I want to learn Polish. Where to start?

DaveyThreads: 17 Posts: 436 Joined: Jun 29, 07 ♂	Jan 9, 08, 20:08 #61
jacek23maks wrote: You need to find yourself a professional instructor not true

♂

Jan 10, 08, 10:52 #62

Davey wrote:

jacek23maks wrote:
You need to find yourself a professional instructor

not true

You probably have never worked with languages before. Consider this - there are 4 levels of difficulties when it comes to languages - number one is the easiest group of languages, and number 4 the most difficult. There are only 4 languages classified as number 4, which means extremely difficult for English speakers. Polish is classified as a level 3 language, which means, that is a very difficult language to learn for English native speakers.
Yes, of course you can study vocabulary and grammar, but most likely you will never be able to be proficient without the instructor.
If you don't believe me, do some research. I know it from my experience working with languages for 5 different language institutions both here in US and also in Poland.

♂

Jan 10, 08, 12:39 #63

jacek23maks wrote:

You probably have never worked with languages before.

I am aware of the language classifications....
I am teaching myself Polish and have been for years, I went to Poland and communicated fine with people....There are many people who are self-taught and speak languages quite fluently, so I am not sure why you'd say that, considering many of the people on this site are teaching themselves.

♂

Jan 11, 08, 07:57 #64

Davey wrote:

I am aware of the language classifications....
I am teaching myself Polish and have been for years, I went to Poland and communicated fine with people....There are many people who are self-taught and speak languages quite fluently, so I am not sure why you'd say that, considering many of the people on this site are teaching themselves.

Davey, Please don't get me wrong - I am not here to discourage people. It is great that people do that, and as mentioned I am not here to make someone feel bad about not having "the" instructor. I am super excited about the fact that people want to study my native Polish - this is great.
I am trying to say that Polish is very difficult language. If you communicate in Polish and you are fine, and that is good enough for you - great - keep up the good work.
There are books "teach yourself" even for the hardest languages on Earth, but do they really teach you at the level you are satisfied.
Look, you can even study dictionaries, and you will be able to communicate using Polish, but this is not the case. I am trying to say that without professional instructor, being proficient in a language is impossible, especially hard language like Polish.

♂

Feb 9, 08, 05:52 #65

Polish is easier than czech.Many words are the same.Russian is also more difficult due to cyrillic alphabet.
There are two ways to memorize.One is to memorize words.The other is to memorize sentences.I have found that both ways work,memorizing sentences is better for oral communication,memorizing words is better for understanding written speech.
So if you manage to memorize 2000-3000 polish words you can handle a casual conversation.

hancockThreads: 1 Posts: 116 Joined: Oct 18, 07 ♂	Feb 9, 08, 06:03 #66
i will have to see what that relationship is with czechoslovakian. and russian is . I wonder what your night is like but mine is slower then a slugs walk.

♂

Feb 9, 08, 06:31 #67

For example good morning in polish is dzien dobry,in czech dobry den,in russian dobre utra.Utro is morning,Poles and Czechs do not say good morning but good day,while Russians say actually good morning.Anyway it sounds the same.
Or where are you from in polish is szkad jestesz?,in russian otkuda ty?,in czech odkud jsi?You see the similarity?People who speak one slavic language have no problem learning more of them,they know already many words.

♀

Feb 10, 08, 20:01 #68

I am trying to find a good program to teach myself and my 2 teenage boys Polish. I have looked into TransparentLanguage and Rosetta Stone. My oldest son is currently using Rosetta Stone at his high school to learn German but after 5 months only knows a few words and no sentences and carries an A in his class. We are planning a trip to Poland for his senior trip, he has a desire to see where his great-great parents came from. So that gives us about 3 years to learn enough conversational Polish to make the trip. My grandfather knew Polish but for some reason didn't teach his children. We live in a very small community so the closest college that teaches Polish is 6 hours away. There is also a very small (less than 30 families) Polish community and no one speaks the language.

portaThreads: 24 Posts: 354 Joined: Jul 16, 07 ♂	Feb 10, 08, 20:57 #69
Try the Eurotalk series :)

miyako

Mar 13, 08, 10:58 #70

hi my name is Kasia and I live in Poland so I can help you with your polish :)
I can teach u some polish my mail is: anex93@buziaczek.pl
polish translate:
cześc mam na imie Kasia i mieszkam w Polsce więc moge ci pomóc z twoim polskim:)
Moge nauczyc cię troche polskiego mój mail to:anex93@buziaczek.pl

If u have any problems please mail to me and just ask:D Oh and dzień dobry mean good day but not hello^^hello is cześc!

