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| Chris13 Groupie FinlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3862 days ago 53 posts - 64 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish, Finnish | Message 1 of 5 09 April 2014 at 2:13pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Hey everyone,
Well, after the unfortunate events that had occurred; I've still been going strong with my Finnish journey, even if it's now slightly tainted. However, My birthday is coming up and I've been invited to spend it with some of my old friends in Poland (I've never actually been there) my problem is that, although I briefly studied Polish, possibly seven years a go, and when I say "briefly studied" it was an evening course with perhaps two hours a week. I would like to be able to go to Poland with not only a good tourist level of Polish, but a good overall level of Polish. I'm quite the perfectionist when it comes to a lot of things and languages isn't excluded from that. My pronunciation is still apparently very good, given the on the spot "can you say this" expecting to get a good laugh at my poor pronunciation only to be shocked, pleasantly so. Okay, end of my babbling. I am hoping to find a very well structured course that I can spend several hours on every day, and hopefully a memrise course with the most frequently used words (again, structured easily so I don't have to sift). I figure Polish must have many more resources available than Finnish did, and to be honest I'd need all the help I can get as the two languages are very different. *Edit What written exercises could be suggested to begin with? I usually start with the generic "I am from" etc. What do most of you start off writing about when at the really early stages of learning a language with a grammar you don't quite understand yet? Thanks for reading. Edited by Chris13 on 09 April 2014 at 2:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 3863 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes Studies: German | Message 2 of 5 09 April 2014 at 11:59pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Hello Chris,
1. PREVIOUS POLISH DISCUSSION THREADS: Over the past couple of years, I have noticed that a number of informative discussion threads have derived from questions similar to your own. If I knew how to do it, I would gladly provide the links to the most interesting of these prior threads. Unfortunately, I am a techno-peasant and cannot help you with this. Perhaps some other member can help you? In the meantime, I have listed some possible study material for your consideration. 2. FSI-STYLE POLISH COURSES There are two "FSI Style" Polish courses available. Both were developed in the 1960's and both rely on the intensive repetition of "sentence pattern" drills for absorption of the language. If you're not already familiar with this style of teaching, I suggest that you visit the FSI-LANGUAGE-COURSES.ORG website and have a quick look at the FSI Basic German course. Like the original FSI Basic courses, the two Polish courses listed below were meant to be taught in a classroom setting. However, the textbooks and accompanying audio files are so well-designed that an independent learner can use them quite easily. While some of the vocabulary is starting to show its age, both of these courses are still excellent. 2a. Beginning Polish (revised) Volumes I and II, Alexander M. Schenker The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) was one of the sponsors of this course and the format follows the FSI Basic course methodology of the same period. If you decide to use this course, be sure to purchase both volumes as the second textbook contains additional exercise material that is linked directly to the first textbook. The audio files are freely available at the Yale University website. Here's the LINK:http://archive.cls.yale.edu/polish/ 2b. First Year Polish (second edition), Oscar E. Swan The format also follows the FSI Basic course methodology. Some, but not all, of the audio files are freely available at the University of Pittsburgh website. Here's the LINK: http://polish.slavic.pitt.edu/CDs/FYP-CDs/ All of the audio files can be purchased in CD format from the Ohio State University . There is additional audio material on the CDs that is keyed to supplementary texts that can be purchased from the university; however, I found that the additional material was not worth the price. So, you will probably have to convert the CDs to mp3 format and use a file splitter to separate the material that follows the Swan textbook. Here's the LINK: http://flpubs.osu.edu/cataloglist.cfm 3. OTHER COURSES and TEXTS All of the other courses list below are commercially available and, while they are quite good, none of them are as complete as either the Schenker or the Swan courses. That is, while the explanations of the language are quite good, and while the dialogues are realistic and well-constructed, these courses are accompanied by only 4 to 6 hours of audio exercises whereas the Schenker and Swan courses are accompanied by 50+ hours of audio. 3a. Assimil Le Polonais (Collection Sans Peine) This specific edition is in French. It follows the habitual Assimil method of teaching and it is quite good. I’m not sure whether or not an English version is available. 3b. Living Language Spoken World Polish This course is very similar to the Living Language “Ultimate” series. It is very solid, but NOT easy! 3c. Routledge Colloquial Polish Generally speaking, the Routledge Colloquial courses are designed to equip a traveller with the very basics of a language that would permit them to navigate common situations: ordering a meal, asking for directions, book a hotel room, dealing with small emergencies, etc. Their Polish courses go somewhat beyond the basics but are not quite as thorough as the Assimil or the Living Language courses. 3d. Michel Thomas Polish To be quite frank, I’m not a fan of the Michel Thomas Method, as I find the bungling students to be an unnecessary distraction. However, many people enjoy these courses. I bought the Michel Thomas Polish course and did not finish it primarily because I found that the explanations of the structure of the language left me with more questions than answers. However, one “plus” (for me) is that the course is delivered by a native Polish-speaker and not Saint Michel lui-même. 3e. Pimsleur Polish I am a huge fan of the Pimsleur Method. However, my experience with this course leads me to believe that the Pimsleur method loses its effectiveness in languages that are far-removed from English. Thus, while I mention it, I cannot recommend it. 3f. Polish Verbs and Essentials of Grammar Written by Oscar E. Swan and published by McGraw-Hill, this is an excellent summary of the structure of the language. 3g. Fifteen Modern Polish Short Stories Written by Alexander M. Schenker, it was meant to accompany his course. However, you pretty much have to have completed the course before embarking on these readings. 3h. First Polish Reader Published by Language Practice Publishing. Elementary Polish readings with English translation and free downloadable audio files. Quite good for the beginner. Good luck! Edited by Speakeasy on 10 April 2014 at 10:31am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
 DavidStyles Octoglot Pro Member United Kingdom Joined 3752 days ago 82 posts - 179 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Latin, French, Portuguese, Norwegian Studies: Mandarin, Russian, Swedish, Danish, Serbian, Arabic (Egyptian) Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 5 10 April 2014 at 1:06am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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What a comprehensive reply.
