Anna86
8 Mar 2011
Language / Polish - Absolute Beginner Questions. Study plan. [75]
I cannot agree with that. Stories for children might seem to be easy, but they're not. They might contain quite complicated grammatical structres and advanced vocabulary. What is more, this vocabulary can be completely useless for adult beginners - diminutive forms and archaisms are not good things to start with. The fact that the subjects are easy, doesn't mean that the language is easy as well :)
Beginners should start with vocabulary that can be used for everyday communication. Read, listen and repeat simple, situational dialogs. I also don't believe that we can avoid learning grammar. Unfortunately, we are not children anymore....And Polish is not English - some things will never be picked up naturally or it might last ages! It's better to rationalize the fact that we need to conjugate verbs then try to find this out from context. The effect will be the same, but the first way is much faster. As I said, we are not children, so it's better to use our intellect then wait for the intuition to do the work for us :) Some basics will simply make the whole process easier.
And one more thing - don't learn the language "in silence". Read aloud, talk to yourself and find someone to give you some feedback. Don't read about Polish alphabet, but listen and repeat single words and phrases with the same sound. And ask someone if your pronunciation is comprehensible enough.
Otherwise, you will not have enough self-confidence to use the things you learnt in practice. Self-study books can be good to revise information, but they tend to be over-packed with theory. So be careful with that.
Pozdrawiam
Ania
Easy stories for children are very good for beginners.
I cannot agree with that. Stories for children might seem to be easy, but they're not. They might contain quite complicated grammatical structres and advanced vocabulary. What is more, this vocabulary can be completely useless for adult beginners - diminutive forms and archaisms are not good things to start with. The fact that the subjects are easy, doesn't mean that the language is easy as well :)
Beginners should start with vocabulary that can be used for everyday communication. Read, listen and repeat simple, situational dialogs. I also don't believe that we can avoid learning grammar. Unfortunately, we are not children anymore....And Polish is not English - some things will never be picked up naturally or it might last ages! It's better to rationalize the fact that we need to conjugate verbs then try to find this out from context. The effect will be the same, but the first way is much faster. As I said, we are not children, so it's better to use our intellect then wait for the intuition to do the work for us :) Some basics will simply make the whole process easier.
And one more thing - don't learn the language "in silence". Read aloud, talk to yourself and find someone to give you some feedback. Don't read about Polish alphabet, but listen and repeat single words and phrases with the same sound. And ask someone if your pronunciation is comprehensible enough.
Otherwise, you will not have enough self-confidence to use the things you learnt in practice. Self-study books can be good to revise information, but they tend to be over-packed with theory. So be careful with that.
Pozdrawiam
Ania