Learning Polish in Olsztyn... crazy prices for private lessons.

Hi friends,

I moved to Olsztyn last year, I will live here for long years, maybe all life. I want to learn Polish. I went to language schools, but they don't have any class for learning Polish, and they advise me to go for private lesson. I contacted few people for private lesson, but they ask for ~100zl for 1 hour. It's actually crazy pricing for me, especially when I think I will need many hours for a difficult and detailed language like Polish.

I try to learn myself, I bought some books, DVDs etc... it is actually going fine, but very slow process and I have many questions while studying which I spend hours to find answers over the internet... :/

I want some lessons with a teacher at least to get the base, than I can improve myself.

Can you advise me any good way to learn Polish in Olsztyn?

I appreciate helps!! Thanks a lot!

Chat up some people your age at a pub or coffee shop. You can get all kind of free language help or exchange from people who just want to be social or improve their English. I would never pay 100pln an hour even in Warsaw for Polish instruction.

I am sure some linguists will disagree but I would avoid a teacher in the beginning anyway as they will bombard you with rules and you will be too focused on them rather than natural language. Save the teachers for when you get more advanced and need to worry about details.

100 PLN per hour is really a lot.

Yes, beelzebub, the best solution is to pay 15 PLN for a Polish lesson and then to say that Polish does not make any sense. I do not know, people, what is the situation in your countries, but in Poland if you want to have good service you have to pay for it. When I wanted to learn German I went to Germany and paid a lot for the course. The same with English. What a strange attitude: to want to get effective teaching for almost nothing. I think this is very often just lack of respect if not lack of reason.

It is NOTHING strange that foreigners start to speak Polish after 2 or 3 months but to achieve it, they have to devote time and invest some money.

Of course you can go to a stadium to start to play rugby even when you do not know the rules. If you are stubborn enough you will FINALLY learn it. But if you find a professional who explains to you how it works, you will do it incomparably better and faster.

You don't need an instructor to learn the basics. I really doubt people give up all together because they don't have a top level professor from the get go. The BEST solution (contrary to your smart @ss twisting of what I mean) is to make some friends and get them to teach you the basics through exposure and socializing. Of course you are biased because you get PAID to teach Polish.

Far more people get fed up with using a course from the start because they are so pedantic. People learn in my experience much better in a natural way.

The technical stuff is for later when you can actually manage the basics. I know Poles love rules and structures in language but not everyone is like that.

I don't agree that you need to spend money to learn Polish. The internet is a more valuable resource than any book or DVD, because it gives you several perspectives while a book will only give you one. Plus you are living in Poland. If you can make some friends there, I'm sure they will help you with your studies.

It feels a bit silly advising this to someone living in Poland, but if you build up a contact list of Polish people in your Skype or MSN, it can be really helpful to have casual conversations, and you can ask them for simple help and pronunciations if you're stuck on understanding something online.

Ask up at the university. They have a department for teaching Polish to foreigners.

UNIVERSITY OF WARMIA AND MAZURY IN OLSZTYN.
CENTRE OF CULTURE AND POLISH LANGUAGE FOR FOREIGNERS
KURTA OBITZA STREET 1,
10- 725 OLSZTYN, POLAND
TEL./FAX +48 89 524 65 64

PM me a phone number and I'll ask a few folk if they know anyone.

TREV:-)

I do not understand why you assume that a good Polish course is a padantic course.
I did not write that you cannot learn Polish on your own. Of course you can.
You can learn Polish prenounciation 6 months or 2 weeks.


Hm, Polish is not English. POlish has a very logical but abstract grammar system which influences communication very much. You CANNOT avoid it.

But on the other hand if you learnt Polish on your own respect from me and I should be quiet.
I met very few people like this.
But mostly foreigners repeat that Polish is the hardest language and so on and do nothing effective to learn language of their children or wife/husbend. This is pathetic!

But pathetic is also reaction of Poles who really belive that Polish is soooooooooo dificult.

Actually this is a funny situation from my point of view (-:

Most people I know who tried to learn Polish from a course in Poland quit because it was so pedantic. The expats I know who learned it learned mostly from spouses, their family, friends etc. Then if they needed advanced language for some reason they went to a course. Just explaining it to you from an expats point of view.

I think this is reflective of the way languages have traditionally been taught here. I sometimes have older students and they can't get used to all the communicative stuff in ELT, they think if I make them sleep with a years supply of Murphy's under their bed then they'll learn by osmosis.

They can't accept that being able to communicate with mistakes is better than knowing the mechanics but not being able to drive.

Exactly. I find many Poles operate that way in English even. They can tell you all the rules better than a native but they can't use them. I also think it is why so many adults struggle with language learning. The education and resources out there are so technical and not natural. Pimsleur works well for me but sadly they don't go very far even with the 3 month programs...in Polish they only have a one month program and by the time I got it I had already surpassed it by learning from friends.

