PDV (EN) : Life in Poland
Internship London > Life > Life in Poland
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Version française ]
The French edition of this post is probably more constructed and fluent
Poland entered in the European Union in May 2004. The use of « enter in » can be seen figuratively, of course, but also literally: Polish people entered in the EU, more accurately in the UK.
Three years have thus been enough to transform our French plombier polonais in a real Englishman – but not English speaker.
Et alors? Just going straight forward: it’s about the multicultural environment we spoke about some posts before. Although the « official (internal) talk » is in English, the unofficial interns language is the one of the majority.
And when this majority chooses the Polish language, to talk about IT or to chat about the last holidays of someone, there are just two lost fellows: a Spanish one, and a French one. And what’s two on more than twenty people?
Just imagine that even the restaurants (say — the places to eat at lunch, we would never call that a restaurant in French) are carefully chosen in order to find Polish waitress.
Strange sensation of belonging to a group — but another one, of forcing everyone to talk sometimes in English, with me and between them, what’s kind of irritating, as much for them as for me.
Sensation of being required to answer to every sentence expressed in English, even when the subject does not directly concern or interest us. Just for the effort.
Desire to do the same, to pick the first French guy of the firm, to exchange words that we’ll be the only ones to understand : to show that it’s the same for us, that we exist, by, for, through our mother tongue.
How to get used to a language, when we have to ask for its use? Should we really stretch to search another group, select a real-native-Englishmen, to be internally convinced that (s)he will never divert to another language, even if we slow down this native fellow, with our slow and slightly-constructed sentences?
Fortunately, the international internships are not compulsory in Poland: I would have been disappointed about the (un)fairness of it…
[ Article traduit du français ]
