Colloquial Polish: The Complete Course for Beginners

by Bolesław W. Mazur

This new edition of the best-selling Polish course for beginners has been completely rewritten to make learning the language easier and more enjoyable than before. Written by an experienced teacher and author, Colloquial Polish offers a step-by-step approach to the language as it is spoken and written today. No previous knowledge of Polish is required. Features
* Lively dialogues
* Lots of exercises with full answer key
* Jargon-free grammar notes and a quick reference grammar
* Extensive Polish-English and English-Polish word lists With all the language support you'll need, Colloquial Polish will soon have you speaking, reading and writing Polish with confidence. Accompanying audio material is available to purchase separately on CD/MP3 format, or comes included in the great value Colloquials Pack. Recorded by native speakers, this will help you with your pronunciation and listening skills.

Genres: Polish Literature, Nonfiction, Language, Textbooks, Reference

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

Reviews

[Rebecka · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not too bad as a language course, but it has some weak points, such as very confusing gender hints. Instead of indicating whether you are supposed to write sentences as a man or a woman by writing "male"/"female" it switches between "woman"/"she", "man"/"he", which is really confusing sometimes since the gender of the person you are speaking to also affects the verbs and whatnot. Why not just put "I (f) will call you (m) tomorrow"??

At least there's no "How to buy your woman a drink in Polish" part, which I once encountered in (I believe) the Hungarian Assimil... Like all language books, this one does assume the learner is a man, but it does it in a less obvious way.

The audio is also extremely annoying since every track starts with like 15 seconds of blabbering in English, which is absolutely unnecessary. I would have listened to the audio much more if it weren't for the English taking up so much time.

All in all, a decent introduction to Polish. For learners lacking understanding of Slavic grammar it may be a bit difficult though, if you don't repeat the units a lot. It just throws the grammar at you, gives you five sentences to practice with, and moves on. Already knowing at least one Slavic language helps considerably. (Unless that language is like... Bulgarian.)

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book, certainly learned some things, mainly insights into when certain constructions were used and formality/register of various words and constructions. However, there were several obvious bumblings in the grammar explanations. Not sure it would be very accessible without prior knowledge.

[Jeanette Sautner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent value, clear descriptions of complex grammatical concepts, useful online resources at no additional cost