Learning Polish After Fifty: Twenty-One Years and Still Terrible at It

Being kind, I would class my Polish as awful.

You are forgiven for thinking that after more than twenty years of marriage I would at least possess a rudimentary understanding of the language. Sadly, that is not the case. So I begin this essay by acknowledging just how lamentable the situation really is.

When Ewelina and I first started dating, I made a determined effort to ingratiate myself with the focus of my romantic intentions by learning a few Polish words and phrases.

In what I believed was a charming display of humour, Ewelina did something silly and amusing and I chose that moment to demonstrate my growing mastery of her mother tongue by calling her a doughnut.

Unfortunately, I had made one serious error.

A doughnut in Polish is called a "pączek." Whilst thoroughly delicious, it is also a rather large, round and generously proportioned item. The recipient of my affection interpreted this less as playful banter and more as a comment on her appearance.

It was, in many respects, a near-death experience.

Suitably chastised, I retreated to a quiet room and reflected upon the error of my ways. This has become a recurring theme throughout our marriage. More than two decades of locating an appropriate bomb shelter and contemplating the consequences of my well-intentioned but occasionally misguided remarks.

I suspect that we Britons have historically had a rather poor relationship with foreign languages.

My own experience was secondary school French in 1982. Lessons were often rowdy affairs and, looking back, we undoubtedly tormented poor Madame Huggins. Despite her patience and determination, very little of the language managed to penetrate my teenage brain.

Over the years I have often reflected on this missing part of my education.

Travelling around Europe with Ewelina, I have gradually learned how to be polite in perhaps half a dozen languages. I can usually manage a greeting, a thank you, an apology and perhaps the ability to order a coffee. My Polish, unfortunately, remains broadly at this level.

The situation has acquired a certain urgency in recent years.

It is one thing to rely upon your wife to translate a menu during a two-week holiday. It is quite another when you have purchased a house in Poland and are actively planning to spend your retirement there.

What worries me is not ordering a coffee or asking for directions. It is the prospect of losing my voice.

The ability to explain myself, tell a story, ask a thoughtful question or simply join a conversation. For somebody who has spent most of his working life talking to people, selling ideas and building relationships, that feels strangely unsettling.

Ironically, I have written before that if I were offered a superpower it would not be the ability to fly or see through walls. It would simply be the ability to converse with anybody, anywhere, regardless of language.

Looking back on those seemingly endless lessons in a sun-drenched and stiflingly hot classroom, I cannot help feeling there must be a better way to engage children when learning a foreign language.

As parents, we spend years teaching our children to say please and thank you. Yet somehow, during a Saturday morning DIY project, one misplaced hammer strike on your thumb can introduce an entirely different word into their vocabulary forever.

"Naughty, Daddy."

This led me to a moment of revelation. Forget language laboratories. Throw away the phrase books. Delete the language-learning apps.

My fool-proof educational theory is that we should teach children to be rude and amusing in foreign languages first. The memorable phrases can come later.

Polish is a difficult language to learn by any measure. Let me be completely honest. The first full Polish sentence I ever learned was more than twenty years ago and came courtesy of Terry Pratchett's wonderfully cowardly wizard, Rincewind, usually while running away from something determined to kill him.

Twoja żona jest dużym hipopotamem.

Translated into English, that means: Your wife is a big hippo.

More than twenty years later, I still remember it perfectly. Which either proves that my revolutionary language-learning theory is correct, or that after all this time I have simply failed to learn anything more useful.

Unfortunately, the evidence currently favours the latter.