You have arrived safely in Poland. You have a nice flat, already made a few friends and feel at home at your new workplace. But when you turn on your radio in the morning or skip through TV channels after work, you hear Polish and Polish only. It may be tiring for an expat who hasn’t had a chance to learn Polish yet. When you start missing English – here’s what you should do!

Get a satellite dish

Thanks to this device, you can receive hundreds of international channels from all over the world, some of them even in high definition. The list includes not only popular English-language channels such as BBC World News or CNN but also those from other European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and many more) or even further East (e.g. Al-Jazeera). Once you get a satellite dish and install it properly, there are no further costs that you’ll have to cover. No monthly fee is required unless you decide to pair your satellite with a platform provider that decodes certain TV channels. However, the international channels that we have mentioned are already decoded, so foreigners needn’t buy a subscription from a satellite provider.

Consider cable TV

If you crave hearing your mother tongue on a daily basis, you can also try buying a package from your local cable provider, but before signing a contract, check the list of what you’ll get on your TV. Cable providers deliver mainly Polish channels that are of interest to local viewers, so you are not likely to find there something from more remote countries. Nevertheless, if you are happy with getting 2 or 3 English-language channels, then this is the solution for you. It is also more convenient and reliable than a satellite dish – all you have to do is apply to your cable provider, choose a set of channels you want and sign a contract.

Tune in to the radio

If you’re a fan of hearing updates from your country over breakfast – we don’t have the best news for you. You can receive the signal from foreign radio stations which come only from countries neighbouring Poland. Therefore, if you live near the Czech border, you can tune in to some Czech radio stations and so on.

There is also a possibility to listen to the radio via satellite mentioned above. However, if you do not have access to it, remember that in the Internet era everything is possible and you can stream your favourite local radio station straight from your computer.

Newspapers

There are also people that, instead of listening to the radio, enjoy reading their daily newspaper while having breakfast. If you are one of them, the situation is similar to the point above. There are special Polish newsagent’s in Poland where you can find foreign press, but the assortment is not very large for obvious reasons. A good place to check out is your local Empik press outlet, where you can easily get hold of international glossy magazines and sometimes even weekly or daily newspapers.

In all cases, as mentioned in some of the points above, you can turn to the Internet to find a solution to your problems. An online subscription of your favourite daily, Internet streaming on official websites, podcasts, and many more – there are loads of ways to cure homesickness! Or maybe it is time you started learning Polish?