I'm also looking to learn Polish soon, so a few comments (and also one question):
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/keyword.asp?KW=23 will bring up a list of topics relating to Polish. Searching by "Polish" specifically in "'Language Programs, Books & Tapes" gives, amongst others: Assimil Polish for English Speakers Available Michel Thomas Polish "popolsku" What is the best Polish program? Linguaphone Polish recordings Schenkers Beginning Polish Basic POLISH Courses Linguaphone Polish Conversation
It isn't. It's available from French, Dutch, German, and Italian.
How solid? And by not easy, do you mean that the course is more difficult than necessary, or merely that Polish itself is not easy and that this is reflected appropriately?
Michel Thomas was Polish, also known as Moniek Kroskof ;) I also have the Polish Michel Thomas course (most of the other MT languages too, actually), and also didn't like this one particularly. Some of their courses are better than others. I think the MT method's greatest strength is giving a super-quick "backbone" of functional grammar, from which one can then approach other more in-depth learning materials with a good head-start based in a rather more "core" understanding of the fundamentals. With this one, though, I think they dropped the ball. Granted, some languages lend themselves better than others to the MT method. If your language's use of nouns is fairly simple and learning of function words and verb conjugations will go a long way, great. But if they produce a Michel Thomas method Finnish course, I'll be skeptical (but curious). Edited by DavidStyles on 10 April 2014 at 1:49am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 3863 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes Studies: German | Message 4 of 5 10 April 2014 at 1:37am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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@David,
Very impressive; thank you very much! Your question concerning LIVING LANGUAGE POLISH is quite good. I would say that the primary difficulty is a function of the target language. That is, for native English speakers, Slavic languages are, generally speaking, more difficult to learn than say, Romance or Germanic languages. So then, are all Polish courses equally difficult? Yes and no. The Living Language course is a serious attempt at providing a concise, but very complete, introduction to a difficult language. The course covers more-or-less the same material as the Schenker and Shaw courses. The dialogues are well-constructed and the explanations of grammar are quite thorough. However, although the Living Language course is very well structured, it is also more compact and includes much less exercise material. So, for me, this otherwise excellent course is more "challenging" than the Schenker and Shaw courses simply because the latter break down the material into much smaller and more easily digestible parts. In a way, the trade-off is between repeating the thousands of mind-numbing sentence-pattern drills in the Schenker and Shaw courses versus repeating the same, but limited, material in the Living Language course. I would imagine that one could achieve similar results with both types of courses. @Chris, In addition to the list of material that I provided above, I am adding LINKS to a few websites where you can find additional material. I haven't tried any of this additional material and cannot comment it. Other members seem to be able to provide "live" links. For some reason, this just doesn't work for me! JLU (JOINT LANGUAGE UNIVERSITY) ARCHIVES (in the event that you will need to call in an air strike) https://jlu.wbtrain.com/sumtotal/language/DLI%20basic%20cour ses/ JLU (JOINT LANGUAGE UNIVERSITY) SURVIVAL COURSE (in the event that you’re shot down in hostile territory) https://jlu.wbtrain.com/SUMTOTAL/JLU2.0/CATALOG/SELF-PACED%2 0TRAINING/ACTIVITIES.ASP?RootNodeID=23051&NodeID=428 FOREIGN SERVICE INSTITUTE.COM http://www.foreignserviceinstitute.com/ NOTE CAREFULLY: This is NOT the FSI-LANGUAGE-COURSES.ORG website. Rather, it is a commercial site that sells much of the same material. I suspect that the Polish course that they offer is the FSI POLISH FAST course and that the buyer will receive a DVD that contains the course manual and audio files. MISSION EUROPE (save Poland from a catastrophe) http://www.missioneurope.eu/ PO PROSTU PO POLSKU http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=87118B9F7D732678 FREE LANGUAGE : POLISH http://freelanguage.org/learn-polish WORLD LANGUAGE http://www.worldlanguage.com/Products/We-Learn-Polish-Book-A udio-CDs-107856.htm SLAVIC PUBLISHERS https://slavica.indiana.edu/ BAY FOREIGN LANGUAGE BOOKS (U.K.) http://www.baylanguagebooks.co.uk/index.php EDGARD PUBLISHING http://www.edgard.eu/index.php THE POLISH BOOKSTORE http://thepolishbookstore.com/ POLART http://www.polandbymail.com/i/6608/ach-ten-jezyk-polski-d-ga lyga-book-cd.htm POLBOOK http://www.polbook.com/ UNIVERSITAS http://www.universitas.com.pl/ Edited by Speakeasy on 10 April 2014 at 10:45am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6408 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 5 of 5 10 April 2014 at 1:51am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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And if you happen to be a football fan, try EuroLang2012.
2 persons have voted this message useful |
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