The best way for me to learn Polish

I I have been living in Poland for just over 1 year now and want to make more of an attempt to learn the language as I have been terribly lazy with my on-off attempts.

I have plenty of hours free so how do you think I should go about learning Polish? Spend one hour a day on my book and cd everyday? 2 hours? what do you feel is the best way in general?

learn garmar, and try to talk to well educated natives

A book and CD will never be the same as being taught by a native speaker. That is the best bet.

Ok. I am seeing a nice Polish woman who is the/a big reason why i'm going to make a bigger attempt. So she will certainly be playing the native speaker role :). I think I'll get to the end of the book which is basically designed so I can learn lot of vocab and phrases then I'm probably best getting stuck into structured grammar learning. This seems like a good plan?

Aug 7, 09, 20:20 - Thread attached on merging:
Best way to learn Polish??

My girlfriend is Polish and we visit her parents in Poland a couple of times a year. All is great, only i can't speak the language and find it very difficult to learn. I would love to learn it so that i may communicate better with her friends and family. Any tips or suggestions on better or easier ways of learning polish?

One way - bite the bullet and study! Good luck

just move your fat lazy ass and start learning, when you cant fix some problem at work u also cry like here Mr. Engineer?

Good advise, and, your girlfriend will be able to help you too.

I think i'm gonna need it! Oh and Halloween, 1- I'm Not fat, 2- I'm not lazy, 3- i've been learning for 7 months, 4- I'm only asking for advice, 5- If you have nothing intelligent or helpful to say, don't say anything at all. And finally 6- Thankyou!, why? because now if i want the least intelligent and unconstructive opinion on the web, i now know who to talk to.

i have been learning a year fubar mate and it will take time ... just keep at and search the threads loads of handy hints and tips there plus find janusz's videos (they should be made a sticky if not already note to mods or admin) they are helpful :)

Yeah I am learning Polish soon. I just ordered like a CD you learn like 2000 words, and a lot of phrases, and how to pronounce things properly. And after that I am just going to practice on here and with friends, and if I need to get a dictionary, and another CD or book. This may not be a bad idea for you if you are willing to spend the money. Try e-bay

I think it's always good to keep one around

i have two plus online slang dictionary ,,,, but you will find many words arent in the dictionaries

Polish is hard. I think it's categorized as one of the hardest languages to learn because of the 14 different cases. I'm trying to master it now and knowing russian has helped a lot. One thing that many people forget is that you have to make sure you know your alphabet and the pronunciations this way you won't misspell words and pronunciation will be a lot better. Seems like common sense but with older people it's kind of neglected. Also watch polish tv and listen to polish radio it will help. Then study of course !

Is it by far more difficult than French.

I think you have the wrong language
Polish has 7 cases: Nominative, Genitive, Accusative, Locative, Vocative, Instrumental and Dative

Apr 12, 09, 09:03 - Thread attached on merging:
Best way to learn Polish?

It seems to me that it would be easier to learn any new language like children do - from abc's and basic words, then build your vocabulary and grammar from there.

But it seems most people want to start with learning typical adult words/phrases and building the rest of their language around that. This seems harder to me, but I have only been trying to learn for a few weeks.

For native English speakers learning Polish, what have you found to be the best way for you to learn? Any techniques or tricks you employed?

i would like this question answering too

I bought a program called "Rosetta Stone" to learn Polish. Supposedly, it's what they give to diplomats as a crash course on a language. Rosetta Stone has a program for a ton of different languages, however, you have to learn as a child does.

You get a picture of a girl and they say girl in Polish. Later you get a ball. Then they say "Girl with ball" and things like that. I actually found it to be quite easy to learn. And it's WAY easier doing that than trying to throw yourself into adult conversations.

Another way (but don't let it ruin your ego) is to watch Polish childrens programs.

When I was relocated to Denmark, I could not speak Danish whatsoever and nobody really helped me learn. I had a dictionary I used, but the thing that helped me most was watching Teletubbies in Danish. They repeat everything twice, so it was easier to grasp what they were saying the second time through. My friends made fun of me while I was doing it, but after a year, I started to be able to confidently talk to people even if I had a bad accent.

This looks like a really awesome program. But $550? Wow. A little steep for me.

Is it that expensive now? I bought mine late in 2006 and paid a bit over $300. I swallowed hard when I had to fork over the cash, but my girlfriend (now wife) is worth it.

It truly is an excellent program though. It helped me out tremendously.

they only say "eh oh" or something like that. dont they?

I would say take college classes I know they teach Polish and if you have Polish friends ask them to help you.

That's true, but during each episode, one of them becomes a sort of television and they play some short live action film that they repeat twice. That's where I learned my Danish. They'll have a kid narrating it saying "I'm going to help mommy wash dishes. First I take dishwashing liquid and put it in the sink. Then I turn on the warm water. Then I take a cup. Then I hold my sponge", etc. That's where I learned most of my basics in the beginning.

Once I learned my basics (having really good conversations with my friends' toddlers while being ribbed by their parents), I was able to get to a more adult level much more quickly.

Like I said, you take some good natured ribbing (sometimes not-so-good natured), but it was one of the things that helped me learn another language...

I am guilty of this.

When I first came to Poland I started learning by swapping Polish for English lessons with a friend.
I learned everyday Polish words and phrases, with no focus on grammar.

I got polish baby's books, bright colourful ones, to learn from.
Children's books are too compicated, each word is made up of 142300048992 letters on average :)

I learned poems (Limericks) in Polish and jokes.

I remember there was a book that had 3000 words in English and Polish that were very similar.

The grammar I do by sound now. I am very very bad at spelling and grammar (even in polish) :)
I must improve my Polish more.

I speak three other languages to varying degrees.
I did not have a "school were the best years of your life" time, far from it, I rather learned these languages from living in the countries.

I would like to go to a direct method of learning polish but I have never heard of one.

thats great.
now i know where i went wrong. i used polish pingu in a similar method and just succeded in getting locked up :-)

A confession, Father? I think absolution at the bar is called for!


One other tip I learned the hard way was, when I was still utterly clueless in Danish, never to trust my friends when they translated common phrases for me. They "taught" me an expression to say good morning which loosely translated into "Good morning and go shove it up your arse". I got high fives and slaps on my back when I said it to my colleagues around the office. However, I passed an old lady every morning in the pedestrian zone and she always gave me some shocked look when I said it to her. At first I thought it was my bad American accent, but realized that something was amiss when she would cross to the other side of the road when she saw me coming....

lmao :-)))
i once asked for kurva instead of kurczak (chicken just in case its wrong) to be met by much amusement.

I would LOVE to take a class, but unfortunately, I am from a small US city, so there are no classes offered here. And our Polish population = 0. I have one Polish friend who lives in Warsaw and exchange emails with him about once a week. But he's not the best instructor, lol!

try you tube. they have some good videos on there.