Is rosetta stone any good for learning Polish?

i have no experience with languages, only my own, english, is rosetta stone any good?

Hi Sophie, I actually posted something about Rosetta Stone earlier today. It's really good! I bought it about 6 months after I started dating my wife, who was originally from Poland.

You will need a microphone as it will grade your speech as well. Someone also just posted that it's gone up to 550 bucks, so you're going to have to swallow hard like I did when I bought mine....

well its £140 for level one...............

If you know someone who can find their way around the net, you can get it for free. So i am told:) I think the first part can be downloaded from the Rosetta Stone site for free. Also there are some other threads about this product, just type Rosetta Stone into the search box at top of page.

hmmmm interesting thanks.... anyone who knows about this?

Thats crazy..it was less than half that when I purchased it.
I hear you can get it for free off torrents, just do a search there must be 10 Rosetta Stone topics by now.

the torrents dont seem reliable. anybody selling a copy?

someone was selling one the other day here ...
sorry that was a different one....I am told that some of the torrents do work.

I agree. I paid much less myself. but searching through Rosetta Stone's website, it looks as if they made a module #3. I only have 1 and 2...

My only problem with this software is that the images have a low resolution. Don’t know if they’ve updated them in recent versions, though.

I bought mine a couple years ago. The pictures were nothing to write home about, but you can still tell that a ball is a ball, an elephant is an elephant, etc.

Rosetta Stone is very basic. Go here for a free and more comprehensive Polish course: polish.slavic.pitt.edu/

FYI, a lot of people in the US Air Force can get access for free. Especially if you are on ACC or AFSOC (if this relates to you you'll know what that means) ;) Ask me if you have any questions.

I recommend "Basic Polish" to make a start. It is quite tough, but it learns you the grammar very well. When you are done with the first part, you could continue with "Intermediate Polish."

- Of course a decent dictionary (PL->EN / EN->PL) is advisable. -

For your vocabulary I recommend you, to start to read Polish children books. Look for them on-line, or even better; plan a visit to Poland (if you are able to) and buy them in a księgarnia yourself. :)

I have no experience with Rosetta Stone, but I don't think it will learn you as well the grammar and words as the above method does. Pronunciation is learned by just reading every word aloud. Polish has a consequent stress on the penultimate syllable.

If you would really improve your pronunciation, you should go live some time in Poland and/or apply for a language course in Poland.

I found Rosetta very dull and boring and would not recommend it considering the price. The structure of the course did not help me know how I was progressing. Aftera day, I knocked it on the head. Please try the demos before commiting funds.

I have tried pimsleur which also worked with repetition of words and phrases. Seemed to be slightly better structured.

I bought of Lingaphone course of ebay which was very old and not too bad. I have done the lingaphone French Course which was outstanding but the Polish one was a different style and not nearly as affective as the French one. Pity really, you would think Lingaphone might recognise the opportniity consifering this million Poles that have come to our shores.

The best (and a few others who have tried to learn the language) I found is Colloquial Polish (amazon.co.uk/Colloquial-Polish-Complete-Course-Beginners/dp/041515752 8). It's cheap and very well written. You are given a chapter at a time with some text, translation and the the grammar rules (very very important ) with some exercises at the end of each chapter. Compared to the others, it does feel very old fashioned but if it works, hey why not. Please note that the cd that goes with this is bought seperately and when I read the book, I asked my wife (who is Polish) to help me with some of the pronunctions which is important as well.

Good luck

Thread attached on merging:
Learning Polish with Rosetta Stone...?

I'm considering purchasing Rosetta Stone for Polish since I cannot seem to find anyone that lives nearby that is able to teach me Polish... I need (want) to learn Polish for my year-long abroad exchange trip this fall. My only current resource is pronunciation practice with my Polish exchange friend.

My main question is: Should I invest $500 in purchasing Rosetta Stone 1, 2, 3, or should I just buy the #1 and hope for the best? :P

If anybody needs the English translations for level 1
I have them..PM me

Without them go buy a Polish/English dictonary, because it will take you twice as long to figure out what there trying to describe in thier pictures.

Just out of interest, how much would a Pole in the UK charge per hour for Polish lessons? You could buy a coursebook and work through it together - most younger Polish emigrees will have had language lessons at some point and they'd have an idea what the score is.

