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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Lusan Diglot Newbie United States Joined 3948 days ago 35 posts - 53 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Polish | Message 1 of 6 19 October 2014 at 7:32pm | IP Logged |
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After 9 months of studying Polish and think that I made it to A1...I understand very
simple conversation and tell very simple sentences...Darn hard language, even though I give it more than 1 hour a day, days a week. Sometimes, I feel that to learn Polish one needs to have an immense memory capacity. Currently I am using Polski Bez Problem+. It fits very well my study style, though I'd wish it has more grammar exercises and drills. I would love using Assimil for Polish, but they have it only for French speakers. Has anyone tried it without knowing french? By the way, my primary language is Spanish. That is not too far away from French. I use to speak french, probably B1, 40 year ago..Is it worthy considering after finishing Polski Bez Problem +? I do not want to start with their intermediate level until I do another beginning course. Note to anyone who want to study polish...STAY AWAY FROM ROSETA STONE... worthless for Polish and probably for any other language. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| drygramul Tetraglot Senior Member Italy Joined 4474 days ago 165 posts - 269 votes Speaks: Persian, Italian*, EnglishC2, GermanB2 Studies: French, Polish | Message 2 of 6 19 October 2014 at 9:36pm | IP Logged |
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I am almost in the same situation: French b1/b2 15years ago (a0 now), and native Italian speaker. I'm going to use Assimil le polonais sans peine (I've done just a few lessons), but I can rely on the help from a polish speaker whenever I've doubts. It shouldn't prove difficult to find a Polish language partner for someone who speaks Spanish or English.
I think you could also do it alone by skipping the French translation, but you should manage to find a good dictionary. Edited by drygramul on 19 October 2014 at 11:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4694 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 3 of 6 20 October 2014 at 4:41am | IP Logged |
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If you don't know any french, it's not going to be a useful teaching tool. I actually learned french (using Assimil) in
large part due to the desire to gain access to the Assimil library, and Le Polonais seems like a pretty good course to me. As has been discussed in a few places here before, one does not need to be super advanced in French to use one of these courses. If you used to have intermediate-level French, it's quite possible that you'll find yourself able to puzzle it out once you get going. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lusan Diglot Newbie United States Joined 3948 days ago 35 posts - 53 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Polish | Message 4 of 6 21 October 2014 at 12:40am | IP Logged |
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Thanks, Geoffw and Draygramul for yous comments. Polish is not popular and I think
Assimil does not find much value on having an English version. I just bought Assimil le polonais... I will take a look and see how tough is that french. After all, it is a romance language, right? I speak Spanish. Probably it would ok: it is not my first Polish course and I already know 1500 Polish words and, thanks god, my wife is Polish. If lost, I can ask her help. However, I will not start it until I finish with the first level of Porlski Bez Problem +. This is a good course, but I think it lacks something. I'd wish it has more grammar exercises. Many years ago, when I studied English in High School, we used English 900. I loved that method. It had 900 key sentences and multitude of drills. In polish, I suspect grammar plays a mayor role in Polish. It is unavoidable. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| t1234 Diglot Newbie South Africa Joined 4144 days ago 38 posts - 83 votes Speaks: English*, Afrikaans Studies: Turkish, Polish | Message 5 of 6 21 October 2014 at 9:33am | IP Logged |
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I've used Polnisch ohne Mühe. It's OK but not great, the way the grammar is introduced is quite confusing to say the least. I think the closest method in English is Polish in 4 Weeks volume 1&2. Basically it's a dialogue similar Assimil followed by grammar notes specific to the lesson. There are 55 lessons in total (about 1H52M of audio compared to Assimil 2H40). The dialogues are slightly longer and follow on from each other, they're also more practical IMHO.
The Assimil dialogues are nice to read at least because they actually all try to be funny, even with limited Polish. But the grammar is introduced a bits and pieces, for example the order in lessons might be: masculine singular genitive followed by feminine plural accusative and then plurals in the nominative. So you never get a nice picture of everything. Perfective and imperfective is also poorly explained IMHO. I found P4W slightly better because the grammar explanation relate directly to the lesson, but in some places it does the same. For example it has the genitive singular for all genders except masculine virile which is covered 10 lessons later or something. I was surprised to find Colloquial Polish is also really good but avoid Teach Yourself Polish. All of these books have exercises but none of them are numerous or rigorous. Chungs profile of Polish has more information. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4053 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 6 of 6 24 October 2014 at 8:44pm | IP Logged |
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For what are my standards I would never even try to learn the grammar with Assimil.
I find it excellent to achieve reading and listening comprehension and learn idiomatic phrases. I also do the exercises but most of the time I don't write them down. The way I learn languages is by absorbing it from a lot of input (indeed I'm always a little bit weak in the grammar but I also pick it up quicker when I start do study it). I see this in my french course: I'm not the best at grammar but I'm the one that picks the vocabulary faster and is more confident about speaking. Also being able to read and understand gives me the confidence that my level is improving. I find the classic method rather boring and slow. But I like studying pure grammar: it also boosts the comprehension. What I find absurd is spending time to remember every rule and every word. It is extremely slow and leads to frustration. I find normal to learn and forget, learn and forget, learn and forget, learn, instead. Edited by tristano on 24 October 2014 at 8:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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