There is one very nice Polish cleaning lady in our office. I run into her each time I stay later than 5 PM. She speaks very little English, and she was excited to learn that I speak Russian and understand some Polish. She keeps telling me that she watches a lot of movies on YouTube which are dubbed in Russian and that she can understand it decently, even when she can’t speak Russian so well.
Picture the situation when you have no idea from which of three languages the next world is coming, and add to this mix Ukrainian, which I do not know at all. (Sometimes, Ala uses Ukrainian words thinking that they are Russian.)
I think that in order to fully appreciate how our conversations sound, one should know at least a little bit of all three languages. Today, to my remarks that people in the Polish communities often start talking Polish to me because of the way I look, she replied enthusiastically something about “European uroda” 😀
Hettie's Reflections 