06/05/2025
You’re talking to someone in Polish, but you don’t understand many important words. What should you do then?
…You take out your phone and use, for example, Google Translate or ChatGPT to translate what you want to say and understand what the other person wants to tell you.
When you're having a conversation in a foreign language, it’s not just about how much you can say, but also — and maybe most importantly — whether you can handle a difficult situation.
Preparing for such situations really helps reduce stress.
Visualize a situation in which you don’t understand what someone is saying to you and think about what you can do.
First of all, don’t panic. Various techniques can help reduce stress. Remember that high stress can make your mind go blank and cause you to freeze up completely.
Second, don’t be ashamed of using different apps to translate what you want to say. In most real-life communication situations, the goal is to get something done or learn something important. Don’t treat every interaction in Polish as a test of your language skills. Fluency and full ease in conversation will come with time. Right now, the most important thing is to buy a ticket, deal with some paperwork at the office, or have a nice time with your girlfriend’s mom. People who tend to constantly criticize themselves often make slower progress in language learning.
Third, in addition to various apps, you also have many analog tools. You can draw something, use body language, make a sound, give synonyms of the word you can’t remember, or describe it with a definition.