Can Polish and Lithuanians speak Russian ?

We have a lot of Polish and Lithuanians nearby. If I learn Russian would it be a common language for us all ?


These people seen so friendly but I cannot communicate with them and would like to learn more of their culture. I would like to speak to them but the idea of learning 2 languages is very daunting and I simply would not have the time. Neither language is taught locally but Russian is.


Would I be wasting my time learning Russian or would it better to do Polish instead using books and tapes ?


I know the languages are different but what I am trying to find out is, is Russian taught in both countries as a second language ?





I look forward to your comments





Andy

Can Polish and Lithuanians speak Russian ?
Older generations of Polish people do speak Russian (my parents do). Altough it's still being taught in Poland, I wouldn't expect many young people to be able to speak it.


Russian and Polish have a lot in common, but even if we can recognize certain words which sound familiar, we still can't understand everything and communicate, without being taught to.





What I say now wil surely surprise you, but the most widely spoken foreign language in Poland nowadays is ... English! :)
Reply:Older generations of Poles and Lithuanians understand Russian pretty well, because they were taught it in their schools.


Despite the fact that newer generations are westernized (so their education was dumbed down to much lower Western standards) they still understand basic Russian because of many similarities in the languages.
Reply:Lithuanians will speak Russian automatically, Polish is a different language but they will have learnt Russian in school in the same way that English children learn French, that is - because they're the immediate neighbours.


In the Old DDR, they taught Russian as the second language automatically. Some schools there still do.





I haven't tried it personally, but I am told (by expert linguists) that Russian is a hard language for native English speakers to learn. Apparently native speaking Russians find the western languages relatively easy.





Polish uses the Roman alphabet so you may find that it's the easier language to learn.
Reply:It depends. If you are dealing with older people then they probably speak or at least understand Russian. Young kids would probably only speak Native + English. During the CCCP years all Lithuanians spoke Russian fluent, for some of them it was the only language they spoke. And Polish is very close to Russian and, yes during the CCCP years it was taught at school. If you ask my opinion - try learning some Russian phrases first and see if they gonna connect :)
Reply:yes they should do its a very hard to learn dasvedanya thats goodby in russian
Reply:Russian was a compulsory language in eastern Europe.


The Polish and Hungarian drivers I work with speak Russian as do the Lithuanian girls who are cleaners.


I've been trying to learn Russian for 2 and a half years, it took me six weeks to learn the alphabet. I find my English grammar lets me down as I do not understand the parts of grammar formally I just use them, it is difficult to understand when to use which ending. That said knowing vocabulary is more important you can make your self understood and get the drift of a conversation with out being grammatically correct.


E mail me if you want to know more.
Reply:Poland and Lituania were politically related to the URSS not long ago. I would expect they know russian as a second language.




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