I think this is really interesting as it highlights one of the major problems I have with learning a new language.

A close Polish friend of mine has been trying to teach me polish for some time, and as a trade I have tried to help her improve her English.

Difficulties arise with “multi-purpose” words in any language as language needs to convey abstract ideas, such as “home is wear the heart is”, “hearth and home” and “home wreaking” – all of these ideas are abstract, and a different culture expresses them completely differently, so the meaning literally gets lost in translation.

I could never manage to learn a new language until I realised that it is impossible to translate one language directly into another, instead you have to learn how to convey those abstract meanings.

I have found that the best approach has been to learn how my friend expresses herself and to learn some of her polish similes and metaphors.

Incidentally, apparently the English word with the most different definitions is “run” (I was surprised until I looked it up and realised how many concepts this one word conveys)

I’m sure that polish has a similar word and that it isn’t bieg, przebiegac, puszczac etc, etc

Carlin was so right! But you know what? I’ve also seen “houseless” referred to people who don’t have mortgages and live in apartments. And not so long ago (I think when the mortgage crisis first hit) there was a big debate in the US about houseless vs homeless.

This just may be another one of those things that are easier in Polish than in English! LOL!