He opened to Lesson One. Dzień dobry. Jak się pan nazywa? He practiced the words under his breath, feeling the "dz" and "ń" dance awkwardly on his tongue.
As the weeks passed, the characters in the book became his closest friends. He followed the daily lives of a Polish family through the dialogues, learning how to buy bread at the piekarnia and how to navigate the bustling markets of Warsaw. In the margins of Tom 2, he wrestled with the instrumental case , scribbling notes about why "with a friend" ( z kolegą ) changed the ending of a perfectly good word. He opened to Lesson One
The real test came during a winter trip to the mountains. While others sang along to the songs and poems found in the book's back pages, Sven found himself at a train station, trying to buy a ticket to Zakopane. He practiced the words under his breath, feeling