Learning languages

I was just reading a book about the Polish language. Why, you might ask? Don’t I know it already? Oh yes, sure, of course. But I had this curiosity about what it is that I know. For example, these heretofore unknown to me truths emerged:

* Linguistic associations rank Polish as belonging to the group of ten most difficult languages in the world.
* In addition to the difficulties of the language itself (all those consonants! A simple word like wzbronione seems to cause English speaking people great pain, and they totally fall apart when faced with a little nothing, like szczerze), understanding is further confounded by the fact that meaning often changes depending on inflexion, pronunciation and emphasis. [I love the example given: in Polish, when you say “Iran attack Iraq” it can mean either that Iran attacked Iraq, or vice versa, depending on the context.]
* Polish has seven characters that exist in no other alphabet.
* Polish has seven cases, two numbers and three genders and an adjective qualifying a noun must agree in all three respects OR ELSE!
* And finally, this is said of it: Polish has a steep learning curve.

I have no idea what they mean – it took me no time at all to pick it up. A babe could do it.

And it’s not as if English doesn’t present its own challenges. As a new kid on the English-speaking block, I had to come to terms with the fact that English has sixteen verb tenses. You truly are insane! Why do you need all those verb tenses? In Polish, we only have three: past, present, future. Why muck around with all the absurd had beens and will have hads? Perhaps you should stop trying to simplify the tax code and concentrate instead (since you clearly want to make English the universal language) on getting rid of 13 of the tenses. You’ll do some three billion people an enormous favor.