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I need advice - how long to learn Polish?

still_wisherThreads: 7 Posts: 186 Joined: Mar 9, 08 ♂	Mar 31, 09, 17:46 #1
foreigners speaking polish please help !! i need someone to tell me how long it took to be good in polish not perfect?? which i started to think tha there is no way !! my brain hurting me ! i'm in poland about almost 9 months i think i can understand ppl if they will keep it slow so i can get the words without hearing some r eating (się ,ci ......)..

benszymanskiThreads: 9 Posts: 510 Joined: Feb 29, 08 ♂	Mar 31, 09, 20:58 #2
I have been pretty well immersed in Polish (no English speaking friends/colleagues/neighbours, no English TV) and in my case I would say about 3 years. The first two I was actively learning and studying. The last year or so I haven't studied much but just look up new vocab here and there. My brain hurt for probably the first 18 months - hang in there!

still_wisherThreads: 7 Posts: 186 Joined: Mar 9, 08 ♂	Mar 31, 09, 21:11 #3
really thank u ! im in the same just at least my polish friends speaking english , i'm learning by my own , but it's good to hear it will take a while because i started to think that im damn stupid , sometimes i feel that i can't jump the limit and get in my brain anymore ..

mafketisThreads: 15 Posts: 1,830 Joined: Mar 31, 08 ♂	Mar 31, 09, 22:17 #4
I knew one woman who arrived in Poland after a (not very good) one semester course and after six months was taking (informal) medical advice over the phone. Her grammar hurt the ears but she got by. Also remember that learning a language is a process, not an event. Just keep plugging away (feel free to take breaks to let it sink in too).

mark007Threads: 1 Posts: 74 Joined: Jan 19, 09 ♂	Mar 31, 09, 23:49 #5
czesc jak leci?Hey I have been here just over a year and I know exactly how you feel. I study with books and cds every week, my girlfriend is polish and her family can't really speak english and I swap english for polish with someone else. I still feel still I'm struggling but the pronunciation and reading have started to improve a little. Keep going and good luck.

♀

Edited by: PolskaDoll Apr 1, 09, 00:00 #6

Everyone takes different lengths of time to learn so don't worry if you appear slower than someone else who is learning because you'll also be picking it up faster than another person.

It all depends on the amount of time you can give to learning each day, each week and how easy or difficult you are finding it. Some aspects of the language you may pick up straight away and others you may have great difficulty with. Don't worry about it. It will come.

It's good that you understand people when they speak slowly, it means you're not far away from understanding them when they speak quickly. :) Keep at it. :)

♂

Apr 1, 09, 01:37 #7

I've been going about 8 months now give or take and yes... my head hurts!

I've learned so much about English from learning about Polish, I did not know what a verb was... an adverb, noun, adjective, perfective, imperfective etc etc and it's been hard so far.

I still don't know a lot of stuff like the cases etc and after I've learned how to conjugate verbs then I'll move along to this.

I study new nouns all the time to keep me going. I'm actually starting to feel like I'm getting somewhere but I have a 4 year plan and then I think I'll be ready for Czech too.

My point is you can't expect miracles because it's just not going to happen.

5 Years... thats my own plan...

:)

♂

Apr 2, 09, 17:01 #8

5 years ! sounds long time ! but u know what , it made me feel good:)
anyways dose anyone know a good plan or better way than collecting from evrywhere ?
as i said im learning by my own , sometimes i feel lost ! and i'm fighting with the language and i know i will win one day but i don't want this day to be way far .. i found that it's better when- i catch a word from a polish (wife,parents in law, friend ,tv and so on ..)- than when i use books, because simply i know lots of words but i don't know how to write it specialy if it with (si , ci , sz , cz , ś , ć ) which i think 80% got them:)

gumishu

Apr 3, 09, 13:02 #9

the rules of writing sounds in Polish are quite consistent. Maybe a bit complicated. (just a bit is my opinion) You just have to learn them.

as for si - ś
you never write śa, śe, śo, śu - i.e. those 'accented' consonant signs do not ever precede a vowel
you write sia, sie, sio, siu instead (the same goes with ć, ń, ź, dź)
siusiu - pee
sio - shoo
się - oneself/one another or nicht uebersetzbar ;)
Kasia, Kasi, Kasię - as Pani, Panią
pasie, pasiesz - he heards, you heard
masa, masie - mass (nominative, accusative/locative)

sometimes when you hear ś or ć you should however write ź and dź
(voiced consonants like ź, dź but also b,d,dz,g,w,z,ż often become 'devoiced' especially in the end of words but also in front of naturally voiceless consonants (c, ć, f, ch, k, p, s, ś, sz, t) in the mid of a word

examples spadź (honey-dew) sounds almost like spać to sleep
jaź (a kind of a fish) sounds like Jaś (Johnny)

you can definitely find more thorough explanation of the issues even in the English web

still_wisherThreads: 7 Posts: 186 Joined: Mar 9, 08 ♂	Apr 3, 09, 13:53 #10
very helpfullll!! thank u so much ..

