I'm a Romanian trying to learn Polish

Hello everybody! I've visited Poland only once, last year by participating in a school project that took us there and I kinda fell in love with everything and I decided to return this july. This time I want to be ready and get to know Polish, at least a little bit by the time I go back so I can have at least basic conversations and maybe more than that. I don't think I want to spend any money on learning the language, so I don't want to buy books, courses, etc... but rather I am interested in free online courses like the ones provided by babbel.com or duolingo. I am curious to know what might be the best way to learn. I don't want the easiest one, but rather the most effective. You can also give me other options besided free online courses like the ones I have mentioned above. Thank you so much and have a great day!

I would try watching Polish news with Polish subtitles! While you'd have to learn the basics well before, looking and watching can help in oral comprehension:-)

@Lyzko
What does "the basics" actually mean? I mean what should be the first things to learn? I am really motivated for this.

@InceptioN

you can start by learning the sounds of the Polish language - only a couple are different from the Romanian language I guess - there are guides to Polish alphabet on youtube. I haven't looked for it but I guess you can also learn basic Polish phrases on youtube.

Polish is a dificult language and you probably won't be able to put together even simple sentences or understand most of what is spoken after watching a couple of videos though. (No idea how difficult Romanian is)

You might want to reconsider your opinion on books. It's not like with English where you have to find gems amongst the cash-in rubble, I am averse to spending money myself (especially on courses) but what few books are available are decent in content and format, worth the one time cost of 30-100zl in my opinion.

Far better than the constant wallet drain of hit or miss lessons at least.

Would absolutely agree with that. That's how I started. Polish is a phonetic language so once you know the sounds you can read and pronounce any word. The sounds are very easy, I learned them in a weekend and I'm not a genius I can assure you.


Something that's definitely worth investing in is a phrasebook. The reason I suggest this is that it gives you a set of the kind of basic phrases you would need for simple everyday interactions like greetings, asking questions, shopping etc and gives you some useful, basic vocabulary like days of the week, colours and so on. Try to imagine going into a shop and you want to buy a shirt, dark green, size medium. Do you know all those words?

Some aspects of Polish grammar are quite complex, the worst bit is the 'cases' which means that words constantly change their form according to the structure of the sentence so a noun can have, worst scenario, I think, up to fourteen forms if you include the plurals!! However while you're still learning,if you don't know the correct case you can just use the basic form - people will understand you.

very wise from you. Very.

Gumishu's a native Polish speaker, therefore, you can rely on her advice! The sounds in any Slavic language are essential at the very beginning.