♂

Edited by: free spirit Mar 18, 08, 15:34 #71

I found that ISBN2-8315-7197-9 BERLITZ Polish Phrase Book and Dictionary is a pocket sized treasure trove of a phrase book and would be of great value to most students of the Polish language. retails at around £5.
Things changed a great deal this past thirty odd years. I married an Anglo/Polish lady back in 1970 and although her Polish father never taught his mother tongue to her, I became romanced by the language after visits to Poland.
There wasn't much by the way of learning aids to be easily found back then and so progress has been very casual. Over the past couple of years though, with renewed intent to learn more, I came to realise that in order to learn the all important grammar, one must have a stable grounding in the grammar of your own native tongue. If you never were taught the difference between nouns,verbs,adjectives etc, it will be almost impossible to make sense of lessons in Polish grammar. So, I feel that you either learn a language by daily usage (as babies/children do) or learn well the structuring tools of your own language first. Any thoughts on this? Apart from my being a bit long in the tooth to be trying to crack this beautiful language? :)

SeanusThreads: 22 Posts: 30,160 Joined: Dec 25, 07 ♂	Mar 18, 08, 16:08 #72
The book is good, especially at 50p. Some of the pronunciation guides are a bit askew but it covers many functional areas. I have it with me in my flat. It even has a section on the 7 declensions/cases.

telefonitika	Mar 18, 08, 16:25 #73
jaysgrl71 wrote: Rosetta Stone ive just got level one and two of this in polish :)

patryk_sudolThreads: 12 Posts: 41 Joined: Sep 16, 07 ♂	Mar 22, 08, 11:36 #74
I have the "Polish in 4 Weeks" book and I am almost done. What is a good book to follow up on that will go into greater detail of jezyk polski then "Polish in 4 Weeks"? Dziekuje!!

telefonitika	Mar 22, 08, 13:44 #75
patryk_sudol wrote: "Polish in 4 Weeks" book i was told by people in Poland that this book is a waste of money to be honest esp. in the book shops ... !

♂

Mar 23, 08, 09:49 #76

cześc.

I'm an English man living in London and i just started to learn Polish (of course this is woman related!). I downloaded the basic Pimsleur program and found it works rather well for speaking, but not always good for hearing what is being said.
I just downloaded the Rosetta Stone software too, I wasn't convinced by the demo but I think it will work well with the Full 30-Pimsleur audio which I also just obtained(I like the re-mix Pimsleur idea above!) and will try to get this "Learn in 4 weeks" book that you all speak of.

Like I said it is still early for me, though I don't seem to have trouble with pronunciation, and the 'R's are ok for me!
Is there any other advice you can give to me at this stage?

I may need some help with messages online, i have been conversing but finding it difficult as Pimsleur does not help much with reading/writing. I tried some online translation tools but they are dreadfully inaccurate, as an example I had an amusing episode confusing the words for 'friend' and 'brick'!!

Then I found this site!! Just what I was looking for, thank you all for being here.

This is the last post I will write in total English, I may start a thread logging my progress if it doesn't offend anyone. It might help others like me.

Any help greatfully appreciated!

Kem.

♂

Mar 23, 08, 14:23 #77

Kemaleon wrote:

and will try to get this "Learn in 4 weeks" book that you all speak of.

usually available (new) on ebay. I have a copy (bought in Kraków) and apart from the ridiculous title, it's very good.
A perfect follow-up or even to study alongside with, is Uczmy się Polskiego. visit http://pfun.pan.pl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=102&Itemi d=1
pricey, but hey, what did you spend on your last weekend on the lash? ;)

KemaleonThreads: 4 Posts: 137 Joined: Mar 23, 08 ♂	Mar 24, 08, 08:22 #78
dziękuję Free Spirit, i have the book ordered from Amazon so now i just wait. That DVD looks interesting, i'll start with this Rosetta thing and see how that goes, what does Uczmy się Polskiego translate as exactly? my best efforts come out as both: "Lets learn Polish" and "Teach Yourself Polish"

free spiritThreads: 1 Posts: 40 Joined: Mar 14, 08 ♂	Mar 24, 08, 15:00 #79
Kemaleon wrote: my best efforts come out as both: "Lets learn Polish" exactly correct. Good luck with your studies. Apart from the material that I'm using, I'm hoping to befriend some local immigrant for the joint interest of language learning.

KemaleonThreads: 4 Posts: 137 Joined: Mar 23, 08 ♂	Mar 24, 08, 15:25 #80
Yeah thats my angle too right now, whats your reason for wanting to learn?

free spiritThreads: 1 Posts: 40 Joined: Mar 14, 08 ♂	Mar 24, 08, 16:14 #81
Family links initially, but over time it became something hobbyish also. I tinkered about -if that's a suitable phrase- for a long time picking up bits along the way until I finally made a new year resolution to get on with it :)

♂

Mar 29, 08, 16:47 #82

Over the decades, (and I suppose Latin was probably the first language option after English in British schools) there has usually been languages on the school syllabus. French, German and Spanish have been popular over the years.
I'm wondering whether anyone knows of any government school in their locality that is moving along with current trends in the populace, and offering Polish language?

