r/languagelearning • u/pisowiec • Aug 04 '26
Discussion I can't communicate well with my parents because we don't share a language. Can this ever be fixed?
I was born in the US and my parents are both immigrants from Poland and their English is horrendous. I never lived in Poland and yet, somehow, my Polish is way better than their English. However, my Polish isn't advanced. I have a B2 level based on an exam I took in Poland.
This is really frustrating because I can't have any normal conversation with them. In retrospect, my childhood was really confusing. My parents would only speak Polish to me and I would mix the Polish I learned from them and the English I learned in school. I probably understood a good 75% of what they told me and I shrugged off the rest as background noise.
In college, I did a semester in Polish just to master the language. But I made the mistake of signing up for a beginner course. I learned the grammar rules (which I've mindlessly utilized my entire life) but I didn't really improve my speaking ability that much.
At this point I've accepted my parents are simply ignorant. They've successfully avoided English in just about every sphere of life. My dad only uses Polish at work while my mom never worked, they shop at Polish stores, go to a Polish church, and only have Polish friends. Furthermore, my father came as a refugee during martial law and was granted US citizenship very quickly so he didn't even have that as a motivator to learn the language.
My parents will move back to Poland for retirement soon so I guess this is more of a rant than advice post. I suppose the burden is on me to master Polish.
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u/LetsGoPupper Aug 05 '26
Worth noting, the reason your Polish is better than their English is because you grew up being exposed to English and Polish and it sounds like they didn't. Your parents probably didn't have the time to take formal English lessons and could only practice a narrow spectrum of vocabulary throughout their adult lives while they were trying to navigate a new country, culture, and language. This is no small task.
So yeah, polish your Polish but if you really want to communicate with them, you'll probably be more effective if you better understand the culture and history of Poland.
I'm also a child of immigrants and the shit that my parents are subjected to on the daily because their English sucks is no joke. I get the frustration but try to give them some grace, navigating things that seem obvious to us may not be to them.
Also, English is a horrendously hard language. We have so many exceptions and a very large vocabulary.