Courses that will really teach me to speak Polish, in Chicago

Hello. You have all been helpful in the past, I truly hope you can help me now. :) To break it down, I have been taking Polish classes at a community college for three semesters. I have learned a ton from these classes, however while I can read and understand quite a bit of it, I cannot speak it. The course itself mostly focused on the writing and grammar. This makes it very frustrating to want to speak it so badly and not be able to. So, my question to all you wise people out there, is where can I take courses that will really teach me to speak it. I have googled information on schools that offer, but it is mostly grammar school teaching children. I would be willing to go, but do they allow it? lol

So does anyone have any ideas or inside information that will teach people Polish as a second language in a school environment?

I am in Chicago and I found one on the south side, but that is too far for me. Please, any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

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Except for one on one course (may be pricey) you won't find schools that will give you sufficient opportunity to practice speaking. The reason is simple: too many indians, not enough chiefs to guide you.

My advice is to get some audio material and imitate sounds you hear. Record yourself and then compare with the original. It is very mundane and may be boring but yields good results. Speech is a mechanical phenomenon, so you need to make sure you are perfectly comfy with one set of pronounciation material before proceeding to the next.

Sometimes you will feel more comfortable to read Polish sounds when you are alone, so you can concentrate on the speech rather tan on whether others are poking jokes at you producing weird sounds.

Whenever you have to read something in Polish, make the effort to read it out, not just mentally inside your head. You want to acquire an active skill so you need to use active techniques whenever you can.

Also, in Chicago you will have many opportunities to meet Poles and to pracice your English. One remark, you will need to decide how you can gently fidn out which part of Poland a person comes from. Chicago is sometimes considered to be inhabited by a disproportionately large number of Gorale (Tatra Mountains people) whose Polish is kinda non-standard (to put it politely)

I thank you for your quick response! I can pronounce really well and read out loud well, I guess my issue is mostly that I cannot form proper sentences. Perhaps it is my vocabulary that is too limited to put a sentence or conversation together or perhaps I am just too shy. I will take what you say and get some audio material. I think that will lead me to my next question, does anyone know any good ones? I was looking into Rosetta Stone, but the reviews were not great. I also looked into pimsleur, but the reviews on that one were even worse, since it was using grammar to pick up women. lol and I definitely do not want to pick up women =P It is very frustrating to want to learn it so strongly and not finding the materials to help. Any advice on some audio or some ways to pick up the language? Perhaps a news station or radio station or some such thing?

Thank you ever so much.

Speaking will allow you to pronounce only the vocabulary you know :)
Read books. Aloud. Learn a few Polish songs. Play with sounds and feel free to exaggerate them initially to expose yourself to what is foreign to your organs of speech. Eventually, and in regular speech the exaggeration won;t be there anyway.


That's what happens and that's why I suggested starting out with speaking words when nobody is around. First you need to get comfortable with yourslef speaking Polsh sounds before taking the next step and speaking with Poles.


That's sounds like a good idea. Sorry, can't recommend other audio material as I neer needed it myself to learn Polish.

buy beer and ill teach ya all the good polish words and the boring ones :)

What was the name of that school on the south side?


I lived in Warszawia for 3 years and have recently relocated back to Chicago. I too want to continue to learn Polish. I took private lessons when I lived there. It also helped that I was able to practice everywhere I went.

Maybe we could split the cost of the beer and have Marek give us private lessons.

I recently moved to Chicago from Warsaw Poland. I had private lessons for 3 years there and want to continue learning the language. Any suggestions?

Just walk down Belmont and youll learn :)



Honestly, never heard of people wanting to learn polish in america lol

I can give private lessons if the price is right ;)

Theres 3 places that I know of, One is by Belmont and Long, the other in Schaumburg
the last one I have the addy written down somewhere around here???

Alright Goonie 2 questions...
1) what is the price?

2) What part of Poland are you from?

I plan on returning to Warszawa eventually and do not want to learn a mountainous (Tatras) dialect. My friends from Warszawa say even they cannot understand them and from what I hear a lot of people in Chicago come from this region.

Discovery Center on Lincoln Ave also has a basic 6 week Polish course.