![]() ![]() I bought a book in the UK which was called Colloquial Polish, quite an old-fashioned book. And I did! Once I learned Polish, I visited her in Kraków quite often and we spoke Polish. To be able to speak to ciocia Malina! In Polish, not in French. I think the main thing is the motivation. Well, 38 million people managed to do so. And how on earth did you learn Polish? It’s so difficult to learn this language! After a year in Kraków, I came to Cieszyn and found a job at a language school at the university – English Language Study Centre. I would come down for the weekend, and we’d go hiking. The teaching didn’t seem to click the way it had the first time.īack then, I used to go to Cieszyn to visit some friends I’d made the first time I lived in Poland. I hated teaching from a coursebook, which was freaking me out, I didn’t know how to use coursebooks, and I never have. In Katowice, we had those imaginative lessons, we did complex projects. I stayed a couple of years in the UK and I couldn’t really decide what to do again, so I came back to Poland, to Kraków, hoping it would be like in Katowice. But I came back to the UK and I got a proper university degree in teaching training. I worked in Katowice for two years, it was an amazing time, and then… I’m not entirely sure why I left. I got a ticket to Warsaw, because that was probably the only place in Poland you could fly to from the UK. This was before any private schools in Poland, and outside state schools there were only teachers giving private lessons or korepetycje. She got me in touch with him, he didn’t have a vacancy but I got a job instead at the British Council studium in Katowice. ![]() She was friends with the director of the British Council studium in Gdańsk. I asked my tutor from the teaching course if she had any contacts in Poland. I knew nothing about Poland, literally, and in the UK there was no information about Poland whatsoever. So I made that decision, quite bizarre actually, to come and live in Poland for a while. It was in 1988, just before the transformation, 20 years after we’d visited Poland for the first time. My thinking was: I have these Polish roots, why don’t I visit Poland? It could sound really bold and adventurous but I don’t think it was in my mind. When she visited us she always spoke French with us. My argument was that I had a Polish grandfather and an aunt from his first marriage, ciocia Malina. Maybe! I don’t know how it is with most people, but I don’t think my decisions are always motivated by what I claim them to be. I decided to go to grey, communist Poland! The most exotic one! Towards the end of the course, people were talking about where they were going to teach when they got this piece of paper, about going to exotic places like South America and Spain. Then, when I was in my mid-20s and didn’t know what to do with my life, I did a course to teach English as a foreign language, without any particular aim. So we were a little bit aware of Poland, we had a photo album from the one holiday we’d had in Poland in 1968, when my siblings and I were quite small. We got two messages about him: one that he was an amazing and famous person who’d done some incredible things and the other that he was a totally lame husband and father. So, we knew we had a famous grandfather who was a bit of an enigmatic figure, quite a fascinating character. ![]() I always knew that I had a Polish grandfather, who died before I was born – before me and my siblings were born. That’s impressive!ĭavid French: It’s not bad, is it? So, let’s start from the beginning. Martyna: You’ve translated six Witcher books. I hope you’ll enjoy the conversation ? And make sure to read the Witcher saga while you’re waiting for the second season of the Netflix show! You will find out how it feels to be an Englishman living in Poland, what it takes to learn Polish fluently, and how the translation market works in Britain. ![]() This one is a bit more private interview that we had in February. As it happens, we live in the same town! This year, I’ve had the pleasure to interview David twice – back when meetings with authors for the public were still possible. David has translated six books by Andrzej Sapkowski and he’s working on another three now. The Witcher games and series have been on everyone’s lips for some time now and I’ve got a real treat for you! Here’s my interview with David French, the translator of the Witcher books from Polish into English. ![]()
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