IcyIvy

Apr 28, 10, 21:56 #11

actully i know how long it takes to speak polish!
it only takes about 24 hours to learn a whole 267 words exact!
this is how!first you need to take a deep breath!Then on your computer type in polish to english translating.then fing Bing awnsers click on it and let it LOAD!After it LOADS down you will see a box about 5 inches long and 3 inches wide.Click on that then write in any word you want!For example act like i wrote in the word/sentence How are you?
then in polish it will say this Jak się miewasz?then after every word you wrote in polish on the website,write it in POLISH on a piece of paper!Finally after about 21 words on a paper exit out of ur translation website!then you look at ur paper and look at the polish word for example umm Sómmer, then you try to find out what that word is! if u think u got it right then you have to write the awnser you think it is next to it!Lastly you check ur work to see if its right!One more thing, do this every 10 minutes on one day of ur weekend until you remember everything perfecly! and theirs ur awnser!

♀

Apr 28, 10, 22:06 #12

IcyIvy:

it only takes about 24 hours to learn a whole 267 words exact!

REALLY!!!!!

alot of people have been doing it wrong then?

IcyIvy:

then fing Bing awnsers click on it and let it LOAD!

HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA LOL use a online translator .. online translators are wrong 99.9% of the time

if you want to learn use skype, find classes taught in your local area, immense yourself in the language every day, use Livemocha, ask your Polish friends to teach you

and even Polish people will tell you you cannot learn it in 4 weeks neither ... so avoid that book and cd as you will waste your money!

wildroverThreads: 180 Posts: 8,143 Joined: Jun 7, 07 ♂	Apr 28, 10, 22:39 #13
I have been in Poland 35 years...i can still say only hello...and bugger off....!

pgtxThreads: 48 Posts: 6,269 Joined: Feb 14, 09 ♀ [Moderator]	Apr 28, 10, 22:57 #14
wildrover: I have been in Poland 35 years...i can still say only hello...and bugger off....! you suck.... lol ;)

SeanusThreads: 22 Posts: 30,160 Joined: Dec 25, 07 ♂	Apr 28, 10, 22:59 #15
Don't you do too, pgtx? ;) ;) Learning Polish really depends on the devotion of time to it and how flexible a mind you have.

ArienThreads: 6 Posts: 1,604 Joined: Oct 20, 08 ♂	Apr 29, 10, 00:49 #16
pgtx: you suck.... lol ;) Now, now! Be nice to the poor old geezer? (It's not his fault he's getting a bit slow and senile these days!)

pgtxThreads: 48 Posts: 6,269 Joined: Feb 14, 09 ♀ [Moderator]	Apr 29, 10, 00:56 #17
Seanus: Don't you do too, pgtx? ;) ;) my English may suck but i know more then one word and i have been here 7 years ;P ;)

skysoulmateThreads: 41 Posts: 3,039 Joined: Jan 10, 10 ♂	Edited by: skysoulmate Apr 29, 10, 02:08 #18
wildrover: I have been in Poland 35 years...i can still say only hello...and bugger off....! Is that true?? Can you say hello and bugger off in Spanish too? You must be a Mexican then... ;)

♂

Apr 29, 10, 22:14 #19

still_wisher:

foreigners speaking polish please help !! i need someone to tell me how long it took to be good in polish not perfect?? which i started to think tha there is no way !! my brain hurting me ! i'm in poland about almost 9 months i think i can understand ppl if they will keep it slow so i can get the words without hearing some r eating (się ,ci ......)..

I can't comment as a "foreigner", as I'm from a Polish family who brought me up to be bilingual. But like those guitar books which claim that you can "play like Jimi Hendrix in three months", you can't become fluent in any language in a few months. I'd say at least a year or two. Working in a country would help significantly.

Some personal examples follow.

French: I took French at school and for a year at uni, but didn't use it in public until over a decade later. To get by in French, I studied for two months before going to France, in order to be able to get around with the basics, but I still couldn't read a French paper.

Italian: No previous experience, started learning three months before going to Italy, got by with the basics with few problems. Likewise, I couldn't read an Italian paper.

Czech: prior knowledge of Polish helped significantly. Started learning two months before travelling, left the phrase book at the hotel after one afternoon in town, could read virtually all of the signs, could read local papers quite easily. Ended up having conversations a few days into my holiday, and even gave some directions to out-of-towners, haha.

Cantonese: started four months before travelling and only managed to remember a few dozen words. I can recognise about 20 Chinese characters, but sadly about 2000 are needed to start reading a paper lol :( Must try harder for next time!

Unfortunately, we Poles love to speak fast (I speak Polish much faster than English, even though I was born here), which probably doesn't help either!