Winnie-the-Pooh is a popular children’s book in Poland. It is the most popular children’s book in the world. It is especially popular in Poland where there is a ‚Winnie-the-Pooh‘ street in Warsaw and children’s playgrounds are named for Winnie-the-Pooh. There are two translations of this book. The first and most popular is by Irena Tuwim. The second and most recent is by translator Monika Adamczyk. She intended to correct a problem created by the use of gender in the Polish language. I prefer the first translation because a purpose of this book is to help Polish speakers learn English and to help English speakers learn Polish, so to have a translation as close as possible to the original is the most useful. Expressions from the first translation have been adopted and have become part of the Polish Language Polish is spoken by more than sixty million people. Polish is spoken not only in Poland but in areas that were in Poland before World War II. One of the results of World War II was that areas that were in Eastern Poland were taken over by the Soviet Union and areas that were in Eastern Germany were taken over by Poland, so Poland moved Westward, but the people in those places that were previously in Poland continued to speak Polish. Polish is a Slavic Language but is written in the Roman alphabet unlike many other Slavic languages. This translation into Polish is part of project to translate Winnie-the-Pooh into other languages. The idea is children need to learn to read at an early age and the best way to teach them to read is to provide reading materials that they find interesting. Children around the world laugh when they see Winnie-the-Pooh saying and doing silly things. Since Winnie-the-Pooh is the most popular children’s book world-wide, translating this book into the different languages of the world will be conducive to teaching children to read in those languages.
ISBN: 978-4-87187-294-2
