Best book for a language noobie? Learning Polish.

Hi!
I'm looking for a book to learn Polish for my partner; it would be great if the book would be written in simple language- it's for someone who doesn't know other language then her mother tongue and isn't, unfortunately, good with languages. Polish is my native language, so I'll obviously help her with it.

I'm looking for something like "daily russian" kind of book (but, obviously, for Polish language).
TIA!

If she's not good with languages, get her started with Duolingo first of all. Don't go for a book just yet, it'll only frighten her.

I agree.

Best living, active, above all, CONTEMPORARY mostly mono-lingual materials in the beginning to immerse yourself in the language:-)

thanks you guys for the answers!

@delphiandomine
I was looking for something with slightly better grammar part- i.e. that would explain the case system (with examples of course) as well as perfective/imperfective verbs, modals etc etc- although I have only tested russian course on duolingo (as I hope to learn it), the grammar part there is... well, it leaves room for the improvement

@Lyzko
yes, I'm looking for a modern language book. full immersion isn't, unfortunately, an option.

Pity, Rubaszny! Can't force you naturally, but you'll only be slowing yourself down.

Then again, it depends entirely on your own personal goals:-)

Boa sorte,

Well... few posts were deleted meanwhile, but as Delphiandomine has written: it's not for me. I'm always available for her for help, but this book should have a pretty decent description of grammar terms just in case if my help wouldn't be enough (but, gods thanks, there is always PF!)

I'm sure "she" would be pleased to hear that, Ruby:-)

Best of luck!

(Strictly on the Q T, Delph's a guy)

is she English RR?
If so, and she is under 60, she might have a very vague grasp of grammar. Unless she went to an expensive school the extent of her grammar knowledge could be 'a verb is a doing word'..:)

She might not even have grasped the concept of 'case'. (if I am wrong, forgive me)
Therefore blinding her with grammar terms might be counter productive, as she will run away screaming.

polish-grammar-bigos.com

Generally speaking, I'd suggest leaving out grammar until she gets to grips with the way that Polish is built. If she's not good with languages, Polish grammar will just turn her off completely, and to be honest, it's perfectly possible to be understood in Polish without having correct grammar.

I'd say that completing the Duolingo course and being confident with the content is a great start - after that, she can worry about the grammar.

Delph, I really do agree with that, at least to some extent.

While grammar per se in its raw, undigested turgidity of rules and axioms CAN surely be nightmarishly deadening and numbing, without at least the basics of structure, particularly in a highly inflected language like Polish or Russian, Albanian, German etc., how then can she hope to learn to speak the language with any degree of serious intelligibilty?

Tough call, I'll admit. Grammar "games", picking stuff up by watching movies etc. are all valuable learning tools. However, in this man's opinion, there's rarely any substitute for at least some rote memorization from the very outset, before the learner can even hope to manipulate a language such as Polish:-)

Yes. Basically the inductive approach (them practising examples, working out the rules and having the grammar rule confirmed if necessary) rather than the deductive approach (being given an often large set of rules and being expected to apply them).


Remember that 20% of the grammar is used 80% of the time, and vice versa.

I think it really depends on the language. In this case, given that Polish word order is quite flexible, it's not going to hurt if she uses the wrong case but has decent pronunciation. Polish is just so strange and alien for English speakers that I think getting hung up on the grammar is just going to cause her to give up, especially if she has no talent for languages.

I mean, I know someone who learnt Russian as a second language and therefore found Polish to be laughably easy, but that's not normally true for English speakers.

Interesting observation, Delph, despite the fact that I did it in the reverse; I learned Russian AFTER my Polish was nearly solid, yet found myself befuddled by all the 'false friends' in vocabulary ("pukac" vs."pukat" etc.......), even certain aspectual differences which I merrily disregarded in the beginning, figuring everything would be the same as in PolishLOL

And there's the palatalized pronunciation of Russian, UGGGH!! Polish I found "laughably" easier in this respect.

I highly recommend Memrise.com
I used duolingo for very long and have no complaints about their service but Memrise has some unique features.
In 4 months I made so much progress in polish.

Doubtless anything would be an improvement over Rosetta Stone!

I once sampled that program for a language of which I knew next to nothing and never studied, namely Greek. Without the rote drills, I became so lost when made to produce my own beginner sentences, I simply gave up. Berlitz was oddly enough not too bad, I also attempted to try learning another language I didn't know, Arabic, yet somehow the Berlitz method seemed to work for me and even without the prompts, I was honestly able to learn the script and recognize words:-)

For fun, I even tried Polish which I already studied, and had I not known how to use the verbs in their correct aspect form already and had to rely on Rosetta's method, I'd have asked for my money back!!

Go figure. There are no guarantees for success.

Hello!

I am trying to learn the Polish language but I'm confused on when you use 'u' at the end of a noun like długopisu as opposed to długopis. When do you use it? I'm using rosetta stone on my phone and its terrible. They dont explain why some nouns change when it looks like the same sentence. Would someone please help me out? Thank you!!

are you familiar with the concept of noun cases? (adjectives also appear in cases in Polish)

długopisu is a genetive case of długopis - the genetive is used when you describe ownership, derivation -example: To jest samochód mojego syna. the basic (dictionary) form of syna is syn (son in English) - This is my son's car. - Część długopisu.= a part/a fragment of a ballpen.

However the genetive is often used in negative sentences, like those: Tu był długopis. (There was a ballpen here) but Tu nie było długopisu. (There was no ballpen here) or Widzę samochód. (I can see a car) but Nie widzę samochodu. (I can see no car).

Many Polish verbs require the object to be in genetive as well. Szukam Zamku Królewskiego. (I am looking for the Royal Castle). Nie mogę się doczekać powrotu taty. (I can't wait 'til my father comes back/returns).

some adverbs also connect with nouns in gentive: dość smutku - enough of sorrow, dużo cukru - plenty of sugar, pełno brudu - lots of dirt

only masculine gender nouns (and not all of them) have the -u ending in the singular genetive

geochic is your first language English?

OK so you can see the remnants of cases in our language with eg 'he /him/his'. YOu wouldn't say 'that's him book' or 'that's he book' because that would be the wrong case. 'That's his book' is the correct case, (genitive/ownership) and you know this without thinking.

Polish cases are way more extensive and important, and can change many more words in a sentence,including as gumi explained, nouns, or even people's names.

You need the vocabulary of grammar to get your head round this.(accusative/genitive etc )

It is similar in German and Greek, and also Welsh. For example 'mawr' means big but in another sentence it might be 'fawr' but it's the same word.

My first language is English. I studied Spanish in school, so I understand masculine and feminine and breaking down verbs. My bachi was from Poland. Poland and fell in love with the country, so I want to learn the language. I see grammar is going to be tough.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_case this is quite a good explanation. Instead of cases in English we have a more inflexible word order and a thousand prepostions...

Right, roz! Furthermore, what Polish lacks in the plethora of verb tenses as in English, French, or Portuguese, she more than compensates for quite adequately in her myriad aspectual forms:-)

Roz, you've abandoned Czech and its cases completely now, haven't you?