All good points and nothing I could disagree with. Well put. However, I was trying to provide reasons why it feels odd to Poles, 'cause it is honestly a bitch of a language to master. Passion for culture or language is admirable, but perhaps more counter-intuitive than flattering when expressed towards one's own?

By the way, I remember you asking stuff like 'how do you pronounce Ł' back in IRC days, so have some random trivia: you can guess with reasonable certainty someone's (and their parents) upbringing by noting if they can correctly pick tę vs tą (accusative and instrumental of 'this', respectively) because it's one of those rolls-off-the-tongue things that are difficult to correct later in life. I sound weird to most Poles due to aspirating 'ch', which is rather old-fashioned quality retained mostly by the elderly and folks from the rural South-East, and an artifact of being taught the language by my grandparents. Even hardcore philology students do declensions by the ear if they want to get it right, because the rules are like 3rd Latin (long list of rules and exceptions to stem endings and syllables) and Greek (consonant mutation) declension rolled into one, yet are somehow assumed to be understood by 4th graders :P.