Do Polish Movies Help learn the language?

Can anybody recommend some Polish movies which I can download and then find English subtitles? I like action and mafia movies but I think childrens movies would also be good for me.

:)

YES!!!

That is how I got into Polish film reviews. I wanted to learn more Polish words!

Watch "Wesele" such a good movie!

There are Polish versions Shrek and Futurama which you can then watch with English subs.

That's interesting I'll try seeing if I can get that. :]

I have a question about the translations. From what I remember movies are literally translated. So, no context. That was many years ago and I don't know if things have changed?

I don't think it is literal. More of the general ideas. They are not always perfect but one gets the general idea...

Here's two, that I watched during the week:
Tylko mnie kochaj
Nigdy w zyciu

They're witty romantic comedies with predictable plots in which the actors speak quite fast. A bit of fun.
There are also English subtitles available for them.

I think if you hear a new word and have a good idea how it is pronounced then you can find out the real meaning (compare it to the translation) and you just learned a word.

Asking someone who speaks it well is really needed to get a lot out of watching movies to learn words because you need to find out what it really means and that can be hard if you dont even know how to spell it.

The BBC's 'Muzzy' program for French, Italian, Spanish and German is aimed at children and very successful.

Boiled down, this is what equates to:

1) Watch program in English (several times, so you know it more or less off by heart)

2) Watch it in ______ language with English subtitles

3) Watch in English with ______ subtitles

4) Watch in ______ with ______ subtitles

Repeat, over and over.

I have done this with French tv and DVD's and found it helps to break a sentence into more easily identifiable, individual words.

The important thing - as previously mentioned - is the accuracy of the translation. The audio and text need to be consistent for it to work well.

I watched one film - Japanese - and the text was soooooo different between the English audio and subtitles, that at one point somebody answered a question with "yes" and the subtitles said "no" :-) Perhaps the folk who did the audio and text translations had their own poetic license....to the extreme. Just something to remember when trying to learn a language from movies.

That happens in Polish subtitles all the time.

"Are you okay?"
translated as "Nic ci nie jest?" (lit. there's nothing wrong with you?)

Answers
"Yes" (spoken)

"Nie" (subtitle)

:-)

What's that saying about "There's no such thing as a problem, only opportunities"?

The opportunity here being absolute confusion :-)

These weren't Polish films though, were they?

Subtitles aren't as bad as the guy reading the dialogs. Long time ago, in Poland, I went to see "Hair" and there was that guy who was reading all the dialogs and he was completely out of sync to the point of making some scenes look ridiculous.

I highly recommend Dekalog. It's such a fantastic work, it'll draw you in to the language, culture, history, etc. Seksmisja is hilarious. Wesele is really enjoyable. Pagoda na jutro is a little depressing, but I liked it overall.

I'm still learning Polish. I don't hink the movies push me along much, but they provide context, help tune youe ear, and are kind of a reward for progressing.

And of course, Katyn - It should have had the Oscar.

Even listening to Polish music can be useful, both to hear how words are pronounced and to learn new expressions. You can do it whenever you want, in the car, when you are at the gym etc. In this way it's better than movies. But maybe Polish Rap is not the best thing to start with.

It's not hilarious. It's a classic! We have everything dubbed, but I just had to watch it in original Polish.

Another Polish classic is Nić smiesznego [Nothing Funny]. It is a must see of Eastern-Central-European film-making, just as the Czech Dědictví aneb kurvahošigutntag (The Inheritance or Fuckoffguysgoodday), the Hungarian Sose halunk meg (We Never Die) or the proto-Yugoslavian Crna maèka, beli maèor (Black Cat, White Cat).


I recommend Job, czyli ostatnia szara komórka. But, to tell the truth, it's not a Polish film. Actually, it's a MONGOL film. :D

It's one of the stupidest films I've seen recently. The language is simple, there are tons of puns, humours through situations and such. Most people don't like its... hm, simplicity, but it is simply hilarious a reserve for a language-learner. Lubisz to, suko!

If you like Mafia movies, Sara or Kiler could be for you. They are more like mafia-movie comedies, but that don't matter, mate! :)

it is hilarious and it is a classic...


but it's not even close to 'the godfather'... lol

Polish films showing in Belfast this week

Identification Marks
Four Nights with Anna
Ideal Boyfriend for My Girlfriend
Time to Die
The Offsiders
33 Scenes From Life

Marcin Koszalka Documentaries:
Such a Beautiful Son I Gave Birth To
Existence
Till It Hurts

These are on this week anyone seen them? are they any good? I've read a bit about "Time to Die" Will probably go to it. Missed "33 Scenes From Life"

hmm More replies from the last time I came. Thanks everyone! :) Polish music, I wish I knew Polish songs, but the only Polish song I have is the Polish Anthem.

yes!
i like Day Watch minus the lesbian scene its in russian but you could watch it with subtitles so you could practice reading polish, it looks like the worked along time on the subtitles for english because they change colour & move & fade aways & stuff like that, oh wait thats why i like the movie lol!

there are lots of Polish music on youtube.com
most of the time you would have to know names of artists or groups
you can ask for lyrics translations in here

Which reminds me....

A friend's teenage son recently 'discovered' Monty Python last week and wanted to show me a YouTube clip.

Ironically, it has subtitles in....... (You'll never guess) :-) There are quite a few of them.

Correct me if I'm wrong but in polish "no" is a way of saying yes (and I'm not refering to nie)

For those of you that know how torrent sites work... Go to mininova.org and search "Napisy"

Does this steer the thread back again?

That's only colloquial spoken Polish and subtitles are generally pretty formal. So subtitles wouldn't use the Polish word 'no'.

The situation where the dialogue says 'yes' and the Polish subtitle says 'nie' (or vice versa) is not rare at all.

Any suggestions for songs from mostly any genre? I'm not too picky.

I think the group Kombi is a good one to listen to for a start

someone stated here in the forums that you can find lyrics to many of the songs in the internet

They sound pretty good. :) I like it even though I'm more into faster songs, but I like it. =)

in Polish lyrics are teksty piosenek (sort of a texts of songs)

Here are a few pretty easy songs from different genre.

Lady Pank - Znowu pada deszcz
(Nice old Polish rock)

Boys - Kochaj Mnie
(Classic Disco Polo song)

Skalar - Straciłaś Cnote (Also note this home made video, HAHA.)
(Maybe not the easiest song, but interesting to translate... hehe.)

Just watched it lately. It's really very good.
I remember seeing it years ago on BBC 2.

I googled "what's the best Polish comedy" and found a forum full of them :)
And I still can't find subtitles for Miś!