of love-struck Brits learn Polish - so they can speak to ... - Daily Mail
Thousands of love-struck Brits learn Polish - so they can speak to ... - Daily Mail
Language lesson: The number of Brits learning Polish has increased dramaticallyHelga Eckart, co-ordinating lecturer for languages, said: 'The course lecturer told me that a lot of them had Polish girlfriends. An estimated one million Polish citizens have arrived in the UK since 2004 in the largest single wave of immigration in British history. Emma Raczka, whose Polish grandfather settled in Wales during World War II, was among those who signed up to the Cardiff course last year. She said although she was there because of her background, about half her fellow students wanted to learn their partners' native language. But there were about 18 people at the start of the Polish classes. There were lots and lots of men with Polish girlfriends. But there was a growing proportion learning the language to understand their new partners - triggering a rise in the number of evening classes being laid on. With immigration continuing to rise Britain is on track to become Europe's most highly populated nation within two generations. Forecasts published by the European Commission suggest that we will overtake Germany within 50 years as the population rises from 60.9million today to 77million. At the same time the populations of 14 of the EU's 27 members are expected to be smaller. The most significant changes will be in countries that have joined the EU only recently. The population of Bulgaria is forecast to fall by 28 per cent, Latvia by 26 per cent, Lithuania 24 per cent, Romania 21 per cent and Poland 18 per cent. A spokesman for the centre, Catherine Mansfield, said: 'Anecdotal evidence suggests that more people in the UK are beginning to learn basic Polish, particularly in cases where they are likely to be working with Polish nationals. Why not add your thoughts below?Polish is incredibly hard to learn. There are many words with cz(ch) and sz(sh) and a strange L which sounds like owl. Some e's sound like en and some a's sound like an. The numbering is quite easy but short words can become really long in the plural. They have genderised nouns and names so it's Mr Watki but Mrs Watka. Most w's are pronounced as V's and they put W's on the front of obscure words to make the pronuciation very hard for Brits. But they can't pronounce th's like thin, thick, Thursday.
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