I have known several people with university majors in a "foreign" language who couldn't speak it functionally.

Exactly.

I think there's also a problem with NS's of other languages in that they assume a student has a knowledge of their own system from a grammatical perspective.

I remember having a German class at uni where the teacher was a german NS. She declared we'd be stidying the accusative that day. I reckoned that if I, as one of the oldest in the class, didn't know what it was then a lot of the younger studes wouldn't either,

"What's the accusative?"

"This is the accusative"

"But when would i use 'the accusative'?"

(sigh) "When would you normally use the accusative?"

unable to realise that it was the concept of 'accusative' which i was unaware of.

Haha...reminds me of the Polish classes I took. I know people have different learning styles but I never met anyone who learned to actually USE language with that kind of instruction. Speaking like a 5yo is more useful than knowing all the technical aspects but not being able to communicate.

My wife thinks that's how I speak.

My Polish colleague notes when all the Brits/Americans in the school try to mówić po polsku, our voices go up an octave.

I think that is an unconscious effort to mimic them. We always used to joke how Polish men sounded girlish to us because the end of every sentence went up high pitched.

I also could never get people to understand that laughing at someone and saying how "cute" they were when speaking Polish was not a good way to motivate them. I always tried to encourage people in English and never made fun of them because that is a sure way to put someone off trying.

I think the problem is that very oftem people
make an artificial contrary between mechanism and communication.
The next sin is faith that all languages can be taught like English.
But I admit Polish teaching methodology is very poor. But what I can observe now is an escape from a traditional not effective approach to a new overtaken from English methodology. I do not like it. It is not effective in reference to the Polish language I am afraid .

OMG, 100zł per hour? Really crazy price!! :)) I can believe it!! :o

But is this really the case?

Part of the problem is that some people think it is necessary to learn all the grammar first and then use it. I've taught japanese kids who have great grammar skills and can do exercises but almost never spoke because of the way they'd been taught at home.

Likewise, I attended a Polish course in Scotland which was run by Polish NS and English teachers. It was geared rather like an English course and it worked very well at getting people speaking and using the grammar. We had to write essays, translate poetry and watch films in Polish (short ones for study purposes). It worked very well.

The thing is that that course was taught in an English speaking country. In Poland the main focus should be on using the language because that is what you'll be doing as soon as you walk out the door.

If you go to modern Polish school in Krakow at least you will get what you describe. Traditonal teching is dead there. But I do not cooperate anymore with this schools because

I think they present limited approach.
To learn faster you havet get insight to Polish system. But of course to teach cases I do not use names of cases but methapor of genetic code I do not say imperfective and perfective verbs but process verbs and result verbs and so on

Grammar has to be a useful tool. I studied linguistic five years, but now when I teach Polish to over 50 years old women from Rochester NY I have to explain it to her so easy and handy as possible. And I can do it. She understand how cases work without knowing what cases are. And she does not have to know it. This is my job not her. But I have to face the core of the Polish language. It is not to avoid and this is very exciting for me.

BTW communicative approach was invented to teach English and it does not have to work the best allways and everywhere like american model of democracy (-:

What? When i think of US democracy I think it takes a lot of money to be a major part of it... so maybe a bit like ELT!

Poles in my home city in Scotland charge 30 quid per hour, about 120PLN. Harry charges over 100PLN an hour here. If you keep your rates fractionally lower, you will likely end up getting more custom, especially given that many here have other priorities than English.

(-:
Good night I have to get some sleep because in the mornig I will torture a few naive foreigners who think that a Polish tutor can be helpful (-:

Hi friends
I am Khan from Bangladesh. I am in Poland (olsztyn) almost 2 years. As I want live here long,maybe permanently so I decide to learn polish. I know English.

You are welcome if you are interested to teach me polish .
Feel free to contract with me. Any kind of suggestion is appreciated. Get in touch at any time at hossainksazzad@gmail.com

haha, nice thread necromancy.

but ad rem: what materials for learning Polish do you have?

@RubasznyRumcajs
Why you laughing? It's looking weird. I want to learn , I don't know what materials do I need?

Well, you should have materials for learning it.

linguajunkie.com/polish/best-polish-textbooks

100 zloty is the least id charge for a lesson being that i have both polish and english locked down and a native california u.s slang, accent and way of speaking which is rare in poland thus i am a hot and rare commodity and can demand such payments. plus, i can explain in both polish and english to polish only speakers which again is rare commodity as people know either language well and not both or they just wing it in general. but even 100 zloty is nothing when you factor in if you have to prepare for lessons or find reading materials, etc. just for an hours worth and 30 or so bucks. again you cant live off that even with such rates.

Sorry the most you would get is 30zl where i am.