If it's only 10 pounds an hour, for the cost of Rosetta stone you could get 14 hours of lessons with a native speaker...

Im not planning on purchasing Level 2 and 3 its too difficult and time consuming.
I contacted them to get the translations and they refused, luckily I was able to obtain them somewhere else and finished the course a lot faster and easier.

The flaw is within their pictures, you pretty much have to guess what they are meaning, so I found myself spending a lot of time searching through a dictionary than actually using the program...Save your money and don't buy it.

This program is better and cheaper..

I think Wyspi was offering lessons at one point.

I found the rosetta stone level 1,2,3 great. I paid £400 for it but know for a fact it is available for free online. Obviously not legally.

Things to point out with rosetta stone, there are no translations, you work out what the words mean by applying logic. You dont need to try and translate the words that is not the idea, you are learning it like you leaarnt your first language.

1,2,3 of the polish rosetta stone gives you a basic grasp of the language and subtly teaches you some grammar rules. After completing the course and then doing a bit more advanced reading, I was able to learn everything else i needed to know from natives in the polish tongue.

Rosetta stone is quite time consuming though! In fact VERY, but it does force that language into your head quite well.

For example- It took my 4 days of going HARD at it (many hours a day)... to get 1/4 way through the 1st level. This is arguably the easiest bit of the course as well!!

I tried Rosetta one time. But I didn't like it. I want to get linguistic rules explained in a structured and logical manner. If I had continued to use Rosetta I would probably only get confused. But different learning techniques fit different persons.

I have been working as a language teacher in Sweden, teaching several languages. Maybe I am old fashioned, but I like the classic one; interesting dialog and then an explanation of the expressions and the grammar seen in the dialog.

Rosetta Stone course... any one with experience?

Hi,

I am actually learning Polish with Rosetta Stone.
I found it very interesting and I make good progress.
That is in my passive knowledge.

Am I impatient as where speaking is concerned or is their system aimed at getting your passive knowledge on a top level before getting you to speak?

Any input would be appreciated.

Gaston,

I need some encouragement on it. Right now I have the impression i can understand what the text and images say, but that seems about all.

After completing the whole course, would you have some tips? Will my speech improve (I do repeat all teh sentences and am pretty good at pronounciation.

Oh well, what the heck.. I just need a push in the back from someone...
When i listen to my friend speaking Polish it seems I only understand kurva...lol

thnx

S

I got an amazing torrent which contains a ton of languages including Polish. It works for me. I got it off The Pirate Bay. There are a lot of seeders, so it'll be a quick download.

/3865583/Rosetta_Stone_Ultimate_Language_Disk_v2

Before I get into downloading that, is that something reliable and safe to use? The last thing I want is another virus on my laptop.

It does not work for Polish because does not deal with Polish word changes properly. Its eye candy for Americans that have lots of cash to shell out and want a magic solution. That is my personal experience.

EN_Z: I would love to learn more about this, I have a family member who is ACC. I cannot PM you though because I am a new member.

Hi. I highly recommend the polish course on supermemo.net. You can doa beginers course for about EUR30..also, you can buy a book with all the course in it as well.

i am currently trying a number of self teach options, and i did find this very good both from a content perspective and from a value perspective. You can try it out for free to see for yourself.

Vincent

Rosetta Stone can be helpful for people that do not live in-country. Mainly because the voices you hear on the CD are native which helps develop your accent. What you need to watch for though is the lack of "real Polish" that they use along with some words that can get fossilized in your head yet when you come to Poland, basically everyone uses a different word to mean the same thing. I used Rosetta Stone 3.5 years ago, and I still have encounters where a word comes out that I got stuck in my head from using RS, yet it's not the colloquial version and it takes me a half second to think of the correct word while in conversation.

nothing beats lessons with a native speaker, preferably under the age of 50, especially if you're not living in, in your case, Poland. you get really modern language, modern accent/intonation, "bookish" words are filtered out, etc.

Hi Serca,

Rosetta is great for filling your head with nouns at the very least!!

Just go through it all once you have a head full of nouns (the easy bit) you will need to do a lot of work on conjugating verbs and various other rules but I really would have struggled a lot more without a decent vocab.