Polish

by Nigel Gotteri, Joanna Michalak-Gray

Polish is the state language of the Polish Republic. It is a member of the western sub-group of the Slavonic languages, a family which includes Bulgarian, Russian, Ukranian and other languages. As well as nearly 40 million speakers in Poland itself, Polish is spoken by an estimated 10 million Poles abroad. This book is intended to help you progress quickly from the basics to understanding, speaking and writing Polish. Twenty thematic units increase in complexity, as they move from dealing with everyday situations to talking about the past and making plans. The emphasis is on communication throughout, with important language structures introduced through dialogues in each unit. These build up to give you a command of the essential phrases necessary for a trip to Poland. Exercises are included so that you can practice the language as it is introduced, and tips throughout should help with the grammar. Aspects of life in Poland are also detailed to give a context to the language.

Genres: Language, Polish Literature, Reference, Nonfiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2010

Reviews

[Christopher]

As far as introductory Polish textbooks go, this one seems too daunting for those with no prior experience with the language. There is a mismatch between the amount of grammar (namely verb conjugation) given and the complexity of the dialogues. By the end of the book, the reader will still be somewhere short of a B1 level, but already by halfway through the book the dialogues are getting pretty complex. All kinds of phraseological intricacies of the language are presented early on that could wait until later.

I find that Routledge’s Colloquial Polish (Routledge’s series is the main competition for Teach Yourself’s), combined with Routledge’s Basic Polish and Intermediate Polish textbooks, does a better job of gradually presenting the language, without ever getting too intimidating.

[Andrew]

Teach Yourself is the best guide out there for learning another language. There may be better guides, but you can bet they're more expensive. There are also severely over-rated guides like Pimsluer, who will as promised teach you to converse in another language quick and easy, so long as your idea of learning a language means using eight cds to learn four paragraphs worth of dialogue.

In less than two years I've nearly worn this book to its binding. The best book I ever bought. The best of the Teach Yourself guides I've bought/borrowed thus far and dare I say the most imporant book in my whole collection.

[Gabrielle Okun]

Yes, I read language textbooks when I’m bored. Ho hum. In fact I collect these series of language textbooks (much to the appreciation of Amazon but alas— not my bank account- cuz I have like 20). Studying Polish through this book after doing Duolingo, tested me into a MA-level polish class at Columbia. The class wasn’t a breeze though- maybe if I didn’t just read the book at midnight when I wanted to procrastinate and take a break from reading bachelor memes on Instagram, the MA class would have been easier. After all, Polish is a very easy language to learn.

All seriousness- solid language learning material. 👏🏻👌🏻

[Fredrick Danysh]

A guide for learning to speak Polish. Besides the pronuncation of words it dicusses noun gender and verb tense as well as written exercises.

[Richard]

If you want to learn Polish, this is a good book. But get a tutor, online or in person.