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Conversational Polish: Learn to Speak and Understand Polish with Pimsleur Language Programs (Instant Conversation) gives an immediately useful and practical method for learning a difficult language. Through listening and repeating, and repeating and listening, I think I may have enough practical language to feel confident speaking and understanding the basics on my upcoming trip to Poland. I've found this the most helpful of the Polish language tools I've tried.
Another gripe that I have is that the pronunciation is not consistent. I did learn some from these lessons, but I found that there were too many gaps to make it really useful. There is too much of an emphasis on translation from English into Polish and not enough on trying to think in the language. We do learn to establish if the person with whom we are speaking speaks English and/or Polish, but we do not learn how to become acquainted. It would be useful to know how to make acquaintances through questions like "What is your name." We only learn formal forms of address. Yes when we are learning our native language as children we learn to speak before we learn the grammar, but we are immersed in the language. Yes, this course is easy, but we do not really learn to communicate.
The ONLY negative comment I have about this cd is that the majority of the conversation is focused towards a male listener, which I am not. But by the end of the disc, confidence is back up. I'm on disc 11 of 16 and I haven't forgotten even ONE thing I've learned. Also, one last comment, which I'm sure is pretty obvious considering the media.
The beginning of each disc is a little intimidating because you listen to a short polish conversation with new words that you might think you'll never learn how to pronounce, let alone, remember. The method is quite amazing. BUT again, this is not that big of a deal, because it does a great job of demonstrating how a polish woman would speak as well. absolutely NO regrets with the purchase. It may take two reviews of each lesson to move on to the next, but that is certainly no discouragement.
I guess I was just a little offended that Pimsleur would make the assumption/choice to focus towards a male. I have already recommended it to several friends. This is the first language I've taken since high school and to my surprise, it's easy and fun. you may be able to speak what you've learned confidently, but don't expect to be anywhere near ready to read polish. It also does a good job in explaining WHY you say certain things, for instance, why you use a long e sound instead of a short a sound for the word "and," and it provides enough examples for it to make sense.The conversation is limited to very basic conversation, but this is exactly the intention of this cd.
It's a great launch pad to the next level. I'd recommend you save that for another time.Like I said. The method is very effective.Enjoy and (phonetically) doe-vied-zen-ya (goodbye).
Travelers wanting to learn basic Polish for traveling will like this program. It presents words and phrases, then continues to incorporate them throughout the remainder of the program. It presents words uniquely (from my experience), as it presents the pronounciation from the end of the word forward. It's a great program for auditory learners.The only drawback is the lack of visual materials to follow along with or refer to.
My only minor quibble would be that as this is an American series, there's no provision for those of us in the UK in the sections that focus on how to say your nationality and monetary units. There's no book, it's purely audio based (8 CD edition) with each lesson being about 30 minutes. This has to be the easiest way I've ever come across for learning another language. Hardly a major issue.By the end of this 16 lesson course you can expect to be able to give common greetings, ask for and understand basic directions, arrange a meeting, count to 49, buy drinks in shops and a fair bit more. As Polish contains many sounds that we simply do not use in English, I had to listen to most lessons twice before being able to remember and pronounce all the words correctly. New words are introduced syllable by syllable and every phrase you learn is repeated numerous times in conversations in later lessons. My Polish wife found some of the pronunciation grated a little but that it was more than passable and probably easier for a non-polish speaker to learn from than a native Polish speaker would be.
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