Polish is a West Slavic language related to Slovak, Russian and Ukrainian. It is used by over 55 million people, where 38 million live in Poland. Large groups of Poles live mainly in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Germany, France and Lithuania.
Polish has been gaining popularity as a foreign language taught at language schools across Poland and globally. In UK it is one of the most spoken languages after English and Welsh. Polish courses are offered by leading English universities like Oxford University, University College London and University of Cambridge. Mixed marriages and new opportunity of work cause that the group of foreigners, willing to learn the language, is constantly growing.
Polish can be challenging to learn because of its gender system, demanding pronunciations and complex grammar categories. However, English speakers taking Polish lessons will love the fact that it contains many loanwords – a great number of words borrowed from Latin, Czech, German as well as from French, and English.
Most of learners are not discouraged by the fact that some nouns in Polish may have as many as fourteen different forms. They enjoy Polish tongue–twisters. For them learning the language is a challenge worth to take. A challenge which gives incredible satisfaction of being able to understand and use one of the most difficult languages in Europe.