1. Polish and English:
A Language Comparison
By Andrea Derr

2. Data Analysis Journal
 Information about my subject:
 Name: Monika
 Gender: Female
 Born: Pabianice, Poland
 Age: 33 years old
 Occupation: Works as a receptionist at a local plastic
surgeons office
 English Training:
 Learned British English in a classroom setting in Poland
 Enrolled in college in America when she was 19, relied on ESL
classes to help her get through school. Her college professors
were not helpful at all to her even though she barely spoke
English.
 Speaks Polish to her family and friends from Poland, speak English
in everyday situations

3. Data Analysis Journal: Errors
 Monika made errors in three main areas of the English
Language:
 1.) Verb Tense – Monika would often use the incorrect tense
of a verb, and very often lacked subject-verb agreement.
 2.) Article Usage – In most instances, Monika did not include
the articles “the” and “a”, due to the fact that articles do
not exist in Polish.
 3.) Word Order – Monika often confuses the correct order of
an English sentence, which is an error made due to thinking
in Polish and translating to English in her head.

4. Data Analysis Journal : Errors
Verb Tense Errors Article Usage Errors Word Form Errors
- he go to store - we go to store - In Poland are lots of shops
- I saw dog - and occurs in past and
- we was doing that
- when I got here in future the same problem
- they was trying - I hope a little bit this
summer
- each night I did watch TV - some of teachers were helps
- In polish I learn writing in cursive - we have three tenses only
- when you get marry - my friends were taking - we have not many of them
me to outdoor football - now only I have to paint
- when she get bigger
game ceiling
- she decide it is fun to - still not 100% sure what
- I was working on totally
buried Mom in the sand room make-over was it
- I gone with him - now only I have to paint - she is getting it right or
- Dad do that with me ceiling and put another what?
coat on walls -it’s from the watching TV
- she done that
-she will go to movies with shows
- we does not use those - he did enroll right away
me
- she did got very smart - she buried mom in sand me in college
- I turn 20 when I arrived - she made me carry her
around house

5. Data Analysis Journal: Errors
Types of Errors Made and Frequency
0%
Word Order
6%
Article Usage
39% Verb Tense
55%

6. Data Analysis Journal : Errors
 To summarize:
All of Monika’s errors that I noticed were due
to the extreme differences between the L1
and the L2, and interference.

7. The Polish Language
 Polish is an Indo-European language, which belongs to the West
Slavonic group
 Polish is made up of five different dialects
 Although Polish has many borrowings from other languages, such
as English, French, German, Latin and Russian, it is difficult to
see the signs of some of these languages within the complex and
elaborate Polish text and speech
 Some key features of Polish that are noticeably different are the
alphabet, aspects of grammar, word order, and gender.

8. Language Comparison:
The Polish Alphabet
 The Polish alphabet is derived from the Latin alphabet
 It contains many letters that are not found in any other
language and are very difficult to pronounce.
 Polish features six oral vowels as well as two nasal vowels
 Also, when some of these letters are combined, they make
sounds that are very exclusive to the Polish language
 , d, e, ę, f, g, h, I, j, k,
l, ł , o, ó , ż

9. Language Comparison:
The Case System
 Due to the fact that Polish is a Slavic language, it uses a case
system.
 According to Polish-Translations.com (2008)…“The case system
means that nouns and adjectives are declined to provide the
meaning that prepositions tend to provide in English. In
English, whether it's "on the table", "under the table", or "behind
the table", the word "table" always remains the same. Not so in
Polish. There are seven different cases and so seven different
words for "table" depending on the relation of the object in
question to the table. As if that didn't make things hard
enough, you also have to decline the adjectives as well so there
are seven ways of saying "wooden table". And to make things
even more complicated you've got three different genders of
nouns which all decline in different ways. Polish grammar is no
walk in the park.”

10. Language Comparison:
Article Usage
 Polish does not use definite articles found in English such as
“a, an, the”
 These definite articles are a main part of the English
language, and also a point of many errors for Monika in her
everyday speech.
 In Polish, “one interprets a noun as definite or indefinite on
the basis of context. Hence “dom” may be interpreted as
“a house” or “the house” (Swan, n.d., p. 11)

11. Language Comparison:
Gender
 In Polish, there are three different genders:
masculine, feminine, and neuter
 Gender in this case is mainly used to form grammatical
agreement.
 Also in Polish the ending of nouns tells its gender
 In order to have a proper Polish sentence, there must be
agreement and cohesion with all of the words.
However, in English, whether we say “the red house” or
“the red car”, the word red does not change based on
gender .

12. Language Comparison:
Word Order
 Word order in Polish and English is not the same.
 Word order in Polish tends to reflect the increasing
informational prominence of the elements in a sentence
as one proceeds from left to right. Background
information is typically placed in the first part of a
sentence
 The orders in which we place and prioritize the parts of
the sentence are quite different in the two languages.

13. Language Comparison
 The errors a native Polish speaker will make when
learning English are due to:
 Confusion with pronunciation because of different alphabet
 Word order errors due to difference in rules
 Learning how to use articles, a new concept to them since
articles are not used in Polish
 Gender is not important in English, but crucial in Polish
 Many more verb tenses in English, only 3 in Polish
 The errors that Monika makes in English are mainly due
to interference between her L1 and L2.

14. Language Comparison:
Instructional Implications
 Teacher must develop lessons that help the students to
learn & practice new concepts, and then reinforce them.
 Lessons should also point out the distinct differences
between the L1 and L2 in order to help the ELL make
connections.
 Using role-play situations in the classroom would help the
ELL to get a better grasp on how to use English in everyday
situations.
 Use raw materials such as TV shows and movies in English.
Monika learned a lot of her everyday English by watching
“King of Queens” every night when she moved to the US.

15. References
 Is It Difficult For an English Native Speaker to Learn Polish?. (2008).
Polish-Translations.com. Retrieved November 03, 2011, from
http://www.polish-translations.com/PolishTranslation/polishenglish-
nativespeaker.html
 The Polish Language. (2008). Polska Official Promotional Website of the
Republic of Poland. Retrieved November 04, 2011, from
http://en.poland.gov.pl/The,Polish,Language,317.Html
 Swan, O.E. (n.d.).Polish Grammar in a Nutshell. Retrieved
November, 05, 2011, from
http://polish.slavic.pitt.edu/firstyear/nutshell.pdf