Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills

Again back to you old wrong memories? You're wrong, you can make various mistakes and still be understood, you just have so little experience with Polish that you don't know when the message is and when it's not understandable anymore. Quit your whining, study more.

I can't believe why wanting to know the absolute precise way of saying things is so important at such an early stage of learning a language like Polish. In my opinion, forming basic sentences, listening, learning vocabulary and grammar should be mastered first. After a few years of learning, you'll begin to hone your techniques as you go along.

Simply worrying about the differences between - "eszcz" part to sound identical to the "eść", seem to be splitting hairs at such an early stage of learning Polish if you ask me.

Quite the reverse, you nail the pronunciation first, then you worry about the rest. If someone thinks sz=ś, cz=ć etc. then he needs to review the basics as it'll continue to cause frustration.

Oh, well in some way yes. However, I don't think as a beginner someone can truly 'nail' the pronunciation; that comes with time.
It's like when people come to learn English with a native speaker, they practise their pronunciation amongst other things.

Of course, but the initial question was whether szcz differ from ść at all... This is not a question to ask after 1,5 y of learning. This is a very basic knowledge of the sounds used in the lang. The lerner should know it and be aware of the difference, even though mastering the pronuntiation may take many years.

Cinek

So true. I can remember my first English lessons. The teacher told us to pronounce the English first names of schoolmates. My "t's" in Betty were wrong, I could not pronounce "Margaret" properly, and my "Joan" sucked ;-) The teacher did not go any further until the whole class could decently pronounce the sounds. The matter of "th" in different words was the next step.

I totally agreee

If it was so then evolution would make human languages more and more simple, as it'd allow for better usage of the 'higher functions' of the brain. But in fact we see quite opposite, the languages evolved into complex ones.

I think that highli inflected languages don't need more brain-power for memorising because in fact people think using ideas, not words and use some automated mechanisms to express the ideas by sentences.

One more thought about inflected languages. The complex system of endings and rules of using them works much like mechanisms used in teletransmission to prevent from transmission errors. The endings work much as 'check-sums' in telecommunication. If it's wrong it warns the listener that the transmitted data may be corrupted and the information cannot be trusted.

This is by the way one of the reasons why Poles are sensitive to improper usage of cases, noun endings etc. Any ending that is used improperly is a warning to their brains that the message they are receiving may be corrupted (they misunderstood it). So proper usage of Polish allows not only for exchanging messages between people, but also reduces the possibility of misunderstanding.

Cinek

You may believe in what you want but - since you said it in public - could you please back it up with some good links to the newest, well documented, research on the topic? I bet you, you will find nothing of the sort. In contrary, you will find plenty about brain plasticity, brain non-locality, redundancies, and so on. Well, some people still believe that an average human uses only 10% of his/her brain capacity. If we only could tap into that untapped 90% we could all be geniuses, or we could easily produce "design children". Well such believes are ridiculously wrong, but it does not stop many "brain gurus" from selling dubious product and services that suppose to significantly increase your brain power. A brain snake oil anyone?

And the notion that English language is simple, clean and logical (as opposed to "ridiculously complex" Polish) is also wrong. I would not get that far myself, but I've heard many English native speakers admitting that their language is dysfunctional. Dysfunctional? Didn't you just mention the brain's higher functions?

I will help you a bit with it. Let's start with English homophones, which an English speaker must memorize in order to effectively communicate. Fifty homophones starts with letter "A", such as: airless, heirless; Abel, able; or ai, I, aye and eye. Here is the entire list of the homophone distribution frequency among letters of English alphabet: A-50, B-96, C-143, D-35, E-27, F-60, G-48, H-48, I-26, J-10, K-33, L-63, M-67, N-29, O-17, P-116, Q-9, R-85, S-148, T-71, U-5, V-10, W-99, X-2, Y-8, Z-2. Altogether, this makes an impressive list of 1307 homophones to be memorized. The details are here: homophone.com

Then you have heteronyms - the words that are spelled identically but have different meanings when pronounced differently. For example: Lead, pronounced LEED, means to guide. However, lead, pronounced LED, means a metallic element. You can see the list at this address: personal.umich.edu/~cellis/heteronym.html

I will just count the distribution among English alphabet: A-7, B-4, C-12, D-7, E-1,F-0, G-0, H-1, I-3, J-0, K-0, L-3, M-1, N-2, O-1, P-11, R-11, S-8, T-1,U-0, W2, X-0,Y-0, Z-0. One nice example: "She wished she could desert him in the desert."

Here is the first verse of a popular "poem", which underlines how "dysfunctional" English is and how much one has to memorize. Yet this does not stop the English speakers to develop their higher brain functions. :-)

[I am not permitted to copy it here in its entirety, but you can find many of such copies on internet.]

I'm Irish, a native English speaker and I was intrigued by OP's post (you're not alone!). I translate from English to Polish most of the time, barring what I have learnt. Is this right? As far as I'm concerned, as long as I'm understood, I'm happy.

Merged: Ways to improve my Polish?

Hi,

There have probably been many threads like mine before but I haven't seen any that I can actually relate to.

Polish is my second language and I have been learning it my whole life in Polish schools. I live in the United States and the area where I'm from Polish is not a commonly spoken language so I only ever get to speak it at home, but even then I have to include a lot of English to get what I want to say across. Generally, I have very basic communication skills and I can carry a conversation with a couple grammar mistakes here and then but a lot of the times when I speak to native Polish people or relatives and they start adding in difficult vocabulary and I feel really humiliated because I feel like my Polish should be better since I am born to Polish parents, and the rest of my entire family is Polish.

This kind of sounds like a sob story, but it does make me feel very humiliated and ashamed sometimes because I sometimes see how people who are younger than me and are much more fluent in Polish than I am. Do you have any suggestions to that could help me improve?

Merged: How can I Improve my Polish?

Ok so i was my family's polish so I've sort of learned the language over the years. I'm 15 and my family has plans to go to the country in a year or two. I can barely read but I know the basics, can't spell anything but 1rst grade stuff, and my speaking and understanding has fallen as I've gotten older but that's mostly about vocab. I need to get better, but I don't know how. Please?

The best way I have managed to pick up my Polish quickly in a short space of time is to combine the ways in which you learn.

For example; I currently use the Rosetta Stone language pack, my Polish textbook and speaking as much Polish to my wife as possible. Rosetta Stone allows me to associate words to things visually, the textbook allows me to read, write and repeat, and then by speaking Polish (albeit very badly) to the wife allows me to improve my accent and just use Polish in an everyday manner.

To be fluent you need to completely immerse yourself into what you are learning. Try and cut out other languages as much as possible, but not to the point where you're putting yourself at a disadvantage.

Also try using the forum's search function. Under the languages forum there are many threads giving information on different ways to help you learn Polish.