Monday 5 March 2007

language exchange

I thought it would probably be a wise idea to learn a few words of Polish before I step off the plane and find myself at the counter of a coffee bar with a handful of zlotych and a phrasebook flapping uselessly open at 'handy phrases in the pharmacy'.
So I placed an ad on a free website and, after much trawling through junk mail urging me to take an online degree or to enlarge various areas of my anatomy (the latter probably more lucrative in the long run), I found a reply from a nice girl from Krakow and we started up a language exchange.
When I say exchange, this implies equilibrium. In fact, on a Saturday afternoon we go for coffee, chat a bit, and she details the finer points of Krakovian history whilst simultaneously tackling the English past conditional. In reply, I splutter out the Polish alphabet and struggle with phrases such as 'mam nowy televisor' (almost true in fact, it's my flatmate's television and it's nearly-new).
Still it's all jolly good fun, and hopefully by the time I reach that coffee bar in arrivals I'll be asking for a skinny vanilla latte and not 30 aspirin and a box of Tampax...

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Your post prompted me to action. I have started composing an English-Polish dictionary sbagliato, just for you. "Trentamila vocaboli sbagliati, 5000 illustrazioni totalmente a casaccio: il piacere di chiedere l'ora e vedersi consegnare due etti di bresaola!"