Bilingual Polish-English books with audio for listening and reading learning method

...and for a very good reason...

I studied Polish for god-only-knows how long and I still don't like it and can't understand as well as I do American.
I studied Latin for 4 years and Russian for 7 and I would die from starvation in ancient Rome and Moscow.
I didn't spend one hour studying English and now it's my primary language.

English is like sex; you instantly know how to do it. The best example is Paulina. I am talking about her perfect English, not her love life.

Probably quite a lot, especially if you'd been in the countryside.


Polish is useful to me in Poland. Even very since at home we speak only Polish and most people I know socially in PL are not English speakers. Lucrative too since I translate professionally including best selling novels which can be a nice cash injection.

I've only used German in Germany (apart from chatting with elderly Germans in Spain). You are right; German is largely useless. It is a minor language.

Having good French though has helped me at, opening up work opportunities and social interactions in French-speaking countries. Plus, it's been handy watching films and reading.

@Rich, once again, NO language is "useless"!
It is statistically true that English has every other language on the
planet beat in terms of sheer recognizability. This is a fact and sadly
I know many colleagues who've actually left the field on the basis of
statistics that fewer Americans are studying foreign languages.

While such may be the case, the latter certainly doesn't mean that learning
foreign languages isn't useful. All it means is that it's going to be an uphill
battle trying to convince Poles, Germans, Frenchmen or Spaniards etc. that
their English is somehow less than perfect and that the double standard
must be abandoned.

How many students still want to learn German these days? I imagine everyone is taking Spanish now instead.

...just as my English is useful to me in the US.
What I will never do is "study" Italian to spend three days in Venice. Knowing two dozen Italian words annoys and confuses Italians.
No, I don't give FF what a taxi driver thinks about Socrates. Besides, he is from Algeria...

Plenty in Poland, especially in the west of the country.

More students want to learn English these days; and it is generally compulsory across the continent now.

[quote=Novichok]What I will never do is "study" Italian to spend three days in Venice.[/quote

You would if you wanted to spend time in Italy several times a year for a few decades.

And not get ripped off by taxi drivers.

Of course you're as free not to learn languages as others are to learn them.

Languages in Europe were weapons of war.
In the US, English is a trade tool and the glue that makes us one nation.

Generally they're ways to communicate.

And millions around the world enjoy learning them.

I hate "studying" unless I get paid for it. I studied electronics to make a living in the US, not because it was fun.

I still remember trying to help a Russian with directions back in Warsaw. In the middle of the first sentence, he said: Speak Polish. That was the shortest review of my Russian abilities and my last attempt to use it. After six years of studying it...

With English, I know all the languages worth knowing.

So don't. Some really enjoy it.


It depends a lot on how, when and why you study something. If it's for something you really want and you're feeling good about learning. it's very different from studying because you have to.

Plus of course with languages, the way people acquire them has changed. For French and German at school we 'learnt' it in much the same way as we learnt Latin. Nowadays, lessons focus on speaking first rather than copying verb tables.

Last week I met a "Swede". Born here but still "Swedish".

Do you speak Swedish?
No.
Been to Sweden lately?
Sure.
How did you communicate?
All Swedes speak English.

I rest my case.

I'd not learn more than a few words for a short holiday just as I don't plan to learn much of another far more obscure language for my next holiday. A few basics though, since we'll be off the tourist track.

If you're monolingual, you're limited to package tours or the most touristy places.

Time spent over the years in France and Germany would have been much poorer without a knowledge of those languages and Italian and Spanish have come in useful in Italy and Spain. And three years in West Africa would have been quite hard without good French. Not just in shops etc but meeting people, making friends etc.

I am duo lingual but used English as default on my recent visits to Poland for a very simple reason: They had to slow down and were unable to use Polish slang and grunts.

This way, the advantage was all mine.

That's how it's done and I do that myself at work. I have to manage a difficult team and they don't realise how much of their language I know. A useful tool....

In Poland if you're a foreigner who's settled there it can work the other way around. You know how Poles can be 'awkward' sometimes and I've found it a big advantage that I speak Polish far better than most of them, even the young and educated, speak English.

People you don't know can sometimes start speaking English to you in a really patronising and arsey way and it wrongfoots them when you reply in Polish without much of a foreign accent.

@Rich, again, it depends on what type of English you mean. I suppose if you dumb down your conversation one-syllable words or less, one might have a near flawless

conversation with the run-of-the-mill foreigner abroad. Anything higher, not so sure. LOL

Rich: How do you like living in your city?

Foreigner: Yes, yes!

Rich: No, I mean HOW DO YOU LIKE LIVING HERE IN MADRID?

Foreigner: No. I like Madrid.

Rich: Why?

Foreigner: Why.

Rich: Do you understand me, you #%$^in' moron???!

Foreigner: Yes, you like Madrid too?

etc.....

And that's what you have the nerve to call communicating world wide in English? Apparently you don't have very high expectations.

The only convo with foreigners I ever had was:

Do you have a room?
Yes, we do.
I will take it.

Is that what life is all about, Rich? Have you no aspirations besides your stomach??

All my aspirations have been taken care of in English.

Some of aspire to things that a good knowledge of several languages help enjoy.

There are no "several languages". There is English, metoos, and total garbage.

There are in fact many thousands of languages.
Some more useful than others and a handful are linguae francae.

Worth mentioning that the OP asked about parallel texts rather than someone's eccentric ideas about the value of their second language.

Narcissists have to make everything about them and get lots of narcissistic supply (attention from others) it doesn't matter if it's positive or negative.... like small children. Narcissists actually remain small children inside which is why therapists refuse to work with them. They're actually incapable of personal growth or adult development.

Sad...

Rich is merely babbling his usual ethnocentric nonsense solely for shock value!
How one person could be so naive is beyond me. Obviously faking.

No, I am not. When I was in the Netherlands for 9 months I was offered a course to learn Dutch. I declined because English was all I needed.

In Poland, English gave me an advantage so I would default to it and switch to Polish only when absolutely necessary - like when I was desperately looking for a restroom to go number two.

did you do a Jerry Nadler and p00p yourself in public?

Sure did when I was 10. It left me with a bad case of shitphobia.

I wonder, I wonder, does the toilet grandma speak better English than Polish?

Using public restrooms is a non-verbal experience. That look on your face is enough to tell her why you are there.

And the wide smile of the customers when they leave makes up for all the inconvenience of this job.

...but they still want to get paid...
BTW, what is Polish Plan B if you can't?