Posted on 05/12/2024 9:57:57 AM PDT by Pontiac
My wife and I are planning a trip to Poland in the fall and I would like to pick up a little of the language prior to the trip.
What would be the best on line source for a self administered course of learning?
I respect FreeRepublic's inhabitants opinions on learning.
Hilarious.
My advice is don’t focus on conversation. Too challenging in a short time window.
Learn to read or recognize simple common signs, menu items and basic courtesies.
That will be very helpful
I tried Duolingo for a while but did not like the constant nagging emails, and the STUPID cartoons and attempts to encourage you with the cartoon characters cheering you on.
It’s OK for vocabulary, agreed, but you are right that it doesn’t really teach you grammar.
I’m looking for ones that teach Spanish, German, and Ukrainian.
They also took away the best thing, which were the comments, a lot of times they had native speakers answering questions.
What are the costs for Memrise and Rocket Languages?
Probably made them look bad.
I had a Polish girlfriend who helped. But most anyone under 40 will speak English in the cities.
Warsaw is maybe a day or two and not very interesting. Krakow, Toruń, Gdansk are great. Zakopane is not to be missed. And for fun if you have the time Grudziadz, where my father side came from. Just outside of Gdansk is a wonderful castle made from all brick. Malbork Castle. Not much to see in Eastern Poland but flat farm land. If you enjoy adult beverages Zubrowka is my favorite vodka. When down south in Zakopane, get yourself some smoked string cheese, called ozipek. It is absolutely delicious. The food in the karzmas will guarantee to add a few inches to your belly. Poland is a hidden gem in Europe. The people are a bit stand offish but that comes from growing up under communism. Generally everyone will be friendly and helpful. I wish I were going with you. Have fun.
A guy walks into a store and orders a sandwich. The proprietor says, “You’re Polish!” The guy responds by saying, “How did you know?” The proprietor answers by saying, “Because this is a hardware store. . .”
Not sure. I brought a lifetime license for both about ten years ago. I do remember that the price was very reasonable at the time compared to Rosseta Stone.
Take a book with photos it saves time can’t say the wrong thing.
Does that mean there are 12 different words in Polish for “two” or “second”?
Yep, depends on the case and gender, and whether the subject is inanimate or not.
One of my favorite sites was The St. John the Baptist Church in the town of Orawka, near the Slovak border. Poland has many wonderful old wooden churches.
If you are in Warsaw on Sunday, you absolutely must go to Łazienki Park for the Chopin concert.
Zakopane is on my list. I do disagree on Warsaw though. It has changed so much, from the two times I’ve been there (2014 and 2023). It’s become one of my favorite cities. Lots of great restaurants and parks. It’s a lot greener than people think. And they’ve done a lot along the banks of the Wisła.
The running joke in Warsaw is the best view is at the top of “Stalin’s cock” because it’s the only place you can’t see it.
You are fortunate indeed to be spending time in Poland. I spent several months there for my job. For what its worth, here are my observations on language in Poland
Before heading over, I knew English, French, some rudimentary German, but no Polish. It is a hard language to speak (even harder to read). It also bears little in common with the Romantic or Germanic languages. I was told to focus on learning vocabulary. I carried flash cards with words/phrases all the time, trying to learn 25 new words a day.
It really helped to be able to point to something and name it. Eventually, I learned how to string some words together with phrases such as “where is?” and “How many?”
Learn the phrases the help establish civil interactions, “Please, thank you, Hello, Goodbye, “ etc. It will show you are trying to respect their language and culture, and it will open many doors. Most Polish people I interacted with spoke at least basic English, and once they find out you are not German nor Russian they will likely want to try out their English.
The Polish people I met were friendly and sincere. The Churches (that survived the German/Russian occupations) are beautiful, the countryside is pleasant and the food is amazing. If you can, try to get up to north coast. Gdansk, Gydynia and the Baltic coast are fun.
Enjoy your time in Poland! Dobre zdrowie!
Yep. I must say thought, that building is huge. They did a good job of transforming it.
But remember also to distinguish between formal and informal for “you”, just as with “usted” in Spanish versus the informal “tú”.
Formal Polish uses “pan” for male and “pani” for female, versus “ty”, the informal “you”.
“Cześć” is informal “hello”, but you should always use the more formal “Dzień dobry”.
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