Colloquial Polish: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series

by Bolesław W. Mazur

Colloquial The Complete Course for Beginners has been carefully developed by an experienced teacher to provide a step-by-step course to Polish as it is written and spoken today. Combining a clear, practical and accessible style with a methodical and thorough treatment of the language, it equips learners with the essential skills needed to communicate confidently and effectively in Polish in a broad range of situations. No prior knowledge of the language is required. Colloquial Polish is exceptional; each unit presents a wealth of grammatical points that are reinforced with a wide range of exercises for regular practice. A full answer key, a grammar summary, bilingual glossaries and English translations of dialogues can be found at the back as well as useful vocabulary lists throughout. Key features Balanced, comprehensive and rewarding, Colloquial Polish is an indispensable resource both for independent learners and students taking courses in Polish. Audio material to accompany the course is available to download free in MP3 format from www.routledge.com/cw/colloquials. Recorded by native speakers, the audio material features the dialogues and texts from the book and will help develop your listening and pronunciation skills.

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

392 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