free spirit
18 Mar 2008
Language / I want to learn Polish. Where to start? [180]
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? :)
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? :)