Poland

Currency and money

The Polish currency is the zloty (pronounced zwotay). It is usually abbreviated to Zl (or PLN in in international circles). Each Zloty is divided into 100 grosze. As a rule of thumb the exchange rates as at December 2005 are as follows:

• 1 Euro = PLN 4
• 1 Pound Sterling = just under PLN 6
• 1 US Dollar = PLN 3
• 1 Canadian Dollar = PLN 2.50
• 1 Australian Dollar = PLN 2.50

Coins range from 1 Grosze to 5 Zloty, and notes from 10 Zloty to several hundred. The largest note you are likely to see in general circulation is the 100 Zloty, which at 25 Euros is not too large even in a cheap country. You will only have trouble changing these for very cheap items such as bus tickets.

Exchanging money.

Warsaw, and other major towns have a large number of Kantors (currency exchanges) located around main streets and stations which tend to offer a better exchange rate and lower charges than banks - feel free to shop around for the best rate. These are not exclusively aimed at the tourist market, so they are not the rip-off that they are in some other countries.

ATMs

. Cash machines are located at banks and public building such as railway stations. They do not generally make a charge for withdrawals in addition to the charge made by your card issuer. The usual range of Mastercard, Visa, Maestro and Plus cards are accepted.

Travellers Cheques

. There is little point in getting travellers cheques in Zloty, as they are not generally accepted for payment. Cheques in other currencies can be exchanged at banks and exchange offices, though the comission is usually much higher than for cash, and the rate may be worse as well.

Credit Cards

. Credit cards are widely accepted in shops, hotels, restaurants, and even hostels in Poland. They cannot be used to pay for local or regional travel however.

Language

The official language in Poland is Polish, and this is the main language spoken by almost the entire population. Polish is a Western Slavonic language, which means that unless you have studied Russian or some other Slavonic language you don't know it. The first issue is pronounciation. Slavonic languages use nasal sounds (which also exist in to a less extent in French and Portuguese), and palatal sounds. English speakers generally find these sounds impossible to make and very difficult to differentiate from the equivalent non-nasal or non-palatal sounds. This means for example that prosze (the word for please) comes out exactly the same as prosie (the word for piglet). To compound this sounds are combined in a way which is quite alien to English speakers: if there is a whole row of consonants with no vowels they are just read out very quickly as very clipped syllables. Non-Polish speakers attempting to emulate this have been known to have to spend weeks in hospital recovering normal use of their tongues.

If you are still keen to try to speak some Polish however, there is something you should know about spelling. Learn it quick before you embarass yourself trying to ask for a train ticket to Wroclaw. Polish spelling is nothing like English spelling. On the upside it is more or less consistent, so if you know the rules and see something written down you will know how it is pronounced. Here are a couple of key rules that might get you understood in an emergency:

• sz, s with an accent and si are both pronounced a bit like sh in English. Actually one is palatal and the other dental, but an English sh is more or less halfway between.
• cz, c with an accent and ci are both pronounced like ch in English, on the same basis.
• w is a v.
• c is ts (except in ci and cz).
• dz with an accent on the z and dzi is j.
• rz is like a really soft j.
• Consonants are not otherwise usually combined.
• Vowels are usually very clipped and are not combined. For example eat would be pronounced more like e-at

So you see, if you'd gone to the counter and asked for a ticket to Wroclaw and said rocklaw, nobody would have understood a word - you should have said vratslav. To be fair though you probably want to give Wroclaw a miss - not only is it difficult to say, there's nothing there either.

Getting by in English.

In the tourist areas such as Krakow and Warsaw, English is reasonably widely-spoken - particularly by younger people. Any establishment that ever has any tourists will have somebody on the staff who can talk something that sounds like English. You may find some trouble in these cities in dealing with workers such as bus drivers and officials such as the police. You are never far from an English speaker however, and most are more than willing to help translate. Bear in mind that Polish is a phonetically-spelled lanuage with somewhat different sounds to those normally found in English, so Polish English speakers often pronounce words strangely, and may have a little trouble understanding suprisingly common words when you speak. Just concentrate as you listen and try a range of different words and pronunciations.

Outside of tourist areas you will run into English speakers, particularly amongst the under-thirties. They will be less common amongst shop staff and public service workers however, and you will be much less likely to run into native English speakers. The worst problem here may well be finding accomodation

Getting by in other languages.

German is an increasingly-popular option in Polish schools, and there is a very small rump of Poles with German roots in the west of the country (though not so many, as ethnic Germans were strongly encouraged to move to Germany at the end of the second world war). If German is your native language or you cannot find an English speaker it may be worth a try. Russian was also more commonly taught in schools prior to 1989, and is particularly common in the east of the country. Bear in mind that both of these languages may provoke a little hostility thanks to habit both countries have had historically of occupying Poland.