I’ve decided to approach women in Polish instead of English while living in Warsaw. Since I began learning game in late 2011, I’ve relied on English as my main approach tool, even when in Poland, though I know Polish. My only formal Polish language instruction was in grade school in 3rd and half of 4th grade when my family lived in Warsaw. Other than that I spoke Polish with my grandparents, both English and Polish with my parents and siblings, went to a Polish Saturday school for several years as a kid, and more recently took a few semesters of Polish at Stanford.
I’m pretty hard on myself, but honestly my comprehension is close to 100% and my spoken Polish is 90% or better. Grammar and vocabulary are an ongoing challenge, since merely translating from English to Polish is often insufficient, but I can communicate fine.
I deferred from using Polish while approaching during my recent visits to Poland because I was self-conscious about my abilities and I also felt that using English would separate me as a novelty to Polish women. Revealing my bilingualism and heritage would be a value-add as the conversation continued.
Though I’ve had good success meeting women in Poland with this method, I ran into several problems. One was some women’s puzzlement as to why I would use English if my Polish was so good. A related problem was that some women wouldn’t believe that I was actually from America, and just thought I was a Polish guy trying to use English to impress her (I’ve heard from several women and friends that this happens fairly often).
I decided that I wanted to be as authentic as possible in my interactions with women, especially in the crucial first minutes when they formed an impression of me. Since people here know English pretty well, if I don’t know a word I just ask. While I’m still self-conscious about my weaknesses, it’s me being more honest about who I am and showing that the language and my heritage are important to me.
I think I’ve crossed the barrier of being mostly seen as a native, though with my American accent and novel sentence constructions and word choice, I wonder if people might also think I’m a bit retarded. I suppose being seen as a retarded native, rather than a foreigner is a step in the right direction 🙂
Some very positive results that I’ve noticed in this short time is that my Polish has improved significantly, most likely because I’m more confident about speaking it. If anything will push you to try to improve your foreign language skills, it’s hustling around a European capital and cold approaching women that range from pretty to stunning.
Before this change my modus operandi was to open in English, but quickly switch to Polish if the woman didn’t understand me. Besides creating a bad impression about who I really was and what my intentions were, some opportunities were lost by not communicating clearly and decisively.
Back in March I approached a stunner, she was probably the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, but my English opener fell flat as she said “I don’t understand” and promptly walked into her hotel before I could recover. Would an opener in Polish have changed everything? Probably not, but it would have stopped her and given me some more time to work with.
At the end of the day we want to use the best tools for the job, in this case meeting a variety of women. I think a sorely under appreciated element in gaming internationally is knowledge of the local language. Men can still have success using English, but they are really placing a ceiling on what they can accomplish by limiting themselves to women who can speak English and are comfortable doing so. Even with these women you’ll never be able to reach the limits of what can be expressed by using a language that’s secondary to her. Finding a local girlfriend is also an excellent way to learn a language.