I'm also hoping to see views aired on whether this ought to be so.

KemaleonThreads: 4 Posts: 137 Joined: Mar 23, 08 ♂	Mar 29, 08, 20:20 #83
free spirit wrote: there has usually been languages on the school syllabus. French, German and Spanish have been popular over the years. I have learned more Polish in two weeks than i ever learned in 5 years of French class in school. It was only after i left that i began to learn anything useful in French!

♂

Edited by: Kemaleon Mar 30, 08, 04:00 #84

isthatu wrote:

Snap,I think watching le haine and Doberman did it for me :)(well,if gutter french swear words and slang count )

Totally! I find swear words are always the most useful thing to learn first in a foreign language...
La Haine is one of my faves, actually i watched it again just two nights ago!
And Betty Blue, but that really takes some effort and leaves you emotionally drained as its 3 hours long...

Going to watch Katyn tonight and test my Polish!!

On a more topical note: My 'Polish in 4 weeks' book arrived yesterday, it looks really good. I'm now using three things:

Pimsleur audio on my i-pod, because I can listen to it at work when i'm on the nightshift and get a good few hours to invest.
Good for = Pronounciation, basic, helpful phrases.

Rosetta Stone for the PC, not very good for explaination but a perfect assistant to the other methods i am using. I also use this really good pdf dictionary along with it, to help with some words that are not explained.
Good for Learning new and helpful words easily, its good to use if you cannot put in the mental energy for one of the other methods and can be quite fun and short-term rewarding. You will find yourself pointing at things in the street and saying:
"Thats a źółty samochód!!" *proud -face* :-)

Polish in 4 weeks which is a book course with accompanying CD and PC program. (though the CD-Rom is a little useless to be honest, you only need the CD). Only just started with this one but already i can see results, very good explanations, well laid out and easy to understand, it also includes exercises to test you which is something i have been lacking so far: being able to apply my new knowledge.
Good for Learning Polish! This will be the biggest help for learning to write in this new language, and read it. understanding all these complicated Polish Nouns, verbs etc, and their many variations. Highly recommended.

♂

Mar 30, 08, 15:19 #85

Kemaleon wrote:

Good for Learning Polish! This will be the biggest help for learning to write in this new language, and read it. understanding all these complicated Polish Nouns, verbs etc, and their many variations. Highly recommended.

Hi Kemaleon, my sentiments well reflected there, concerning Polish in 4 weeks. Try this link to Uni. of Pittsburgh's 1st year Polish. http://polish.slavic.pitt.edu/ I believe you'll be well impressed. Personally, I find it annoying that the lazy clowns in the Brit. gov. could at least run a short campaign through the media advising interested parties and persons of what is available and where. But then, maybe this has already been done and burned to disc, etc. .blah blah courier lost it blah blah, it must be around here somewhere...

KemaleonThreads: 4 Posts: 137 Joined: Mar 23, 08 ♂	Mar 30, 08, 15:49 #86
Yeah someone pointed me to that before but i didnt have the time to look then, or now in fact! but i will. Anything that will help is good. I kinda feel bad about today, i didnt get any lessons done, just pestered people on here and played Rainbow six 2 all day, but i was hung-over to be fair! Back to crappy work tomorrow, Pimsleur in my teabreaks on the dayshift...

TracyDarekThreads: - Posts: 2 Joined: Feb 11, 08 ♀	Apr 9, 08, 16:45 #87
polish for me,i think good and fast way is learn it with lessons.watch TV everyday also a good way:-)

♂

Apr 9, 08, 18:29 #88

TracyDarek:

polish for me,i think good and fast way is learn it with lessons.watch TV everyday also a good way:-)

that would be a great learning tool/aid but I have not found a Polish channel on either Sky (when I had it) or Virgin cable which I currently subscribe to. Is anything generally available on tv that I must have missed? Are you listening BBC? Could I have something for my licence fee please, besides constant servings of sad rhubarb?

KemaleonThreads: 4 Posts: 137 Joined: Mar 23, 08 ♂	Apr 10, 08, 16:40 #89
Polish TV on Sky Innit!! there, dont expect Polish Eastenders...

raviabuaThreads: - Posts: 1 Joined: Apr 18, 08 ♂	Apr 18, 08, 12:56 #90
hi kasia, chess i am an indian student and i also want to learn polish language can u teach me this language. i hope you will help me in this matter. bye bye and take care it will help me to get a part time job in wroclaw againe bye bye and i m waiting for your replay see you

POLAND . The Unofficial Guide.	Unanswered \| Archives
POLAND . The Unofficial Guide.	Polska, Polonia, Poland	Witamy, Guest \| PF Members \| Gold Members

Home \| Unanswered \| Archives \| Random \| Statistics	Time in Poland: 05:27 / Feb 9
About Us \| Contact Us \| Rules, Privacy \| Poland Advertising	© 2005-12 PolishForums.com